This think tank fundraising e-mail offers a disconcerting glimpse into how Washington works

In 2014 fundraiser Billy Oorbeek sought support for the American Action Forum, headed by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, which has be working to defend the Export-Import Bank. Oorbeek wrote to "a lobbyist who represented an Ex-Im subsidy recipient seeking ways the lobbyist and AAF could ‘work together.’" "Doug and the policy experts at AAF are very effective at providing third party research and validation on a variety of issues that may be important to your clients," Oorbeek wrote, explicitly mentioning Export-Import Bank reauthorization. "Doug may provide an additional service you can offer your clients that your firm may not be set up to provide."

Of course, these fundraising methods alone don't tell us whether Holtz-Eakin's research is accurate. They don't even prove that the research was motived by fundraising concerns. Holtz-Eakin wrote, "As a matter of policy we don't discuss donors or would-be donors, but it should come as no surprise that our supporters believe in the quality of our organization's research and tend to agree with my longstanding beliefs, such as support for a reformed Ex-Im." But the fact that a think tank sought to raise money by framing its research as a "service" to a lobbyist's clients is a jarring glimpse behind the scenes.