The Money Behind Moon's Washington Times

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Now that the investments have paid off for him and his family is being split apart in a struggle to succeed him, don’t be surprised to see Moon & Co. avoid a nasty succession battle at the Times, and instead simply fold the money-sucking daily… But even if the Washington Times — Moon’s most expensive political project was a newspaper — does soon become history, history will also “surely record that Moon’s $3 billion-plus investment succeeded in buying a remarkable degree of Washington influence – and legal protection – for his dubious political/business/religious empire.”

As former Washington Times editor and publisher James Whelan concluded, “Washington is the most important single city in the world. If you can achieve influence, if you can achieve visibility, if you can achieve a measure of respect in Washington, then you fairly automatically are going to achieve these things in the rest of the world. There is no better agency, or entity or instrument that I know of for achieving power here or almost anywhere else — than a newspaper.”