The Southern Poverty Law Center acquired a membership directory for the Council of National Policy, an ultra-secret conservative group, and Donald Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and his campaign CEO Steve Bannon were listed as members. The directory is for 2014 and indicates that Conway was a member of the executive committee that year and Bannon was listed as a regular member. Neither official responded to a request for comment from The Daily Beast.
The secretive organization was described as wanting to be the conservative version of the Council on Foreign Relations and it is home to a number of individuals with fringe beliefs, including World Net Daily writer Jerome Corsi, a popular figure in the Obama “birther” movement.
“I don’t know if they are still involved or not,” Corsi said of Conway and Bannon in a phone interview with The Daily Beast. “I don’t really know either one. I think I’ve spoken to Steve Bannon a couple times on the phone. I don’t think I’ve ever even met Kellyanne.”
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Joseph Farah, the founder of WND, is also a member. He did not respond to questions about Bannon and Conway via email. Matthew Staver, the leader of Liberty Counsel who once said “It’s shameful for the Supreme Court for what they have done to marriage as it has been shameful in the history of the court with regards to the Dred Scott decision or the Buck v. Bell decision, where they said that the state of Virginia can forcibly sterilize her because of this eugenics idea that they want to eliminate the undesirables of the world," is also a member.
Interestingly enough, as The Daily Beast previously reported, the Council for National Policy endorsed Ted Cruz in the Republican primary and one of its loose affiliates, Conservatives of Faith was sought out for a March meeting to devise a plan to dump Trump.
—Gideon Resnick
