All members - even such luminaries as former vice president Mike Pence, Ralph Reed and Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas - agree to remain silent about its activities. In a town where people and groups constantly angle for publicity, CNP bars the press and uninvited outsiders from its events. One of its defining features is its confidentiality.

A registered charity, it has served for 40 years as a social, planning and communications hub for conservative activists in Washington and nationwide.

CNP may be the most unusual, least understood conservative organization in the nation’s capital. (Eric Baradat/AFP/Getty Images)Įnmeshed in these efforts was the Council for National Policy. The Council for National Policy provides a window into the conservative political and communications infrastructure that boosted Donald Trump. We identified networks of groups that served as a kind of nerve system for conservative influence campaigns. We zeroed in on key figures and groups, making charts of their ties and timelines of their actions. Working with fellow Washington Post reporter Shawn Boburg, I started gathering documents and cultivating sources. How did these leaders and activists - once so critical of Trump - end up helping shape and advocate for his agenda? And now that he is almost a year removed from the White House, how are they continuing to serve him and his cause? But I wanted to learn more about the political and communications infrastructure that converted this support into votes and influence. Much has been written about this turn of conservatives toward Trump. Today, the Republican Party has been transformed, and Trump or one of his ideological heirs is likely to be the GOP nominee in 2024. Then came a great swerve that would upend politics in America: Millions of conservatives - Dannenfelser and other CNP members among them - got firmly behind Trump. “We cannot trust Donald Trump to do either.” “America will only be a great nation when we have leaders of strong character who will defend both unborn children and the dignity of women,” Dannenfelser and other women wrote in an open letter to Iowa voters in January 2016. While he solidified his lead as GOP front-runner, they denounced him as a “charlatan” in the conservative magazine National Review, blasted his prior support of abortion rights and implored Republican voters to choose another candidate. For months after the event, Dannenfelser and some other CNP members were determined to stop Trump.

Rebirth by Steven Long Mitchell