An internal Media Matters For America memo obtained by The Daily Caller reveals that the left-wing media watchdog group employs an “opposition research team” to target its political enemies. Included in the list of targets are right-leaning websites, conservative think tanks, prominent financiers and donors, and more than a dozen specific Fox News Channel and News Corporation employees.
“We will conduct extensive public records searches and compile opposition books on individuals,” declares the memo, likely written in late 2009. Investigations, it says, “will focus on the backgrounds, connections, operations and political and financial activities of the individuals.”
One of those singled out for scrutiny in the memo is PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, a self-described libertarian. Thiel “directly funded, through a small government group, prior racist attack videos by James O’Keefe, the right-wing operative who staged the recent ACORN video sting,” states the memo. “Thiel’s role in funding such attacks has gone completely unremarked and largely uninvestigated.”
“An opposition research team will serve to hold Thiel and others like him accountable.”
In addition to Thiel, the memo contains this list of “preliminary targets”:
