It's a notoriously secretive affair and is off limits to the press. "We can't even get a snow update," Bloomberg joked last year.

At this year's gathering the main topic, according to Huff Post, was "how to stop Donald Trump." Attendees included Tim Cook, Larry Page, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and even Karl Rove himself who reportedly gave a presentation outlining what he says are Trump's weaknesses.

The AEI confab amounts to more evidence that establishment conservatives are getting very, very worried about what they see as an existential threat to the Republican party. As we and others have written, a Trump nomination would be devastating for the GOP. That's why the party is hard at work behind the scenes crafting a plan to effectively steal the nomination from Trump at the convention in July (see here, here, and here for more).

Thanks to FEC filings out Sunday we discover still more evidence that conspiracies to "stop Trump" are proliferating.

"A trio of conservative groups not affiliated with any candidate has spent about $28 million against [Trump], mostly on negative ads that aired in the past few weeks," Bloomberg writes, adding that "so far, the effort has failed to dent his popularity."