Washington is nothing if not opportunistic. Take the activist group American Family Voices (please!). It is a classic D.C. sort of organization, what’s known in the trade as “astroturf,” which is to say, phony grassroots. It was among the political players this week trying to make the most of the indictment of former Trump campaign honcho Paul Manafort.
American Family Voices does issue-advocacy for a variety of left-wing causes, and among its recent targets has been the wildly successful home-sharing app Airbnb. It isn’t clear who’s paying for the attacks, but the organization has crafted a slick impersonation of a good-government watchdog called “AirbnbWATCH.” It sends out press releases detailing the many supposed iniquities of the service (a platform that has done for the hotel biz what Uber has done for taxis).
It turns out that among the properties Paul Manafort is accused of buying with laundered Ukrainian cash were a few apartments in New York that have been used as Airbnb rentals. “Manafort’s indictment blows holes in Airbnb’s claims of being a mom and pop home sharing site,” the astroturfers thundered in a press release. “It is a multi-billion-dollar corporation profiting from the illegal use of its platform for commercial interests.”
You’d think that special counsel Robert Mueller was investigating Airbnb. Then again, given the expansiveness of his enterprise, don’t give him any ideas.
