When Hayden Ludwig and a colleague showed up at the Civic Participation Action Fund’s (CPAF) Washington, D.C., office in 2019 seeking copies of the group’s most recent tax returns, they were greeted by an angry Stephen McConnell. McConnell, then-CPAF’s president, demanded to know who paid his inquisitors’ salaries. Ludwig identified himself as an investigative researcher for the Capital Research Center (CRC), and his colleague as an intern there. [snip] “They’re not used to being in the limelight,” Ludwig laconically told The Epoch Times on Oct. 22. Indeed, throughout its carefully planned five-year lifespan, CPAF flew under the radar even as...