Council for National Policy

Marc J. Ambinder of ABC News said about the council: "The group wants to be the conservative version of the Council on Foreign Relations." The CNP was founded in 1981. Among its founding members were: Tim LaHaye, then the head of the Moral Majority, Nelson Bunker Hunt, T. Cullen Davis, William Cies, Howard Phillips,[6] and Paul Weyrich.[7]

Members of the CNP have included: General John Singlaub, shipping magnate J. Peter Grace, Edwin J. Feulner Jr of the Heritage Foundation, Rev. Pat Robertson of the Christian Broadcasting Network, Jerry Falwell, U.S. Senator Trent Lott, Southern Baptist Convention activists and retired Texas Court of Appeals Judge Paul Pressler, lawyer and paleoconservative activist Michael Peroutka,[8] Reverend Paige Patterson,[9] Senator Don Nickles, former United States Attorneys General Edwin Meese and John Ashcroft, gun-rights activist Larry Pratt, Col. Oliver North, Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, philanthropist Elsa Prince (mother of Blackwater founder and former CEO Erik Prince and Trump Administration Secretary of Education Betsy Devos), Leonard Leo,[10] Virginia Thomas (wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas),[10] and former California State Assemblyman Steve Baldwin.[11]

Membership is by invitation only. The organization's membership list is considered "strictly confidential". Guests may attend "only with the unanimous approval of the executive committee." Members are instructed not to refer to the organization by name to protect against leaks.[1] The New York Times political writer David D. Kirkpatrick suggested that the organization's secrecy since its founding was intended to insulate it "from what its members considered the liberal bias of the news media."[3]

CNP's meetings are closed to the general public, reportedly to allow for a free-flowing exchange of ideas. The group meets three times per year.[12] This policy is said to be similar to the long-held policy of the Council on Foreign Relations, to which the CNP has at times been compared. CNP's 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status was revoked by the IRS in 1992 on grounds that it was not an organization run for the public benefit. The group successfully challenged this ruling in federal court. A quarterly journal aimed at educating the public, promised in the wake of this incident, has not substantially materialized. The organization has a website that contains many policy speeches from past gatherings (covering the years from 2013 up to the present).[13]

While those involved in the organization are almost entirely from the United States, their organizations and influence cover the globe, both religiously and politically. Members include corporate executives,[14] legislators[14] former high ranking government officers,[14] leaders of 'think tanks'[14] dedicated to molding society and those whom many view as "Christian leadership".[14]

In May 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center released a leaked copy of the membership directory for 2014.[15][16]

Leading members of the CNP voted in a meeting at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City, on September 29, 2007, to consider launching a third party candidate if the 2008 Republican nominee were pro-choice. (The candidacy of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who held liberal opinions on social issues such as abortion, gay rights and gun ownership, had disturbed the Christian right.) The CNP's statement read, "If the Republican Party nominates a pro-abortion candidate, we will consider running a third-party candidate." Attending the meeting were notable social conservatives, including James Dobson, Richard Viguerie, Tony Perkins and Morton Blackwell.[17][18]

CNP has membership links to the Committee for the Free World, whose many other members included, among others, some members of the Unification Church of the United States, some Republican Party leaders, and counter-revolutionaries in Latin America, particularly during the 1980s.[19] Midge Decter served as Executive Director of its committee.[20][21][22] Other members included Jeane Kirkpatrick, Leszek Kołakowski, Irving Kristol, Melvin J. Lasky, Seymour M. Lipset, Donald Rumsfeld, Tom Stoppard and George Will. Eugene V. Rostow, then serving as Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency under President Ronald Reagan, was a speaker at a CFW event on Poland.[23]

CNP's membership also overlaps significantly with that of the Arlington Group, a coalition of conservative Christian organizations which spearheaded ballot initiatives banning gay marriage in thirty-two states in the 2000s;[24][25][26] and with the second, third and fourth iterations of the Committee on the Present Danger.

In 1999, a speech given to the CNP by Republican candidate George W. Bush is credited with helping him gain the support of conservatives in his successful bid for the United States Presidency in 2000. The content of the speech has never been released by the CNP or by Bush.[27]

In February 2007, the organization planned to be involved in the 2008 presidential election campaign and actively sought candidate that would represent their views. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney[28] and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney[29] spoke at a four-day conference that the Council held in Salt Lake City, Utah during the last week of September 2007. The Council for National Policy scheduled a conference in late October 2007; other than Giuliani, most Republican presidential candidates pledged to appear.[30]

On May 18, 2018 House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, gave a speech to the Council for National Policy in which he asserted that the American political climate was "increasingly belittling Christian conservatives for their beliefs" and forcing Christians "'out of the public square'".[31]

On August 21, 2020, President Trump attended a meeting of the Council for National Policy where he gave a speech.[32]

CNP was founded in 1981 by Southern Baptist pastor Tim LaHaye, author of The Battle for the Mind (1980) and the Left Behind series of books. Other early participants have included W. Cleon Skousen, a theologian within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and founder of the Freemen Institute; Paul Weyrich; Phyllis Schlafly; Robert Grant; Howard Phillips, a former Republican affiliated with the Constitution Party; Richard Viguerie, the direct-mail specialist; and Morton Blackwell, a Louisiana and Virginia activist who is considered a specialist on the rules of the Republican Party.[33][34][35]

The council's first executive director was Woody Jenkins; later, Morton Blackwell and Bob Reccord served in this role. Organization presidents have included Nelson Bunker Hunt of Dallas, Amway co-founder Richard DeVos of Michigan, Pat Robertson of Virginia Beach, retired Judge Paul Pressler of Houston, former Reagan Cabinet secretaries Edwin Meese and Donald Hodel, former Reagan advisor and President of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute Kenneth Cribb, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, and current President (as of 2014) Stuart Epperson, founder of the Salem Media Group.[35][36][37][38]

On October 14, 2020, The Washington Postreported that it had obtained videos recorded by CNP of several meetings in February and August 2020 whose overtly partisan, political nature raised "potential issues of compliance with election laws and charity rules."[39]

• Nelson, Anne (2019). Shadow network : media, money, and the secret hub of the radical right. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-63557-319-0. OCLC 1126560275.

• Joe Aguillard
• Gary Aldrich
• Robert Alt
• John K. Andrews, Jr.
• Larry P. Arnn

• Council for National Policy Web Site
• 2014 Membership Directory, redacted and released by the Southern Poverty Law Center