Subtlety is necessary if a federal agency intends to incite activists to take action on the hot issues of the moment. This approach is what we see when we look at the most recent documents acquired by a Freedom of Information Act  (FOIA) request of the controversial August 10th conference call.

President Obama with Former NEA Communication Director Yosi Sergant

Readers of Big Hollywood may recall an article published in late August entitled “National Endowment for the Art of Persuasion?” that described an August 10th conference call organized by the White House, the NEA, and the Corporation for National and Community Service. As stated during the conference call, the goal was to bring together a group of pro-Obama artists to push the President and his agenda, with United We Serve as the first proposed effort. During the call, Yosi Sergant, then Communications Director for the NEA, encouraged artists to create art on the vehemently debated issues of health care, energy, and the environment. 

In the newly obtained documents, Nell Abernathy, a representative of The Corporation, is shown providing the handpicked moderator a list of “concrete asks” to be emailed to the call participants following the conference call. The first concrete ask in the document [document 1] included volunteering on issues that were closely related to legislation being vehemently debated nationally:

“Serve in your community. You are probably already working to improve health care or green a neighborhood. Reach out to friends, colleagues and fans to serve with you. Ask five to pledge to serve with you.”  

Health Care Reform and Cap-and-Trade legislation were both being intensely debated in Congress in August, causing town hall meetings at the time to go nuclear over the proposed health-care legislation. Democrats were widely viewed as losing the debate. Asking a stacked group of pro-Obama art activists to address these issues could only lead to policy advocacy – and it did, as we have shown (here & here).

The new documents also show that other efforts were underway. In response [document 2] to the “concrete asks” document, an artist that participated in the call sent the following (emphasis added):

“We’ve been doing a lot of brainstorming about how we can add our skillset to this effort, and here are some of our thoughts…Making prints that subtly encourage the progressive agenda. Health care, Employee free choice, immigration, energy conservation, etc.”

This is the type of propaganda art that Big Hollywood helped stop by publishing the article. The response was sent by a talented print designer (Tugboat Printshops) prior to, but on the same day that, the article was published.

In addition to this email, other documents [documents 4] show that multiple events were in the planning phase leading up to the publication of the article – however all dialogue was abruptly halted the day after its publication. The events revealed in the FOIA documents include a Los Angeles event with hip-hop and indie-rock artists, and a film-screening event with on-air promotions led by Al Gore’s Current TV.

In addition to terminating discussions on these events, the article also halted the NEA’s involvement in another conference call scheduled for August 27th and moderated by Americans for the Arts, a NEA grant recipient. In an email [document 3] dated August 26th, Sergant stated:

“in light of the current situation…I am reviewing the current situation with my team and may or may not be able to participate in the upcoming [United We Serve] call. I will let you know shortly.”

The NEA ultimately did not participate on the conference call due to the article, a fact that was correctly guessed by Lee Rosenbaum, a participant on the August 27th call. One can only wonder how different that call may have been had the NEA participated.

Ultimately Sergant was forced to resign from his post at the NEA and the White House issued conduct guidelines to address the “appearance” issues of the call. However the White House and the NEA both claimed that no laws were violated in this effort.

The obvious question is – if the NEA, the Corporation, and the White House weren’t doing anything wrong, why did this activity abruptly stop?

Press release from Judicial Watch:

“(Washington, DC) — Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it obtained more documents from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests related to the NEA’s controversial August 10 conference call encouraging artists to create work that promotes the Obama agenda.  The documents consist of internal NEA emails indicating the idea for the NEA propaganda effort grew out the Obama campaign while also providing new details regarding White House involvement.  The Corporation for National and Community Service, which runs the AmeriCorps program, was represented during the call.  The agencies and the White House were supposedly promoting the administration’s United We Serve political initiative.  The emails include the actual conference call invitation, which details the controversial policy agenda that was being promoted.  (The controversial call was first uncovered by www.BigGovernment.com. Other documents about the call were first released last week by Judicial Watch.) 

“The following are email excerpts: 

• July 28, 2009, 4:47 pm, Email from unknown Obama campaign activist to Yosi Sergant, former NEA Communications Director:  “It was good to see you a few weeks ago in Washington.  After our conversation, I thought it would be a really good idea to convene via a conference call some significant tastemakers/producers who can support United We Serve.  As many of us contributed our services to the campaign, I would love to gather some of those folks to use their enthusiasm to get behind the President’s very important service initiative.  Here are some people who I think should be part of the call.  [Names redacted.]
• August 6, 2009, Conference Call Invitation sent via email by Yosi Sergant:  “A call has come in to our generation.  A call from the top.  A call from a house that is White.  A call that we must answer.  And to answer it, we need you…United We Serve is President Obama’s call to service challenging all Americans to engage in sustained, meaningful community service.  With the knowledge that ordinary people can achieve extraordinary things when given the proper tools, President Obama is asking us to come together to help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda – health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal.”
• August 6, 2009, 9:46 pm, Email from Unknown to Yosi Sergeant:  “How can I get down Yosi?  I’m working with [redacted] doing brand consulting and event production for [redacted].  Love to see how we could collaborate our corporate funds with what you’re working on.”
• August 12, 2009, 3:30 pm, Follow-up Email from Unknown participant to Yosi Sergant.  “As per a suggestion on the call, below is a list of action items that might be helpful to inspire an idea on how you can participate in the campaign…Ex) If you are a graphic designer tap into your professional network and organize other designers to create a series of United We Serve posters that can be featured in print, through social media and on serv.gov.  Ex) If you are a DJ, tap into your professional network and organize other DJs to promote Serve.gov or a specific local opportunity on the radio or at a club.” 

“The documents also detail the use of the 9/11 anniversary as a vehicle for this political effort. 

“‘These new documents leave little doubt that the NEA conference call and the ongoing United We Serve effort are direct extensions of the Obama presidential campaign.  Taxpayers should be outraged that their tax dollars were used to promote political ‘art’ for the Obama big government agenda,’ stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. 

“Visit www.JudicialWatch.org to read Judicial Watch’s NEA documents.”

On August 28th, Josh Miller of Foxnews.com reported “Siobhan Dugan, a spokeswoman for [The Corporation for National and Community Service], said the call was organized by an ‘individual interested’ in the group…”

This statement does not correspond with the facts.

The FOIA documents clearly show that on July 29th at 3:39pm, Nell Abernathy, a representative of The Corporation, emailed Yosi Sergant, former Communications Director of the National Endowment for the Arts, indicating that she was the person behind the content of the meeting when she stated (emphasis added):

Thanks for chatting yesterday – I’m attaching a few docs and running through what I think are my next steps.

She goes on to discuss the “Art event coordination” and provides an invite and draft of the meeting agenda to Sergant. Abernathy also states, “What is a reasonable time frame for getting together a list and recruiting some of your friends to lead?” This is in direct contradiction to the above claim by Siobhan Dugan of The Corporation.

The FOIA documents also indicate that Buffy Wicks, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, was the point person at the White House for this project.  This is seen in an email from Kalpen Modi, formerly Kal Penn of Kumar fame and now Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. When asked by Sergant to sit in on the August 10th meeting, Modi replied, “I thought you’d said Buffy was the [Office of Public Engagement] point person…” This supports the claim that Wicks was involved in the offline discussions of this arts effort.

The intentions of the meeting were made clear by another Sergant email correspondence. While inviting one of the participants, Sergant stated:

This call is for the people who can come up with a good idea and get it done. Little and big. They are putting together a network of the ‘producers & promoters’ out there like you and me… to turn on to activate on arts issues.

Organizing the art community so that they could be activated to address issues was the point of this effort. This was stated during the August 10th conference call and coincides with previous comments made by the White House including Buffy Wicks in a May 12th White House Briefing. Per the Briefing Notes:

She asked briefing participants to think through how their networks and organizations can participate in areas such as the arts in education, healthcare and preventative care, energy and environment, or economic opportunity.

This administration intends to make an unprecedented shift in its relationship with the arts, and that shift is to use the arts to persuade. We’ve seen this in the Entertainment Industry Foundation memo that encourage TV networks to incorporate the issues of health, energy, and the environment into their show story plots, as well as the August 10th conference call and May 12th White House Briefing.

Has the White House, The Corporation, or the National Endowment for the Arts backed off from this approach due to this controversy?

No.

Rocco Landesman, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, recently stated during his keynote speech at the 2009 Grantmakers in the Arts Conference:

Whatever might be said on television, radio or blog sites, I have no intention of walking away from the compelling themes of this presidency and a historic opportunity in arts policy.

A wise man recently told me, “There is no better way to show you’ve done nothing wrong than to continue doing what you are doing.” It appears that Mr. Landesman intends to put this statement to the test.

Big Hollywood will continue to investigate this arts effort.