Those on the receiving end of the institute’s attacks — strange bedfellows like Greenpeace, Staples and Asia Pulp & Paper’s American competitors — are unified in their skepticism of its motives.

“If you can spend as much money as you want and remain anonymous, then it doesn’t matter if you’re an overseas company or the Koch brothers, you pay the same network of anti-regulatory front groups,” said Scott Paul, director of Greenpeace’s forest campaign.

Seeing Tea Party Potential

Like many other nonprofit organizations on the Tea Party bandwagon, the Institute of Liberty predates the movement. It was created in 2005 by Jason Wright, an author of best-selling inspirational novels who had worked for Frontiers of Freedom, a conservative policy group.

In his three years at the institute, Mr. Wright said in an interview, he was often approached by public relations consultants pitching projects for clients. Typical, he said, were overtures from two consultants who wanted him to advocate for opposing positions on the regulation of “payday” loans, widely criticized for usurious terms that hurt low-income borrowers.

“A P.R. firm in D.C. offered me a ton of money to take the wrong side of that issue,” he said. “I did end up taking some corporate donations from the side of the issue I believed in — that the industry had completely lost control and had to be reined in.”

One of his most visible stands was opposing net neutrality, a tenet of Internet policy criticized by broadband suppliers who want the right to charge for different levels of service. With the rise of the Tea Party movement in 2009, the institute, by then under Mr. Langer, helped inject the issue into the national dialogue, and soon signs equating net neutrality with government oppression became a staple at Tea Party rallies.

Mr. Langer had arrived the previous year from the National Federation of Independent Business, a small-business lobbying group. An enthusiastic, talkative man of 40 who dabbles in Republican politics in Maryland, he quickly saw potential in the Tea Party phenomenon. Working with FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, the institute co-sponsored early Tea Party events in Washington and published a guide called “How to Brew a Tea Party.”