Controversial Actions and Statements:
Jim Gilmore
Jim Gilmore (Board Member)
James Gilmore, who holds a law degree from the University of Virginia, was first elected to office in 1993 as Virginia’s Attorney General. After serving four years in that position, Gilmore was elected as Virginia’s governor in 1998. During his last two years as governor, Gilmore also served as Chairman of the Republican National Committee. He was an unsuccessful candidate in both the 2008 presidential election and Virginia Senate election.
Jim Gilmore (Board Member)
In separate documents filed for his 2008 presidential and Virginia Senate campaigns, Gilmore failed to disclose that he sat on the board of Windmill International. At the time, Windmill International was facing allegations that the company’s president attempted to secure fraudulent government contracts in Iraq. The President of Windmill International, Douglas Combs, made tens of thousands of dollars in political donations to Gilmore during his political career.
Jim Gilmore (Board Member)
The Free Congress Foundation (FCF), a think tank that promotes the far-right’s viewpoint in the “Culture War,” has courted a great deal of controversy. Gilmore effectively succeeded FCF President & CEO Paul Weyrich in 2009. On replacing Weyrich, Gilmore said, “Paul Weyrich blazed the trail for many conservative themes and I want to continue that leadership.” The “themes” advocated by FCF have included the following:
- In his manifesto, Anders Behring Breivik, the perpetrator of a July 2011 terrorist attack in Norway that left 77 dead, quoted extensively and at length from a FCF-published book about “Cultural Marxism” entitled “Political Correctness: A Short History of Ideology.” The book was written by the former head of the FCF’s Center for Cultural Conservatism William Lind. According to investigative journalist Chip Berlet, “Breivik's core thesis is borrowed from William S. Lind's antisemitic conspiracy theory about 'Cultural Marxism'.” The Southern Poverty Law Center has described Lind as “a key popularizer of the idea of cultural Marxism.”
- Lind, while serving as the head of FCF’s Center for Cultural Conservatism, gave a speech at a 2002 Holocaust denial convention. In his remarks, Lind blamed a group of Jewish philosophers for destroying Western culture by promoting an extreme form of political correctness termed “cultural Marxism.”
- In 2002, FCF published a mock interview between the FBI and a prospective Muslim recruit that disparaged the Islam faith by suggesting—amongst other things—that all Muslims are required to kill members of other faiths.
- In December 2001, FCF asked Congress to retract a stamp issued by the United States Postal Service that celebrated the Muslim Eid holiday.
- In 1999 Lind wrote that America would be a better place if the south had won the Civil War because “at least part of North America would still stand for Western culture, Christianity and an appreciation of the differences between ladies and gentlemen.” Lind predicted in 1994 that the next conflict on American soil would be a violent cultural war between cultural conservatives and multiculturalists.
- Free Congress Foundation provided office space to Laszlo Pasztor during the 1980s and 1990s. Pasztor served time in jail after World War II for representing the government of Nazi Hungary. Pasztor was reportedly Paul Weyrich’s “right-hand man” when Weyrich was president of FCF.
- In 1984, FCF hosted a dinner honoring Roberto D'Aubuisson, the fascist leader of right wing death squads in El Salvador, for being “a symbol of resistance to communists.” Known as “Blowtorch Bob” for his torture techniques, D’Aubuisson’s most high-profile victim was Bishop Óscar Romero, who was assassinated in 1980 after speaking out about human rights abuses in El Salvador. Former Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights in the Carter Administration, Pat Derain, called FCF’s dinner “bizarre and ludicrous. It would be intriguing to know what aspect of his person they are honoring. His efforts to overthrow his own government? His leadership of death squads?”
- During the 1980s, the foreign policy wing of FCF actively supported the Contra rebels in Nicaragua and the South African apartheid-backed RENAMO rebels in Mozambique, and even provided political training to the regime of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. RENAMO is accused of killing over 1,000,000 civilians in Mozambique.
- Free Congress Foundation was a supporter of rabid homophobe Dr. Paul Cameron. Cameron wrote that common gay sex practices include the insertion of gerbils into the rectum, the consumption of human feces and urine, and sex with minors. His false claims included an assertion that less than two-percent of gay men survive to old age. Free Congress Foundation began distributing Cameron’s literature as early as 1983.
- In 1976 FCF attempted (unsuccessfully) to merge with George Wallace’s racist American Independent Party.