Big Tech’s Backing of the ‘Transition Integrity Project’ Lacks Integrity

During Tuesday night’s debate, while fielding yet another softball from moderator Chris Wallace, Joe Biden promised to accept the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. “I will accept it, and he will too,” Biden replied. “You know why? Once the winner is declared after all the votes are counted, that will be the end of it.”

But Biden, as usual, wasn’t telling the whole truth. The former vice president can publicly assure Americans he will abide by the voters’ decision this year because he knows his campaign team is part of a massive operation—cosigned by the most powerful media, business, and political interests in the country—performing Biden’s dirty work behind-the-scenes to make sure that he, not Donald Trump, takes the oath of office on January 20, 2021.

As I’ve reported for American Greatness, Democrats and NeverTrump Republicans earlier this year formed a group called the Transition Integrity Project, an outlandish misnomer, which has been “war gaming” a number of likely post-election scenarios. The same sore losers who, to this day, cannot accept the 2016 results fully intend to get their way this time around, the U.S. Constitution and boundaries of decency be damned.

According to its detailed battle plan, the Transition Integrity Project could extend Election Day all the way to Inauguration Day as it sows chaos across the country until Biden is installed in the White House, even if Trump is legitimately reelected. 

“The purpose of this report is not to frighten, but to spur all stakeholders to action,” TIP warned. “It is 2 [sic] incumbent upon elected officials, civil society leaders, and the press to challenge authoritarian actions in the courts, in the media, and in the streets through peaceful protest.”

Up Against the Wall

But the report should frighten the American people. 

One set of crucial “stakeholders” in this plot are Silicon Valley tycoons and other assorted billionaires hell-bent on taking down this president. Social media platforms and internet providers already are censoring content attempting to expose fraudulent voting; some of the president’s tweets have been flagged for violating Twitter’s rule against openly questioning “unsubstantiated” and “exceedingly rare” claims about mail-in voting.

A co-founder of the Transition Integrity Project is tied to Big Tech progressive activists with deep pockets and a personal vendetta against Donald Trump. Nils Gilman is vice president of the Berggruen Institute, a California-based think tank established in 2010 after the financial crisis. The nonprofit seeks “great transformations” to restructure “global institutions” such as capitalism and democracy. At a star-studded gala in New York City last December, Berggruen awarded its $1 million annual prize to the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Gilman made some news recently when he publicly called for the execution of author Michael Anton, a co-founder and occasional contributor to this site, who wrote an exposé about the Transition Integrity Project in September. What riled Gilman enough to suggest Anton should face a firing squad is that Anton accurately reported how George Soros, the biggest donor to radical left-wing causes around the world, is funding the “coup”-like effort. 

(Rosa Brooks, the other co-founder of the Transition Integrity Project, is connected to Soros. A TIP partner organization lists several Soros-funded outlets as sponsors, as I reported here.)

The Oligarchs Who Would Buy the Election

Just like every other Trump-hating nonprofit, the Berggruen Institute is led by what can fairly be described as Democratic Party tech oligarchs who heavily fund the relentless crusade against the president. These billionaire benefactors of #TheResistance undoubtedly will keep a steady stream of money flowing to a network of activists after November 3 while at the same time making sure Trump and his supporters are too technologically neutered to fight back.

Board members of Berggruen include:

Reed Hoffman, co-founder of Linkedin: The 53-year-old is worth $2 billion and a “top sugar daddy of the Democratic anti-Trump resistance,” according to one report. He offered a $5 million reward for anyone who could produce Donald Trump’s tax returns during the 2016 election.

In 2018, Hoffman was caught funding a false flag operation against embattled Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore involving phony Russian social media accounts; Facebook investigated another Hoffman-backed outlet accused of creating fake news pages during the midterm elections as part of “coordinated efforts to mislead people about the origin of content.”

Hoffman also funds Alloy, a D.C.-based nonprofit headed by former Obama staffers, that produces high-quality data for “progressive” causes. Hoffman is advising the Biden campaign on digital advertising and plans to spend $100 million this election cycle. In conjunction with the NeverTrump sewer The Lincoln Project, Hoffman is producing a digital ad campaign that “uses memes, animation, battle rap, and influencer marketing to highlight the absurdity of Donald Trump’s presidency and the importance of voting this November.”

Eric E. Schmidt, former CEO and chairman of Google: The longtime Democratic activist and donor is worth $17 billion. The tycoon recently blamed the president for “people [dying] unnecessarily” from COVID-19 because people didn’t socially distance or wear masks even though most Americans have abided by that advice for more than six months.

Schmidt also is advising the Biden campaign and, like Hoffman, bankrolls a data science firm. “These tech billionaires…are also pouring millions into some of the country’s most ambitious voter-registration programs—almost all of it behind the scenes—hoping to emulate what worked for Democrats in 2018,” Vox reported in May, referring to Schmidt and Hoffman.

Google and YouTube (now both owned by Alphabet, Inc.) will ban political ads after November 3. “While this policy is in place, advertisers will not be able to run ads referencing candidates, the election, or its outcome, given that an unprecedented amount of votes will be counted after election day this year,” the company announced last week. Part of Transition Integrity Project’s plan is to prevent the Trump campaign from declaring victory before “all the votes are counted.”

Google also has halted its auto-search function for “phrases or sentences if people’s inquiry involves claims about one of the candidates, how to cast a ballot or the overall legitimacy of the electoral process” if the company deems the content “bad information.”

Evan Spiegel, co-founder of Snapchat: The 30-year-old husband of actress Miranda Kerr is worth $4.5 billion. Snapchat is one of the most popular social media platforms for teens and young adults with about 230 million monthly users. Spiegel announced in November the company will “fact check” all political ads.

After Trump’s comments about looting and rioting during the George Floyd “protests,” Spiegel censored the president’s Snapchat account under First Amendment protections. In a long, angst-ridden June 1 letter to Snapchat employees, the blessed millennial confessed he was “heartbroken and enraged by the treatment of black people and people of color in America.” Spiegel called for a “diverse, non-partisan Commission on Truth, Reconciliation, and Reparations.” Until all racial grievances were compensated, Spiegel promised, “we will make it clear with our actions that there is no grey area when it comes to racism, violence, and injustice—and we will not promote it, nor those who support it, on our platform.”

The Trump campaign responded, calling Spiegel a “radical” and accusing the company of “trying to rig the 2020 election.”

Simply put, the entirety of Silicon Valley is working, and will work, against Donald Trump and Republicans this year. The power they wield to control post-election information and communication is beyond mind-blowing; the resources they possess are immeasurable; and their ability to sway the outcome of the presidential election is real—and terrifying. 

It’s why Joe Biden can innocently claim in public that he’ll “accept” the results; he knows others are preparing to ensure the result is in his favor.

The Big Tech monster has been unleashed to disrupt the presidential election and silence tens of millions of Americans by extinguishing both their vote and their voice. Unfortunately, few realistic options exist to battle this insidious beast.

But Team Trump, the Justice Department, and the GOP must figure out a way to actually protect the integrity of the election. Alternative communications networks must be quickly constructed; conservative media and political organizations need to bolster users of renegade sites such as Parler if it becomes the only public way to communicate. Big Tech companies should face immediate legal action for breaking campaign finance laws by donating essentially billions in in-kind donations to Joe Biden and the Democrats. And, obviously, everyone must vote and not submit either to despair or defeat.

Without a doubt, this is uncharted territory. The more the American people are aware of the enormity of this threat as Election Day nears, the better prepared we can be when the post-election mayhem arrives. We can hope.