December 10, 2020 - 10:13am
For years, the funding behind the right-wing, pro-Trump publication The Federalist has been a total mystery. Many Twitter users have asked the website s leaders, repeatedly, Who funds The Federalist? only to be blocked by the likes of publisher Ben Domenech, co-founder Sean Davis, or senior editor Mollie Hemingway. (This author is blocked by all three.)
Last year, Hemingway characterized the question as a kind of a veiled threat and a clear, coordinated attempt to silence The Federalist.
However, a few months earlier, The Federalist s affiliated nonprofit, FDRLST Media Foundation, had been certified as a 501(c)(3) charity by the Internal Revenue Service, meaning that donors could begin making tax-deductible contributions to the foundation. If the donor was a nonprofit organization like a family foundation or trade association, its grants to the FDRLST Media Foundation would eventually be part of the public record. Hemingway is a director and gov