“UK Files” Exclusive, Part 2: The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) Told the IRS It Was A Charity. Documents Say Otherwise

by Paul Holden

Explosive documents from the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) show that one of the world’s most powerful “anti-disinformation” groups, the Center for Countering Digital Hate Inc. (“CCDH Inc.”), provided incorrect information to the IRS in its application to receive tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status.

The status allows donors to CCDH to treat donations as a write-off and indicates that US authorities have determined the organization is involved in non-profit activities in the public interest. This has never been reported before, and the news should force CCDH to answer tough questions, especially since the group is in the business of accusing others of malfeasance.

Now target of litigation filed by X that accuses it of publishing “bogus” research and scaring advertisers off of its platform due to a zeal for censoring political speech with which it disagrees, the CCDH has become one of the most feared operators in the media space, pressuring companies like Google to demonetize or remove sites like ZeroHedge and The Federalist. In Britain, the leading figures in the CCDH are perhaps best known for a relentless campaign to tie former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to accusations of antisemitism, while worldwide the group gained renown during the pandemic for efforts to remove the so-called “Disinformation Dozen” from Internet platforms, a group that included Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

In reality, the CCDH was and is a pioneering effort in a new form of “non-governmental” pressure group that hides its ties to major-party politics as it pushes for the removal of “hate” speech, often the critics of mainstream politicians.

CCDH Inc.’s IRS misstatements form part of a larger narrative of obscurantism and regulatory mix-ups on the part of a group whose origins are intertwined with Britain’s Labour Party.

CCDH Limited was originally formed in the UK as a project of a small but influential political pressure group linked to Labour called Labour Together. The group is significant because it coalesced around the current poll favorite to be Britain’s next Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer. Emails and documents obtained for this story show Labour Together assisted with the creation of CCDH Limited by providing resources and office space.

Labour Together featured three sitting Labour Party MPs on its Board at the time of CCDH’s creation, and was run day-to-day by Morgan McSweeney, currently perhaps the most powerful bureaucrat in the Labour Party. As a key adviser to Starmer, McSweeney will likely have considerable sway in Britain, should Starmer win the next election.

At the same time that Labour Together was providing resources to CCDH Limited, Labour Together was also failing to properly report large donations it was receiving from wealthy donors. That story came out in the UK’s Sunday Times in October last year, based in part on documents found in the course of this author’s research.

In conjunction with that story, I set out in late 2022 to discover how CCDH represented itself when it set up operations in the United States. The byzantine websites of the Internal Revenue Service in the U.S. confirm that if an organization is granted 501(c)(3) status, the public can ask for copies of its application forms and correspondence. After filling out the appropriate paperwork, a thick stack of documents arrived a few months later, in hard copy, at my UK office.

Those documents show the following:

CCDH, through its new U.S. entity, CCDH Inc., submitted forms to apply to the IRS for 501(c)(3) status in late March, 2021. In them, the group claimed it intended to carry on the work of the CCDH in the UK (“CCDH Limited”), which they claimed was a UK-registered charity. However, CCDH Ltd. has never been a registered charity in the UK. Indeed, the UK’s Charity Commission confirmed that CCDH Ltd. never submitted an application for charitable status in the UK.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate Inc. was formed and registered in Delaware on December 11, 2020. By April 2021, CCDH Inc. boasted four directors, including Simon Clark, who was listed as both Director and President, and Imran Ahmed, who combined three roles as Company Director, Secretary and Treasurer.

CCDH’s application forms were signed by Clark. Clark is one of the leading figures of the misinformation world, through his work with the Atlantic Council think tank, and its related anti-disinformation entity, the Digital Forensic Research Lab.

The Atlantic Council is lavishly funded by transnational banks like Goldman, Sachs, weapons manufacturers like Raytheon, and government entities like the Bahrain Embassy to the U.S., and the U.S. Department of State. The DFR Lab was featured in the Twitter Files and has been a prominent player in the “anti-disinformation” space, chosen to help companies like Facebook root out “inauthentic activity,” with a focus on Russian state actors.

Clark appears to have played a substantial role in the CCDH in both the UK and the US. Before being appointed the Director and President of CCDH Inc., he was appointed a Director of CCDH’s UK incarnation in May 2020. He remains a Director.

CCDH Inc.’s 501(c)(3) application forms were signed by Clark next to the statement: “I declare under penalty of perjury that I am authorized to sign this application on behalf of the above organization and that I have examined this application, and to the best of my knowledge it is true, correct, and complete.”

On April 23, 2021, the IRS wrote to CCDH informing them that the application had been granted because they had determined that CCDH was a “public charity” under a specific designation. The exemption was backdated to be effective from December 11, 2020, the date of CCDH Inc.’s incorporation.

CCDH’s application to the IRS required it to describe its activities. The form, signed by Clark and attached as “Exhibit C,” contained a “description of activities” of CCDH to satisfy the requirement. It stated that CCDH “was formed by individuals who were interested in building on the work of Center for Countering Digital Hate Ltd, a registered United Kingdom charity operating in the United Kingdom, in the United States focusing on programs, activities and networks in the United States.”

Exhibit C explained that CCDH and “the United Kingdom charity [CCDH Ltd] are separate legal entities with independent boards of directors.” However, the same document explained that at least one CCDH director would be appointed by CCDH Limited in the UK, which it named, again, as the “United Kingdom charity.”

In total, Exhibit C referred to CCDH in the UK as a charity on five occasions. This included being referred to as “a registered United Kingdom charity.”

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