Ari Rabin-Havt - Lies, Incorporated: The World of Post-Truth Politics

R ichard Berman is a liar.

He is a man who manipulates the truth on behalf of corporate clients and earns his living profiting from the invention and trafficking of lies. The fast-food industry, tobacco companies, and high-fructose corn syrup producers have all called upon him to do what few others would: shamelessly spread falsehoods, smear the reputations of well-regarded nonprofit groups, and purchase phony research.

For decades, when industries decided their last resort was the nastiest of PR campaigns, they have summoned him. Berman, who relishes the title of Dr. Evil, is not just an operator for sale to the highest bidder. He is the purest representation of a growing force in American politics that creates and disseminates lies designed to disrupt the public policy process for monetary and ideological gain.

With a shield of anonymity provided by the tax code, Bermans donors use him to engage in a form of asymmetric public policy warfare., to which they could anonymously donate and from which he would be paid a fee to manage.

In addition to running its website, which promotes daily smears of the Humane Society and spreads false information about their work, Berman has produced ads targeting the group. One particularly misleading commercial aired during the 2013 Academy Awards compared the Humane Society to the notorious Ponzi scheme operated by Bernie Madoff. The ad charged HSUS gives less than one percent of its massive donations to local pet shelters but has socked away $17 million in its own pension fund.

Berman is something of a caricature of the unprincipled lobbyist, the apotheosis of all that is wrong with Washington. Its a notoriety he enjoys. Whether appearing as a guest on The Colbert Report or defending his exploits on The Rachel Maddow Show, Berman oddly seems to relish being berated for making outrageous claims on behalf of his undisclosed clients, such as pregnant women should not worry about mercury levels in fish.

When Richard Berman appeared with Fox Businesss host Stuart Varney in July 2013 to discuss low-wage worker strikes taking place in cities across the country and their potential for negatively impacting workers, he was identified as being from the innocuous-sounding EPIEmployment Policies Institute. At fifteen dollars an hour, many, I wont say a majority, but many fast-food restaurants are out of business, he told Varney. EPIs funding from the fast-food industry or its connections to Bermans consulting business was never disclosed.

The New York Times called Bermans work on behalf of the fast-food industry a critical element in the lobbying campaign against the increase in the minimum wage, noting that industry insiders often cite the [EPIs] reports, creating the Washington echo chamber effect that is so coveted by industry lobbyists.

The brilliance of Bermans strategy of creating front organizations is that reporters are often duped into quoting him (or his staff) not as an industry-funded lobbyist, but as the conservative, yet financially disinterested, head of a nonprofit.

When The Wall Street Journal covered an EPI-funded study on the impact of increasing the minimum wage, it referred to the organization as a right-leaning think tank and quoted the studys author as saying, Theres never a good time to raise the minimum wage. Yet the paper did not disclose that the Employment Policies Institute receives its funding from the fast-food industry, nor did it justify the vast overstatement of calling the group a think tank.

For one, the Employment Policies Institute has zero full-time employees. On its 2013 IRS Form 990, the group reported that $1.044 million of its $2.131 million budget was paid directly to Richard Bermans firm for management, advertising, research, and accounting. Meanwhile, the organizations lack of staff was evidenced by the fact that their total payroll for the year was $46,417, all of which save $3,500 was listed as a fund-raising expense. Furthermore, $20,175 of this total was paid to Richard Berman personally. The Employment Policies Institute exists as nothing more than a vessel to funnel money to Bermans firm, revealing his greatest achievement: the way he so effectively blurs the lines between political operatives, corporate lobbyists, and the think tank world, sowing confusion on behalf of his clients.

Richard Berman keeps his clients and their goals well hidden. He has front groups layered upon front groups layered upon front groupsmany, if not all, sharing the same office space. Berman heads up the larger organizations, which then develop smaller projects, which then create more small projects. The only way to truly get to the bottom of who leads and funds these organizations is to sift through hundreds of pages of IRS filings, and even then the information is murky at best.