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FreedomWorks,
the national conservative group that helped launch the tea party
movement, sells itself as a genuine grassroots operation, and for years
it has battledaccusations of "astroturfing"—posing as a populist organization while doing the bidding of big-money donors. Yet internal documents obtained by Mother Jones show that FreedomWorks has indeed become dependent on wealthy individual donors to finance its growing operation.
Last month, the Washington Post reported that Richard Stephenson, a reclusive millionaire banker and FreedomWorks board member, and members of his family funneled $12 million in
October through two newly created Tennessee corporations to
FreedomWorks' super-PAC, which used these funds to support tea party
candidates in November's elections. The revelation that a corporate
bigwig like Stephenson, who founded
the Cancer Treatment Centers of America and chairs its board, was
responsible for more than half of the FreedomWorks super-PAC's haul in
2012 undercuts the group's grassroots image and hands ammunition to critics who say FreedomWorks does the bidding of rich conservative donors. READ MORE