Council for National Policy

The Council for National Policy CNP is an umbrella organization and networking companies for conservative in addition to Republican activists in a United States. It was launched in 1981 during the Reagan administration by Tim LaHaye as well as other right-wing conservative Christians, to "bring more focus and force to conservative advocacy". The membership list for September 2020 was later leaked, showing that members talked prominent Republicans and conservatives, wealthy entrepreneurs, and media proprietors, together with anti-abortion and anti-Islamic extremists. Members are instructed not to reveal their membership, or even name the group.

The CNP has been described by The New York Times as "a little-known club of a few hundred of the most powerful conservatives in the country", who meet three times yearly slow closed doors at undisclosed locations for a confidential conference. The Nation has called it a secretive company that "networks wealthy right-wing donors together with top conservative operatives to schedule long-term movement strategy". The organization has been described by Anne Nelson as a "pluto-theocracy" plutocracy/theocracy.

Meetings and membership

Marc Ambinder of ABC News said approximately the council: "The house wants to be the conservative representation 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, and Paul Weyrich.

Members of the CNP hit 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, Reverend Paige Patterson, Senator Don Nickles, former United States Attorneys General Edwin Meese and John Ashcroft, gun-rights activist Larry Pratt, Colonel 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, and Virginia Thomas wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Former California State Assemblyman Steve Baldwin was CNP's executive director from 2000 to 2008.

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 non to refer to the organization by name to protect against leaks. 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."

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. 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 501c3 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 numerous policy speeches from past gatherings covering the years from 2013 up to the present.

While those involved in the organization are nearly entirely from the United States, their organizations and influence keep on the globe, both religiously and politically. Members increase corporate executives, legislators former high ranking government officers, leaders of 'think tanks' dedicated to molding society and those whom many concepts as "Christian leadership".

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

A membership list for September 2020, leaked a year later, revealed that members, who could attend meetings together, included elite Republicans, wealthy entrepreneurs, media proprietors and pillars of the US conservative movement, and anti-abortion and anti-Islamic extremists. It was produced that members of the secretive CNP are instructed not to reveal their affiliation or even name the group.

The leaked September 2020 list of members included:

†: on the list of organizations designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups