welcome to reality trivia
corruption
You show me a capitalist, and I'll show you a bloodsucker.
Malcolm X
april 2023
HISTORY
*After Buyback Spree, Airlines Look to Record Lobbying to Secure Bailout Avoid
*Taxes, Receive Federal Bailouts As Coronavirus Spreads, Surprise Medical Bills Kept in Place by Private Equity-Backed Democrat
*Avoid Taxes, Receive Federal Bailouts
articles
*EXCERPT: HOUSTON GOP ACTIVIST KNEW FOR YEARS OF CHILD SEX ABUSE CLAIMS AGAINST SOUTHERN BAPTIST LEADER, LAW PARTNER(ARTICLE BELOW)
*FOR SALE: HOW DONALD TRUMP SOLD PARDONS FOR PERSONAL GAIN
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*HOW DARK MONEY BOUGHT A SUPREME COURT SEAT
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*GOP SHAM CANDIDATE SCHEME GROWS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Burr’s Brother-in-Law Called Stock Broker, One Minute After Getting Off Phone With Senator(ARTICLE BELOW)
*LOUIS DEJOY ROLLS OUT PLAN TO SLOW USPS, DESPITE CALLS FOR HIS OUSTER
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*GOP CAR SALESMEN BILL FEDS FOR MILLIONS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Public corruption investigation links prominent Republicans across Florida
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*JARED KUSHNER SIGNED OFF ON SECRET PAYMENTS TO TOP CAMPAIGN OFFICIALS, SOURCE SAYS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*TRUMP-RELATED VENDORS GOT MILLIONS IN COVID AID — WHILE STILL GETTING PAID BY HIS CAMPAIGN(ARTICLE BELOW)
*RNC'S HIGHEST-PAID VENDOR OF THE 2020 ELECTION: A MYSTERY COMPANY FORMED NINE MONTHS AGO(ARTICLE BELOW)
*RELEASE OF PPP LOAN RECIPIENTS' DATA REVEALS TROUBLING PATTERNS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*EXCLUSIVE: U.S. INVESTIGATORS WERE TOLD TO TAKE 'NO FURTHER ACTION' ON CATERPILLAR, EX-CLIENT OF BARR(ARTICLE BELOW)
*This GOP senator received more than $20,000 in contributions from drug companies after backing pharma-friendly bill(ARTICLE BELOW)
*$2,933 FOR ‘GIRL’S NIGHT’: MEDICAID CHIEF’S CONSULTING EXPENSES REVEALED
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*JIM INHOFE CAUGHT IN DECADES-LONG CORRUPTION SCANDAL TO GET GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS TO HIS CLOSE ASSOCIATES(ARTICLE BELOW)
*EPA CHIEF’S FORMER LOBBYING CLIENTS GET A LONG LIST OF FAVORS FROM AGENCY
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Did Steve Daines get pharma kickback?
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*W.Va. governor's companies get millions in virus loans
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*After months of inquiry, Trump campaign still appears to have not returned illegal foreign donation(ARTICLE BELOW)
*"SHOCKING LEVEL OF CORRUPTION": WATCHDOGS QUESTION IF FIRM WAS REWARDED FOR SUPPORTING TRUMP'S WALL(ARTICLE BELOW)
*DONALD TRUMP, HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE AND THE WORLD'S LARGEST FUND MANAGER: A LOVE STORY?(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Before Getting No-Bid Contract, Iowan Made 1st Big Trump Donation
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Kelly Loeffler’s husband donated $1 million to Trump PAC right after insider trading allegations(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Scandal at State: A huge arms deal, a revolving-door lobbyist and the fired inspector general(ARTICLE BELOW)
*cartoons(at the end)
EXCERPT: Houston GOP activist knew for years of child sex abuse claims against Southern Baptist leader, law partner
Robert Downen, The Texas Tribune - raw story
March 27, 2023
In 2016, former Harris County GOP chair Jared Woodfill received an urgent warning about Paul Pressler, his longtime law partner and a Southern Baptist leader. In an email, a 25-year-old attorney from Woodfill’s Houston firm said he’d recently gone to lunch with Pressler, who told him “lewd stories about being naked on beaches with young men” and then invited him to skinny-dip at his ranch.
Woodfill — an outspoken anti-gay politician and prominent conservative activist who’d just played a key role defeating an equal rights ordinance for LGBTQ Houstonians — responded to the young man’s request for help with shock and indignation. “This 85-year-old man has never made any inappropriate comments or actions toward me or any one I know of,” he wrote of Pressler at the time.
But new court records show that wasn’t true.
In recent sworn testimony, Woodfill said he’d known since 2004 of an allegation that Pressler had sexually abused a child. Woodfill learned of those claims, he said, during mediation of an assault lawsuit filed against Pressler that he helped quietly settle for nearly a half-million dollars at the time. Despite his knowledge of the accusation, Woodfill continued to work with Pressler for nearly a decade — leaning on Pressler’s name and reputation to bolster their firm, Woodfill & Pressler LLP.
Rather than pay him a salary, Woodfill testified, the firm provided Pressler a string of employees to serve as personal assistants, most of them young men who typically worked out of his River Oaks mansion. Two have accused Pressler of sexual assault or misconduct.
Woodfill led the Harris County Republican Party from 2002 to 2014 and has for years been at the helm of anti-LGBTQ and other hardline conservative movements in Houston and Texas. In 2015, amid tense debate over a Houston equal rights ordinance that would have made LGBTQ workplace discrimination illegal, he and well-known GOP power broker Steven Hotze co-led a campaign that, among other things, said the measure would allow children to be sexually groomed and abused in bathrooms, paid for hundreds of thousands of dollars in opposition advertisements and compared the gay rights movement to Nazis.
Since then, Woodfill has remained a fixture in Texas GOP politics: During the height of the pandemic, he and Hotze filed numerous lawsuits challenging COVID-19 mandates, and he’s currently representing conservative political candidates challenging the 2022 election results in Harris County. Woodfill is also representing Hotze in a criminal investigation stemming from a 2020 incident in which a private investigator, allegedly acting at Hotze’s behest, held at gunpoint an A/C repairman who he believed was transporting fake ballots.
Woodfill’s deposition came as part of an ongoing, six-year-old lawsuit in which a former member of Pressler’s church youth group accuses him of decades of rape beginning when he was 14. The suit also accuses Woodfill and others, including leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, of concealing and enabling Pressler’s behavior — claims that prompted a 2019 Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News investigation into widespread sexual abuse in the SBC, the nation’s second-largest faith group.
Released over the last few weeks, the thousands of pages of new court records show how Woodfill leaned on his Pressler connections to bolster his political and legal career — despite warnings about his law partner’s behavior. And they shed new light on how Pressler, a former Texas Court of Appeals judge and one-time White House nominee under George H.W. Bush, allegedly used his prestige and influence to evade responsibility amid repeated accusations of sexual misconduct and assault dating back to at least 1978, when he was forced out of a Houston church for allegedly molesting a teenager in a sauna.
Pressler is best known for his work in the Southern Baptist Convention, where he was instrumental in pushing its 16 million members and 47,000 churches to adopt literal interpretations of the Bible, strongly denounce homosexuality and align more closely with the Republican Party. And for decades, he was a high-ranking member of the Council for National Policy, an uber-secretive network of conservative judges, mega donors, media figures and religious elites led by Tony Perkins, head of the anti-LGBTQ Family Research Council.
The new records show that in 2004, leaders of First Baptist Church of Houston, a massive Southern Baptist congregation, investigated claims that Pressler, then a deacon, had groped and undressed a college student at his Houston mansion. The church leaders deemed the behavior "morally and spiritually" inappropriate and warned Pressler but took no further action, citing differing accounts of the incident and Pressler’s stature in their church and the Southern Baptist Convention. In recent depositions, plaintiffs attorneys also briefly mention new complaints from two others about Pressler, though those documents remain sealed ahead of the looming civil trial in the case.
At least six men have now accused Pressler of sexual assault or misconduct, including two who say they were molested while minors and two who say they were solicited for sex in incidents after 2004, when Woodfill and First Baptist leaders were separately made aware of complaints about Pressler.
Pressler has not been criminally charged in any of the incidents. Neither Woodfill nor his attorney responded to a list of questions about Woodfill’s handling of the allegations against Pressler. In a Wednesday email, Woodfill’s lawyer David Oubre said they are “confident Mr. Woodfill will be successful in defeating these claims.”
“A big name”
The new allegations came as part of an ongoing lawsuit in which Duane Rollins accuses Pressler of decades of rape and molestation beginning when Rollins was 14 and a member of the church youth group led by Pressler, who was then in his late 40s. Those alleged attacks, Rollins says in court documents, pushed him into years of drug and alcohol addictions that kept him in prison for much of his adult life. While in prison therapy sessions in 2015, Rollins says he uncovered repressed memories of sexual abuse by Pressler. He was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress as a “direct result of the childhood sexual trauma he suffered,” according to medical records filed in court.
In 2017, Rollins sued Pressler, Woodfill and Southern Baptist figures and institutions that he says enabled and concealed Pressler’s behavior, arguing that, because of trauma and manipulation by Pressler, it took him decades to reconcile that he was sexually abused. Last year, after the defendants fought to have the suit tossed by arguing the assault claims were outside the statute of limitations, the Texas Supreme Court agreed with Rollins' arguments and allowed the lawsuit to go forward....
READ MORE
Woodfill — an outspoken anti-gay politician and prominent conservative activist who’d just played a key role defeating an equal rights ordinance for LGBTQ Houstonians — responded to the young man’s request for help with shock and indignation. “This 85-year-old man has never made any inappropriate comments or actions toward me or any one I know of,” he wrote of Pressler at the time.
But new court records show that wasn’t true.
In recent sworn testimony, Woodfill said he’d known since 2004 of an allegation that Pressler had sexually abused a child. Woodfill learned of those claims, he said, during mediation of an assault lawsuit filed against Pressler that he helped quietly settle for nearly a half-million dollars at the time. Despite his knowledge of the accusation, Woodfill continued to work with Pressler for nearly a decade — leaning on Pressler’s name and reputation to bolster their firm, Woodfill & Pressler LLP.
Rather than pay him a salary, Woodfill testified, the firm provided Pressler a string of employees to serve as personal assistants, most of them young men who typically worked out of his River Oaks mansion. Two have accused Pressler of sexual assault or misconduct.
Woodfill led the Harris County Republican Party from 2002 to 2014 and has for years been at the helm of anti-LGBTQ and other hardline conservative movements in Houston and Texas. In 2015, amid tense debate over a Houston equal rights ordinance that would have made LGBTQ workplace discrimination illegal, he and well-known GOP power broker Steven Hotze co-led a campaign that, among other things, said the measure would allow children to be sexually groomed and abused in bathrooms, paid for hundreds of thousands of dollars in opposition advertisements and compared the gay rights movement to Nazis.
Since then, Woodfill has remained a fixture in Texas GOP politics: During the height of the pandemic, he and Hotze filed numerous lawsuits challenging COVID-19 mandates, and he’s currently representing conservative political candidates challenging the 2022 election results in Harris County. Woodfill is also representing Hotze in a criminal investigation stemming from a 2020 incident in which a private investigator, allegedly acting at Hotze’s behest, held at gunpoint an A/C repairman who he believed was transporting fake ballots.
Woodfill’s deposition came as part of an ongoing, six-year-old lawsuit in which a former member of Pressler’s church youth group accuses him of decades of rape beginning when he was 14. The suit also accuses Woodfill and others, including leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, of concealing and enabling Pressler’s behavior — claims that prompted a 2019 Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News investigation into widespread sexual abuse in the SBC, the nation’s second-largest faith group.
Released over the last few weeks, the thousands of pages of new court records show how Woodfill leaned on his Pressler connections to bolster his political and legal career — despite warnings about his law partner’s behavior. And they shed new light on how Pressler, a former Texas Court of Appeals judge and one-time White House nominee under George H.W. Bush, allegedly used his prestige and influence to evade responsibility amid repeated accusations of sexual misconduct and assault dating back to at least 1978, when he was forced out of a Houston church for allegedly molesting a teenager in a sauna.
Pressler is best known for his work in the Southern Baptist Convention, where he was instrumental in pushing its 16 million members and 47,000 churches to adopt literal interpretations of the Bible, strongly denounce homosexuality and align more closely with the Republican Party. And for decades, he was a high-ranking member of the Council for National Policy, an uber-secretive network of conservative judges, mega donors, media figures and religious elites led by Tony Perkins, head of the anti-LGBTQ Family Research Council.
The new records show that in 2004, leaders of First Baptist Church of Houston, a massive Southern Baptist congregation, investigated claims that Pressler, then a deacon, had groped and undressed a college student at his Houston mansion. The church leaders deemed the behavior "morally and spiritually" inappropriate and warned Pressler but took no further action, citing differing accounts of the incident and Pressler’s stature in their church and the Southern Baptist Convention. In recent depositions, plaintiffs attorneys also briefly mention new complaints from two others about Pressler, though those documents remain sealed ahead of the looming civil trial in the case.
At least six men have now accused Pressler of sexual assault or misconduct, including two who say they were molested while minors and two who say they were solicited for sex in incidents after 2004, when Woodfill and First Baptist leaders were separately made aware of complaints about Pressler.
Pressler has not been criminally charged in any of the incidents. Neither Woodfill nor his attorney responded to a list of questions about Woodfill’s handling of the allegations against Pressler. In a Wednesday email, Woodfill’s lawyer David Oubre said they are “confident Mr. Woodfill will be successful in defeating these claims.”
“A big name”
The new allegations came as part of an ongoing lawsuit in which Duane Rollins accuses Pressler of decades of rape and molestation beginning when Rollins was 14 and a member of the church youth group led by Pressler, who was then in his late 40s. Those alleged attacks, Rollins says in court documents, pushed him into years of drug and alcohol addictions that kept him in prison for much of his adult life. While in prison therapy sessions in 2015, Rollins says he uncovered repressed memories of sexual abuse by Pressler. He was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress as a “direct result of the childhood sexual trauma he suffered,” according to medical records filed in court.
In 2017, Rollins sued Pressler, Woodfill and Southern Baptist figures and institutions that he says enabled and concealed Pressler’s behavior, arguing that, because of trauma and manipulation by Pressler, it took him decades to reconcile that he was sexually abused. Last year, after the defendants fought to have the suit tossed by arguing the assault claims were outside the statute of limitations, the Texas Supreme Court agreed with Rollins' arguments and allowed the lawsuit to go forward....
READ MORE
FOR SALE: How Donald Trump Sold Pardons For Personal Gain
Here's how Trump was able to turn the presidential pardon into a lucrative source of money.
Gregg Barak — crooks & liars
February 19, 2022
...The Constitution gives the President “the Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” It is silent about, and therefore, does not prohibit the president’s pardoning power from extending to those convicted of federal crimes on behalf of and/or in conspiracy with the president. As we all know Trump pardoned several loyal members of his gang including among the most notable recipients Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, and Steve Bannon. To be specific, under the Constitution only federal convictions, military court martial decisions and convictions in Washington, D.C. are eligible for presidential clemency. These include pardons or full forgiveness of crimes, commutations or the merciful reduction of sentences, and reprieves or the temporary stay of a sentence.
To be considered for clemency applicants submit a notarized petition to the Office of the Pardon Attorney in the Department of Justice. The rules “tell pardon seekers to wait at least five years after their conviction or their release from prison, whichever is later before filing a pardon application.” The Trump administration repeatedly violated this DOJ custom. After evaluating such factors as the seriousness of the offense and the extent to which someone has accepted responsibility for their crimes, how a person has acted since conviction, and input from the U.S. prosecutor who handled the case weighs in, the pardon office makes a recommendation and forwards it to the deputy attorney general. In turn, the deputy AG makes a recommendation of its own and forwards it along with pardon office’s up or down recommendation to the White House for a decision. In many instances, this process was totally ignored because the Trump administration viewed it as too time-consuming and cumbersome which—to be fair—it probably is.
Other informal rules or customs that Trump violated are that pardons are usually given near the end of a president’s term in office and usually after the petitioner’s case has been fully adjudicated. In the case of the latter, one of Trump’s co-conspirators in deconstructing the state and assaulting the Capitol Steve Bannon had been arrested and indicted in August 2020 for “conspiring to swindle donors to a private fund to build a wall along the Mexican border, siphoning off more than $1million for personal and other expenses.” Steve was pardoned just before Christmas well before his case was scheduled for adjudication. It will be interesting to see how Steve’s three co-defendants fare at trial when the time comes.
In the case of the former, infamous Arizona Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio became Trump’s first pardon on August 25, 2017 only seven months into his administration. Besides the violations in procedure, what makes this pardon particularly unique is that it was for only a misdemeanor rather than a felony offense. Here again the pardoning of Arpaio was pre-emptive, occurring after his conviction and before his sentencing. The former Sheriff of course had not submitted a pardon application. For the record, his conviction had been for a misdemeanor contempt of court charge for having intentionally defied a 2011 court order to stop traffic patrols that targeted immigrants.
The former executive-in-chief sold official forgiveness as if it were just another Trump-branded product. Opening bids for pardon consideration were auctioned off at $50,000. There were no guarantees. In fact, Parker Petit paid one of the largest figures—$750,000—out in mid-December to Matt Schlapp and his lobbying firm, Cove Strategies. This was done just days before Trump released his final pardons. It was denied. Petit had been a top Republican donor who served as Georgia finance chairman for Trump’s 2018 campaign. Cove Strategies had raised over $2.3 million for Trump in 2020. He was convicted of securities fraud in November 2020 and was facing up to 20 years in prison. Schlapp who is also chairman of the American Conservative Union had also been a frequent guest on Fox News. His wife, Mercedes Schlapp, worked for both the White House and the 2020 campaign. In December 2020, Trump appointed Schlapp to the trust fund board for the Library of Congress. In an article on Open Secrets Karl Evers-Hillstrom notes that this made Schlapp “one of the many Trump-connected lobbyists to land a government appointment from Trump while continuing to lobby"
The White House has credited former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman with having secured for a little over $75,000 clemency or pardons for four individuals as either at a special group rate or a going out of business sale. A most interesting split-pardoning decision by Trump involved the granting of clemency to Nickie Davis and Elliott Broidy. In August 2020 Davis admitted that she had failed to disclose lobbying the Trump administration on behalf of a fugitive Malaysian financier. In November Davis had paid Mark Cowan, a member of Trump’s transition team, $100,000 to lobby the Donald to grant her clemency. While Trump did not pardon Davis, he did pardon Broidy, “a top Trump fundraiser who was the mastermind behind the covert foreign influence operation.
”We know about these particular fees because these lobbyists reported their “pay to play” to the IRS. Knowing the Donald, I suspect these known lobbying efforts for pardon disclosures are only the tip of the “dollars for forgiveness” iceberg. From its inception, the presidency of Donald Trump was riven with unparalleled levels of corruption. As the possibility of holding him accountable becomes more likely and as we grapple with what justice would look like, we should not forget how much the former executive-in-chief charged for forgiveness.
Excerpted from Criminology on Trump (Routledge, Paperback, May 2022) by Gregg Barak.
To be considered for clemency applicants submit a notarized petition to the Office of the Pardon Attorney in the Department of Justice. The rules “tell pardon seekers to wait at least five years after their conviction or their release from prison, whichever is later before filing a pardon application.” The Trump administration repeatedly violated this DOJ custom. After evaluating such factors as the seriousness of the offense and the extent to which someone has accepted responsibility for their crimes, how a person has acted since conviction, and input from the U.S. prosecutor who handled the case weighs in, the pardon office makes a recommendation and forwards it to the deputy attorney general. In turn, the deputy AG makes a recommendation of its own and forwards it along with pardon office’s up or down recommendation to the White House for a decision. In many instances, this process was totally ignored because the Trump administration viewed it as too time-consuming and cumbersome which—to be fair—it probably is.
Other informal rules or customs that Trump violated are that pardons are usually given near the end of a president’s term in office and usually after the petitioner’s case has been fully adjudicated. In the case of the latter, one of Trump’s co-conspirators in deconstructing the state and assaulting the Capitol Steve Bannon had been arrested and indicted in August 2020 for “conspiring to swindle donors to a private fund to build a wall along the Mexican border, siphoning off more than $1million for personal and other expenses.” Steve was pardoned just before Christmas well before his case was scheduled for adjudication. It will be interesting to see how Steve’s three co-defendants fare at trial when the time comes.
In the case of the former, infamous Arizona Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio became Trump’s first pardon on August 25, 2017 only seven months into his administration. Besides the violations in procedure, what makes this pardon particularly unique is that it was for only a misdemeanor rather than a felony offense. Here again the pardoning of Arpaio was pre-emptive, occurring after his conviction and before his sentencing. The former Sheriff of course had not submitted a pardon application. For the record, his conviction had been for a misdemeanor contempt of court charge for having intentionally defied a 2011 court order to stop traffic patrols that targeted immigrants.
The former executive-in-chief sold official forgiveness as if it were just another Trump-branded product. Opening bids for pardon consideration were auctioned off at $50,000. There were no guarantees. In fact, Parker Petit paid one of the largest figures—$750,000—out in mid-December to Matt Schlapp and his lobbying firm, Cove Strategies. This was done just days before Trump released his final pardons. It was denied. Petit had been a top Republican donor who served as Georgia finance chairman for Trump’s 2018 campaign. Cove Strategies had raised over $2.3 million for Trump in 2020. He was convicted of securities fraud in November 2020 and was facing up to 20 years in prison. Schlapp who is also chairman of the American Conservative Union had also been a frequent guest on Fox News. His wife, Mercedes Schlapp, worked for both the White House and the 2020 campaign. In December 2020, Trump appointed Schlapp to the trust fund board for the Library of Congress. In an article on Open Secrets Karl Evers-Hillstrom notes that this made Schlapp “one of the many Trump-connected lobbyists to land a government appointment from Trump while continuing to lobby"
The White House has credited former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman with having secured for a little over $75,000 clemency or pardons for four individuals as either at a special group rate or a going out of business sale. A most interesting split-pardoning decision by Trump involved the granting of clemency to Nickie Davis and Elliott Broidy. In August 2020 Davis admitted that she had failed to disclose lobbying the Trump administration on behalf of a fugitive Malaysian financier. In November Davis had paid Mark Cowan, a member of Trump’s transition team, $100,000 to lobby the Donald to grant her clemency. While Trump did not pardon Davis, he did pardon Broidy, “a top Trump fundraiser who was the mastermind behind the covert foreign influence operation.
”We know about these particular fees because these lobbyists reported their “pay to play” to the IRS. Knowing the Donald, I suspect these known lobbying efforts for pardon disclosures are only the tip of the “dollars for forgiveness” iceberg. From its inception, the presidency of Donald Trump was riven with unparalleled levels of corruption. As the possibility of holding him accountable becomes more likely and as we grapple with what justice would look like, we should not forget how much the former executive-in-chief charged for forgiveness.
Excerpted from Criminology on Trump (Routledge, Paperback, May 2022) by Gregg Barak.
the best judge money can buy!!!
How Dark Money Bought A Supreme Court Seat
While Justice Amy Barrett feigned ignorance of dark money, new documents show that cash bankrolled her Supreme Court nomination.
DEC 19, 2021
ANDREW PEREZ, JULIA ROCK - daily poster
A conservative dark money group led by former President Donald Trump’s judicial adviser Leonard Leo bankrolled Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation campaign with nearly $22 million in anonymous cash, while another nonprofit that Leo helps steer saw a fundraising bonanza and showered cash on other organizations boosting Barrett, according to tax returns obtained by The Daily Poster.
The new tax returns shed light on how Barrett’s successful last-minute confirmation campaign was aided by a flood of dark money. They also reveal the rapid growth of Leo’s already highly successful dark money network and its tentacles in the broader conservative movement.
Corporate interests with access to nearly unlimited money have a huge stake in tilting the court to the right. In recent years, the court has played a pivotal role not only in swaying social policy, but also in shifting economic policy and corporate regulations. In Barrett’s first year, she has already sided with corporate interests on a landmark climate case involving an oil giant that employed her father for decades, and she refused to recuse herself in a donor transparency case involving a foundation tied to a dark money group that backed her confirmation.
“I Am Unaware Of Any Outside Groups”
Leo is a longtime executive at the Federalist Society, a group for conservative lawyers. He formed the Rule of Law Trust (RLT) in 2018, and the group quickly raised nearly $80 million. RLT started spending that money in 2020, donating $21.5 million to the Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), another group steered by Leo that played a key role in Republicans flipping the Supreme Court and building a conservative supermajority.
JCN spent millions pressing Republican senators to block Obama’s 2016 Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland, and subsequently spent millions boosting each of Trump’s high court nominees — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Barrett — all while Leo was advising Trump’s judicial strategy.
In 2017, when Barrett was nominated to serve on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked her: “Do you want outside groups or special interests to make undisclosed donations to front organizations like the Judicial Crisis Network in support of your nomination?”
Barrett responded: “I am unaware of any outside groups or special interests having made donations on my behalf. I have not and will not solicit donations from anyone. Indeed, doing so would be a violation of my ethical responsibilities as a judicial nominee.”
When Durbin asked whether she would “discourage donors from making such undisclosed donations” or “call for the donors to make their donations public,” Barrett referred him to her previous answer.
The 85 Fund
Leo also helps direct the 85 Fund, a charitable organization being used to fiscally sponsor a host of conservative nonprofits, including the Judicial Education Project, which has long been JCN’s sister arm.
The 85 Fund reported bringing in nearly $66 million in 2020, according to its latest tax return. That’s a huge increase over the roughly $13 million the organization raised in 2019, per OpenSecrets, which found the majority of the 85 Fund’s 2020 money came from DonorsTrust, a group known as a “dark money ATM,” for its use as a pass-through vehicle.
The 85 Fund donated big sums last year to groups that backed Barrett’s confirmation, including: Turning Point USA ($2.7 million), Job Creators Network ($500,000), Independent Women’s Forum ($310,000), the Susan B. Anthony List ($175,000), Concerned Women for America ($100,000), Faith and Freedom Coalition ($100,000), and Heritage Action for America ($50,000).
The 85 Fund disclosed donating to nearly four dozen conservative groups in 2020. It made a substantial donation — $5.6 million — to the Federalist Society, where Leo is a co-chairman.
The organization also gave $1 million to the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a group that fought in court to end the Biden administration’s federal COVID-19 pandemic eviction ban. It contributed another $1 million to Passages Israel, a group known as “Christian birthright” for bringing American Christian students on trips to Israel.
The 85 Fund also donated $750,000 to RealClearFoundation, a conservative nonprofit tied to the political news aggregator RealClearPolitics. And it contributed $100,000 to the CO2 Coalition, a conservative climate denial group.
The new tax returns shed light on how Barrett’s successful last-minute confirmation campaign was aided by a flood of dark money. They also reveal the rapid growth of Leo’s already highly successful dark money network and its tentacles in the broader conservative movement.
Corporate interests with access to nearly unlimited money have a huge stake in tilting the court to the right. In recent years, the court has played a pivotal role not only in swaying social policy, but also in shifting economic policy and corporate regulations. In Barrett’s first year, she has already sided with corporate interests on a landmark climate case involving an oil giant that employed her father for decades, and she refused to recuse herself in a donor transparency case involving a foundation tied to a dark money group that backed her confirmation.
“I Am Unaware Of Any Outside Groups”
Leo is a longtime executive at the Federalist Society, a group for conservative lawyers. He formed the Rule of Law Trust (RLT) in 2018, and the group quickly raised nearly $80 million. RLT started spending that money in 2020, donating $21.5 million to the Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), another group steered by Leo that played a key role in Republicans flipping the Supreme Court and building a conservative supermajority.
JCN spent millions pressing Republican senators to block Obama’s 2016 Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland, and subsequently spent millions boosting each of Trump’s high court nominees — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Barrett — all while Leo was advising Trump’s judicial strategy.
In 2017, when Barrett was nominated to serve on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked her: “Do you want outside groups or special interests to make undisclosed donations to front organizations like the Judicial Crisis Network in support of your nomination?”
Barrett responded: “I am unaware of any outside groups or special interests having made donations on my behalf. I have not and will not solicit donations from anyone. Indeed, doing so would be a violation of my ethical responsibilities as a judicial nominee.”
When Durbin asked whether she would “discourage donors from making such undisclosed donations” or “call for the donors to make their donations public,” Barrett referred him to her previous answer.
The 85 Fund
Leo also helps direct the 85 Fund, a charitable organization being used to fiscally sponsor a host of conservative nonprofits, including the Judicial Education Project, which has long been JCN’s sister arm.
The 85 Fund reported bringing in nearly $66 million in 2020, according to its latest tax return. That’s a huge increase over the roughly $13 million the organization raised in 2019, per OpenSecrets, which found the majority of the 85 Fund’s 2020 money came from DonorsTrust, a group known as a “dark money ATM,” for its use as a pass-through vehicle.
The 85 Fund donated big sums last year to groups that backed Barrett’s confirmation, including: Turning Point USA ($2.7 million), Job Creators Network ($500,000), Independent Women’s Forum ($310,000), the Susan B. Anthony List ($175,000), Concerned Women for America ($100,000), Faith and Freedom Coalition ($100,000), and Heritage Action for America ($50,000).
The 85 Fund disclosed donating to nearly four dozen conservative groups in 2020. It made a substantial donation — $5.6 million — to the Federalist Society, where Leo is a co-chairman.
The organization also gave $1 million to the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a group that fought in court to end the Biden administration’s federal COVID-19 pandemic eviction ban. It contributed another $1 million to Passages Israel, a group known as “Christian birthright” for bringing American Christian students on trips to Israel.
The 85 Fund also donated $750,000 to RealClearFoundation, a conservative nonprofit tied to the political news aggregator RealClearPolitics. And it contributed $100,000 to the CO2 Coalition, a conservative climate denial group.
GOP sham candidate scheme grows
Was the Republican scheme to push sham candidates funded by the nation's largest electricity retailer?
Mystery of Florida's "ghost" candidates grows: Major energy company linked to GOP scheme
By JON SKOLNIK - salon
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 11, 2021 5:03AM (EST)
Back in March, Frank Artiles, a former Republican Florida state representative with strong financial ties to the utility industry, was arrested on suspicion of orchestrating an election fraud scheme that helped oust one of Florida's most prominent climate advocates, former state Sen. José Javier Rodríguez, a Democrat.
According to investigators, Artiles reportedly paid an auto salesman with the same surname as Rodríguez to run as a third-party "ghost" candidate against Rodríguez and his then-Republican challenger, state Sen. Ileana Garcia. Farcical as it sounds, it worked. The auto salesman, despite never campaigning, likely siphoned off 6,300 votes from Rodríguez's re-campaign to ensure Garcia's victory.
Now new revelations suggest that Artiles, the alleged mastermind, may have just been the tip of the iceberg.
This week, the Orlando Sentinel reported that there was likely an entire ecosystem of corporate and political entities propping up sham candidates in the 2020 Florida state Senate races. Records reviewed by the Sentinel indicate that Florida Power & Light (FPL), the country's largest electricity company, helped coordinate three separate ghost candidacies – one of whom was Rodríguez' – in order to bolster its own business interests in the state legislature. From 2016 to 2020, FPL reportedly made a series of transactions totaling over $3 million to Denver-based dark-money nonprofit "Grow United," whose name was changed from "Proclivity" last year. In October of 2020, Grow United gifted two Florida political committees – "The Truth" and "Our Florida" – with $550,000 to finance the mass delivery of political mailers supporting three unaffiliated candidates in three districts.
Thousands of these mailers – all of which featured identical language blasting "party line" politicians as "puppets," according to Politico – bombarded voters.
It was "a coordinated dark money effort to siphon votes from Democratic candidates," Anders Croy, a Democratic caucus' spokesman, told The Miami Herald.
According to the Sentinel, a printing company with ties to Florida GOP strategist Alex Alvarado was in charge of producing the mailers themselves. Incidentally, Alvarado's data intelligence firm was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by political groups with ties to Associated Industries of Florida, a business lobbying group that represents FPL.
Alissa Schafer, a research and communications manager at the Energy and Policy Institute (EPI), a utilities and energy watchdog, told Salon that FPL's presence in this opaque web of nonprofits, companies, and political committees is completely unsurprising.
"It's a huge opportunity for FPL, given the political landscape, to flex their political power on spending, important relationship-building, and direct political contributions before you even get to the stuff where it's a little bit more shady and buried in levels of political committees," Schafer said in an interview. "If you look at the comments that the company makes, for example, in their quarterly reports, they talk about Florida as being a friendly regulatory environment. And that is very intentional. It's a result of the work that they have done to control the political environment."
Schafer, who has been following FPL's apparent skullduggery for several years now, noted that the company has several levers of power when it comes to keeping Florida's legislature on the side of businesses rather than consumers.
One lever is exerting influence over the Florida Public Service Commission (FPSC), a five-member panel tasked with regulating the business practices of utility and telecommunications corporations throughout the state. A large part of FPSC's job is to keep FPL in check because the company has a monopoly on the state's utilities market. This is why the FPSC decides what rates the company is allowed to fairly charge its customers – a process that involves extensive accounting of the company's yearly costs.
Throughout 2019 and 2020, the FPSC approved numerous rate increases for FPL, Tampa Electric Co., and Duke Energy. Just this week, the FPSC likewise voted to let FPL collect an additional $810 million from customers in 2022 to account for the increasing cost of natural gas nationwide. According to The Daily Herald, FPL intends to increase the cost of electricity for its customers by roughly 20% over the next four years.
While there have been some instances in which the commission sides with consumers, it's hard to argue that the FPSC is insulated from corporate interests. After all, its five commissioners are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate, which makes its composition a product of politics, Liz Veazey, Policy and Rural Energy Director at Solar United Neighbors, told Salon.
"When you're solely focused on profits over people, there's no limit to what utility companies will do to preserve their energy monopoly," Veazey told Salon by email. "The substantial influence that FPL and Duke Energy have over the state legislators and the governor … reduce[s] the ability of the government to fulfill its oversight role."
On top of lobbying, companies like FPL can also launder their interests through more public channels of campaign finance. For instance, while Florida prohibits utilities companies from donating directly to candidates, they can contribute to political action committees that align with business-friendly candidates.
According to The Sentinel, in 2018 alone, FPL made $8 million in campaign contributions to political action committees. But donations like these, Veazey said, "are often only half of the story, and fail to include all of the monies creatively funneled through political committees, political parties and even charitable donations."
FPL, for its part, has vehemently denied any suggestions that it financially supported ghost candidates.
"Neither FPL nor our employees provided funding, or asked any third party to provide funding on its behalf, to Grow United in support of Florida state-level political campaigns during the 2020 election cycle," company spokesperson David P. Reuter told the Sentinel. "Any report or suggestion that we had involvement in, financially supported or directed others to support any 'ghost' candidates during the 2020 election cycle is patently false, and we have found absolutely no evidence of any legal wrongdoing by FPL or its employees."
Veazey told Salon that she found Reuter's statement "elitist" and "absurd."
"Their claim of ignorance of how the money was being spent is not an acceptable excuse for their funds being used to wreak havoc on the democratic process," she added.
It isn't the first time that FPL has come under scrutiny for indirectly financing alleged sham candidates.
In 2018, Florida state Sen. Keith Perry, a Republican, won re-election against Democratic challenger Kayser Enneking, largely due to the candidacy of independent Charles Goston. According to the Sentinel, FPL donated $14.15 million to a political ad nonprofit whose consultants were affiliated with a group that paid for ads supporting Goston.
As curious as FPL's charitable decisions are, it's not hard to see why an electricity retailer would get involved in political funding. FPL is facing a push for rooftop solar. Earlier this year, state Democrats introduced a bill that would have saved schools, businesses, and nonprofit organizations from paying millions of dollars in up-front costs associated with solar installation. Solar United estimated that bill would have added 25,000 new jobs with $4 billion in economic growth. In the end, however, the measure didn't even receive a hearing in the Republican-controlled legislature.
FPL and solar advocates have also locked horns over net metering, a billing mechanism that allows solar users to collect credits for energy they generate but do not use. Currently, net metering is legal in the Sunshine State. But that hasn't stopped Republicans from waging disinformation campaigns that overstate the costs associated with solar. "Utilities are also actively working to spread disinformation about the benefits of solar, imposing outrageous interconnection fees, misrepresenting community solar, imposing unfair minimum-monthly bills on solar customers, and blocking policies that keep solar affordable and accessible," Veazey explained.
Part of the problem with holding utility companies accountable, Schaefer said, is that they're playing the long game. Thus connecting something like FPL's stance on net metering to their alleged support of ghost candidates involves untangling convoluted political projects spanning years.
"The process of putting [the] pieces together and understanding this web of dark money non-profits and entities shuffling money back and forth – that is very challenging to keep track of," Schaefer said. "A lot of people say, 'I don't get that stuff, that's why I don't like politics.' But that sentiment right there is one of the things utilities companies are counting on. They know that it's confusing. They know that it's overwhelming. Most people just want to switch the light switch and have their lights on."
According to investigators, Artiles reportedly paid an auto salesman with the same surname as Rodríguez to run as a third-party "ghost" candidate against Rodríguez and his then-Republican challenger, state Sen. Ileana Garcia. Farcical as it sounds, it worked. The auto salesman, despite never campaigning, likely siphoned off 6,300 votes from Rodríguez's re-campaign to ensure Garcia's victory.
Now new revelations suggest that Artiles, the alleged mastermind, may have just been the tip of the iceberg.
This week, the Orlando Sentinel reported that there was likely an entire ecosystem of corporate and political entities propping up sham candidates in the 2020 Florida state Senate races. Records reviewed by the Sentinel indicate that Florida Power & Light (FPL), the country's largest electricity company, helped coordinate three separate ghost candidacies – one of whom was Rodríguez' – in order to bolster its own business interests in the state legislature. From 2016 to 2020, FPL reportedly made a series of transactions totaling over $3 million to Denver-based dark-money nonprofit "Grow United," whose name was changed from "Proclivity" last year. In October of 2020, Grow United gifted two Florida political committees – "The Truth" and "Our Florida" – with $550,000 to finance the mass delivery of political mailers supporting three unaffiliated candidates in three districts.
Thousands of these mailers – all of which featured identical language blasting "party line" politicians as "puppets," according to Politico – bombarded voters.
It was "a coordinated dark money effort to siphon votes from Democratic candidates," Anders Croy, a Democratic caucus' spokesman, told The Miami Herald.
According to the Sentinel, a printing company with ties to Florida GOP strategist Alex Alvarado was in charge of producing the mailers themselves. Incidentally, Alvarado's data intelligence firm was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by political groups with ties to Associated Industries of Florida, a business lobbying group that represents FPL.
Alissa Schafer, a research and communications manager at the Energy and Policy Institute (EPI), a utilities and energy watchdog, told Salon that FPL's presence in this opaque web of nonprofits, companies, and political committees is completely unsurprising.
"It's a huge opportunity for FPL, given the political landscape, to flex their political power on spending, important relationship-building, and direct political contributions before you even get to the stuff where it's a little bit more shady and buried in levels of political committees," Schafer said in an interview. "If you look at the comments that the company makes, for example, in their quarterly reports, they talk about Florida as being a friendly regulatory environment. And that is very intentional. It's a result of the work that they have done to control the political environment."
Schafer, who has been following FPL's apparent skullduggery for several years now, noted that the company has several levers of power when it comes to keeping Florida's legislature on the side of businesses rather than consumers.
One lever is exerting influence over the Florida Public Service Commission (FPSC), a five-member panel tasked with regulating the business practices of utility and telecommunications corporations throughout the state. A large part of FPSC's job is to keep FPL in check because the company has a monopoly on the state's utilities market. This is why the FPSC decides what rates the company is allowed to fairly charge its customers – a process that involves extensive accounting of the company's yearly costs.
Throughout 2019 and 2020, the FPSC approved numerous rate increases for FPL, Tampa Electric Co., and Duke Energy. Just this week, the FPSC likewise voted to let FPL collect an additional $810 million from customers in 2022 to account for the increasing cost of natural gas nationwide. According to The Daily Herald, FPL intends to increase the cost of electricity for its customers by roughly 20% over the next four years.
While there have been some instances in which the commission sides with consumers, it's hard to argue that the FPSC is insulated from corporate interests. After all, its five commissioners are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate, which makes its composition a product of politics, Liz Veazey, Policy and Rural Energy Director at Solar United Neighbors, told Salon.
"When you're solely focused on profits over people, there's no limit to what utility companies will do to preserve their energy monopoly," Veazey told Salon by email. "The substantial influence that FPL and Duke Energy have over the state legislators and the governor … reduce[s] the ability of the government to fulfill its oversight role."
On top of lobbying, companies like FPL can also launder their interests through more public channels of campaign finance. For instance, while Florida prohibits utilities companies from donating directly to candidates, they can contribute to political action committees that align with business-friendly candidates.
According to The Sentinel, in 2018 alone, FPL made $8 million in campaign contributions to political action committees. But donations like these, Veazey said, "are often only half of the story, and fail to include all of the monies creatively funneled through political committees, political parties and even charitable donations."
FPL, for its part, has vehemently denied any suggestions that it financially supported ghost candidates.
"Neither FPL nor our employees provided funding, or asked any third party to provide funding on its behalf, to Grow United in support of Florida state-level political campaigns during the 2020 election cycle," company spokesperson David P. Reuter told the Sentinel. "Any report or suggestion that we had involvement in, financially supported or directed others to support any 'ghost' candidates during the 2020 election cycle is patently false, and we have found absolutely no evidence of any legal wrongdoing by FPL or its employees."
Veazey told Salon that she found Reuter's statement "elitist" and "absurd."
"Their claim of ignorance of how the money was being spent is not an acceptable excuse for their funds being used to wreak havoc on the democratic process," she added.
It isn't the first time that FPL has come under scrutiny for indirectly financing alleged sham candidates.
In 2018, Florida state Sen. Keith Perry, a Republican, won re-election against Democratic challenger Kayser Enneking, largely due to the candidacy of independent Charles Goston. According to the Sentinel, FPL donated $14.15 million to a political ad nonprofit whose consultants were affiliated with a group that paid for ads supporting Goston.
As curious as FPL's charitable decisions are, it's not hard to see why an electricity retailer would get involved in political funding. FPL is facing a push for rooftop solar. Earlier this year, state Democrats introduced a bill that would have saved schools, businesses, and nonprofit organizations from paying millions of dollars in up-front costs associated with solar installation. Solar United estimated that bill would have added 25,000 new jobs with $4 billion in economic growth. In the end, however, the measure didn't even receive a hearing in the Republican-controlled legislature.
FPL and solar advocates have also locked horns over net metering, a billing mechanism that allows solar users to collect credits for energy they generate but do not use. Currently, net metering is legal in the Sunshine State. But that hasn't stopped Republicans from waging disinformation campaigns that overstate the costs associated with solar. "Utilities are also actively working to spread disinformation about the benefits of solar, imposing outrageous interconnection fees, misrepresenting community solar, imposing unfair minimum-monthly bills on solar customers, and blocking policies that keep solar affordable and accessible," Veazey explained.
Part of the problem with holding utility companies accountable, Schaefer said, is that they're playing the long game. Thus connecting something like FPL's stance on net metering to their alleged support of ghost candidates involves untangling convoluted political projects spanning years.
"The process of putting [the] pieces together and understanding this web of dark money non-profits and entities shuffling money back and forth – that is very challenging to keep track of," Schaefer said. "A lot of people say, 'I don't get that stuff, that's why I don't like politics.' But that sentiment right there is one of the things utilities companies are counting on. They know that it's confusing. They know that it's overwhelming. Most people just want to switch the light switch and have their lights on."
Burr’s Brother-in-Law Called Stock Broker, One Minute After Getting Off Phone With Senator
According to the SEC, Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, then chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had material nonpublic information about coronavirus impact. He and his brother-in-law dumped stock before the market dropped in March 2020.
by Robert Faturechi - PROPUBLICA
Oct. 28, 12:05 p.m. EDT
After Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina dumped more than $1.6 million in stocks in February 2020 a week before the coronavirus market crash, he called his brother-in-law, according to a new Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
They talked for 50 seconds.
Burr, according to the SEC, had material nonpublic information regarding the incoming economic impact of coronavirus.
The very next minute, Burr’s brother-in-law, Gerald Fauth, called his broker.
ProPublica previously reported that Fauth, a member of the National Mediation Board, had dumped stock the same day Burr did. But it was previously unknown that Burr and Fauth spoke that day, and that their contact came just before Fauth began the process of dumping stock himself.
The revelations come as part of an effort by the SEC to force Fauth to comply with a subpoena that the agency said he has stonewalled for more than a year, and which was filed not long after ProPublica’s story.
In the filings, the SEC also revealed that there is an ongoing insider trading investigation into both Burr and Fauth’s trades.
It had previously been reported that federal prosecutors had decided not to charge Burr.
Burr’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions. Fauth’s lawyer and the SEC did not respond to questions. Fauth hung up on a ProPublica reporter.
According to the SEC, Fauth has cited a medical condition for why he cannot comply with the subpoena, even as he has been healthy enough to continue his duties at the National Mediation Board. In its filings, the SEC accuses Fauth of engaging in “a relentless battle” to dodge the subpoena.
In 2017, President Donald Trump appointed Fauth to the three-person board, a federal agency that facilitates labor-management relations within the nation’s railroad and airline industries. President Joe Biden reappointed him to the board.
On the day he received the call from Burr, Fauth sold between $97,000 and $280,000 worth of shares in six companies — including several that were hit particularly hard in the market swoon and economic downturn. According to the SEC, the first broker he called after hearing from Burr was out of the office, so he immediately called another broker to execute the trades.
In its filings, the SEC also alleges, for the first time, that Burr had material nonpublic information about the economic impact of the coming coronavirus crisis, based on his role at the time as chairman of the intelligence committee, as a member of the health committee and through former staffers who were directing key aspects of the government response to the virus.
The week after the trades, the market began its crash, falling by more than 30% in the subsequent month.
Burr came under scrutiny after ProPublica reported that he sold off a significant percentage of his stocks shortly before the market tanked, unloading between $628,000 and $1.72 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 33 separate transactions. The precise amount of his stock sales, more than $1.6 million, is also a new detail from this week’s SEC filings. In his roles on the intelligence and health committees, Burr had access to the government’s most highly classified information about threats to America’s security and public health concerns.
They talked for 50 seconds.
Burr, according to the SEC, had material nonpublic information regarding the incoming economic impact of coronavirus.
The very next minute, Burr’s brother-in-law, Gerald Fauth, called his broker.
ProPublica previously reported that Fauth, a member of the National Mediation Board, had dumped stock the same day Burr did. But it was previously unknown that Burr and Fauth spoke that day, and that their contact came just before Fauth began the process of dumping stock himself.
The revelations come as part of an effort by the SEC to force Fauth to comply with a subpoena that the agency said he has stonewalled for more than a year, and which was filed not long after ProPublica’s story.
In the filings, the SEC also revealed that there is an ongoing insider trading investigation into both Burr and Fauth’s trades.
It had previously been reported that federal prosecutors had decided not to charge Burr.
Burr’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions. Fauth’s lawyer and the SEC did not respond to questions. Fauth hung up on a ProPublica reporter.
According to the SEC, Fauth has cited a medical condition for why he cannot comply with the subpoena, even as he has been healthy enough to continue his duties at the National Mediation Board. In its filings, the SEC accuses Fauth of engaging in “a relentless battle” to dodge the subpoena.
In 2017, President Donald Trump appointed Fauth to the three-person board, a federal agency that facilitates labor-management relations within the nation’s railroad and airline industries. President Joe Biden reappointed him to the board.
On the day he received the call from Burr, Fauth sold between $97,000 and $280,000 worth of shares in six companies — including several that were hit particularly hard in the market swoon and economic downturn. According to the SEC, the first broker he called after hearing from Burr was out of the office, so he immediately called another broker to execute the trades.
In its filings, the SEC also alleges, for the first time, that Burr had material nonpublic information about the economic impact of the coming coronavirus crisis, based on his role at the time as chairman of the intelligence committee, as a member of the health committee and through former staffers who were directing key aspects of the government response to the virus.
The week after the trades, the market began its crash, falling by more than 30% in the subsequent month.
Burr came under scrutiny after ProPublica reported that he sold off a significant percentage of his stocks shortly before the market tanked, unloading between $628,000 and $1.72 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 33 separate transactions. The precise amount of his stock sales, more than $1.6 million, is also a new detail from this week’s SEC filings. In his roles on the intelligence and health committees, Burr had access to the government’s most highly classified information about threats to America’s security and public health concerns.
Louis DeJoy rolls out plan to slow USPS, despite calls for his ouster
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s “strategic plan” means postal service will be slower and more expensive
By TRISH ROONEY - SALON
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 29, 2021 4:33PM (EDT)
Americans should expect the U.S. Postal Service to become permanently slower and, for the 2021 holiday season at least, more expensive after a number of new changes championed by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who is facing calls to resign over his alleged conflicts of interest.
DeJoy, a prominent Republican fundraiser, was appointed to his position by then-President Donald Trump in March 2020 despite the fact that he had no previous postal service experience. Earlier this summer news surfaced that the FBI was investigating DeJoy for campaign finance violations while he was CEO of a private logistics firm — allegedly pressuring employees to attend GOP fundraisers or donate to Republicans before they were paid back in bonuses.
The most recent changes to the USPS come as a result of DeJoy's 10-year strategic plan, first announced in March, which included plans for "longer first-class delivery windows" and "reduced post office hours and higher postage prices."
The plan was widely critiqued by Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said that the plan would undermine the mission of the USPS, "resulting in serious delays and the degradation of service for millions." The American Postal Workers Union, in a message to members, said the plan was a "series of actions that will undermine the postal service and are an insult to every postal worker, every postal craft and every postal customer."
USPS spokeswoman Kim Frum announced the changes this Friday, saying the Postal Service will "implement new service standards for First Class Mail and Periodicals."
This means that there will be increased time-in-transit for mail traveling long distances, particularly first-class mail, which could take up to 30% longer to reach its destination, according to the USPS.
Frum also announced that as of Oct. 3, the Postal Service will temporarily increase prices on all commercial and retail domestic packages because of the holiday season.
Despite its status as a public utility, the USPS has been criticized for years over its poor financial performance — last year alone, for example, the USPS lost more than $9 billion. DeJoy told lawmakers in February that the entire system was "in a death spiral," and that legislation is needed to help restore it to financial stability.
But hovering over these plans for the USPS are additional accusations of cronyism lingering over DeJoy's tenure as Postmaster General.
This summer, the USPS awarded a $120 million contract to XPO Logistics, a company DeJoy's family maintains financial ties with. DeJoy also holds a significant amount of stock in Amazon, seen by some as a USPS competitor, while making governmental changes that may affect the company's shareholder value. In August, a federal judge ruled that the "US Postal Service must give the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington documents about potential conflicts of interest by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy."
House Democrats have called on President Biden to oust DeJoy by appointing new members to the Postal Service Board of Governors, which appoints the Postmaster General. Currently, the majority of sitting governors were appointed by Trump.
Rep. Jimmy Gomez, a California Democrat leading the charge for DeJoy's ouster, called his tenure as postmaster general "a masterclass in cronyism and deception.
"The amount of suspicion I had about him and his efforts to intentionally undermine delivery times at [USPS] could have filled the Grand Canyon," he tweeted. "The Board of Governors should #FireDeJoy."
DeJoy was also accused of attempting to "sabotage" the 2020 election as early as last August, and appeared before Congress to answer for his policy changes at USPS that slowed postal delivery times ahead of a record number of mail-in ballots last fall due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
DeJoy, a prominent Republican fundraiser, was appointed to his position by then-President Donald Trump in March 2020 despite the fact that he had no previous postal service experience. Earlier this summer news surfaced that the FBI was investigating DeJoy for campaign finance violations while he was CEO of a private logistics firm — allegedly pressuring employees to attend GOP fundraisers or donate to Republicans before they were paid back in bonuses.
The most recent changes to the USPS come as a result of DeJoy's 10-year strategic plan, first announced in March, which included plans for "longer first-class delivery windows" and "reduced post office hours and higher postage prices."
The plan was widely critiqued by Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said that the plan would undermine the mission of the USPS, "resulting in serious delays and the degradation of service for millions." The American Postal Workers Union, in a message to members, said the plan was a "series of actions that will undermine the postal service and are an insult to every postal worker, every postal craft and every postal customer."
USPS spokeswoman Kim Frum announced the changes this Friday, saying the Postal Service will "implement new service standards for First Class Mail and Periodicals."
This means that there will be increased time-in-transit for mail traveling long distances, particularly first-class mail, which could take up to 30% longer to reach its destination, according to the USPS.
Frum also announced that as of Oct. 3, the Postal Service will temporarily increase prices on all commercial and retail domestic packages because of the holiday season.
Despite its status as a public utility, the USPS has been criticized for years over its poor financial performance — last year alone, for example, the USPS lost more than $9 billion. DeJoy told lawmakers in February that the entire system was "in a death spiral," and that legislation is needed to help restore it to financial stability.
But hovering over these plans for the USPS are additional accusations of cronyism lingering over DeJoy's tenure as Postmaster General.
This summer, the USPS awarded a $120 million contract to XPO Logistics, a company DeJoy's family maintains financial ties with. DeJoy also holds a significant amount of stock in Amazon, seen by some as a USPS competitor, while making governmental changes that may affect the company's shareholder value. In August, a federal judge ruled that the "US Postal Service must give the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington documents about potential conflicts of interest by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy."
House Democrats have called on President Biden to oust DeJoy by appointing new members to the Postal Service Board of Governors, which appoints the Postmaster General. Currently, the majority of sitting governors were appointed by Trump.
Rep. Jimmy Gomez, a California Democrat leading the charge for DeJoy's ouster, called his tenure as postmaster general "a masterclass in cronyism and deception.
"The amount of suspicion I had about him and his efforts to intentionally undermine delivery times at [USPS] could have filled the Grand Canyon," he tweeted. "The Board of Governors should #FireDeJoy."
DeJoy was also accused of attempting to "sabotage" the 2020 election as early as last August, and appeared before Congress to answer for his policy changes at USPS that slowed postal delivery times ahead of a record number of mail-in ballots last fall due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
our worthless political class!!!
GOP car salesmen bill feds for millions
All three Republicans abstained from or voted against legislation that would have added transparency to the program
By JON SKOLNIK - salon
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 25, 2021 8:23AM (EDT
While President Biden's CARES Act has in many ways proven a lifeline for thousands of businesses struggling to stay afloat amid the COVID-19 crisis, the PPP loan program, coordinated by the Small Business Administration (SBA), has also been the subject of great controversy, with many critics arguing that its provisions were abused by massive corporations that hardly needed the extra boost.
Back in December, The New York Times reported that just 1% of the businesses that received federal COVID-19 relief raked in over a quarter of the total loan amounts disbursed. "The money," the Times wrote, "was shared unevenly, with the biggest sums going to a sliver of the companies in need." Roughly 600 large businesses received maximum loans amounts of $10 million. Even public companies with massive cash reserves – like Ruth's Chris, Shake Shack, and AutoNation – took in PPP loans, casting doubt over the program's ability to fairly distribute aid.
The program, however, faced it's perhaps worst reputational blow even months before that report, when it was revealed that scores of lawmakers (and their families) received millions in loans for their own personal businesses, even when these same lawmakers may have had a hand in writing the program's provisions. To boot, some of these lawmakers opposed legislation that would have added to the program's transparency, potentially allowing them to benefit from undue federal aid behind the curtain.
According to a Sludge report, at least 28 members of Congress (or their spouses) benefited from some $27 million in small business loans. Some of these members include Reps. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., Kevin Hern, R-Okla., Greg Pence, R-Ind., and Carol Miller, R-W.Va.
One of these lawmakers, Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., received federal loans ranging between $150,000 and $350,000 for his various car dealerships, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Kelly, who voted "no" on the TRUTH Act – which would have required the SBA to disclose all of the PPP's recipients in addition to their loan amounts – is tied to four businesses that benefited from the program, including Mike Kelly Automotive Group Inc., Mike Kelly Automotive LP, Mike Kelly Hyundai Inc., and Kelly Chevrolet Cadillac.
A spokesperson for his office told the Inquirer that Kelly is "not involved in the day-to-day operations of his auto dealerships and was not part of the discussions between the business and the PPP lender." However, The Post Gazette found last July that he was still named as the president of Mike Kelly Hyundai, Mike Kelly Automotive, and Kelly Chevrolet Cadillac on one of his recent House financial disclosures, with his wife reporting a salary from Kelly Chevrolet Cadillac.
Kelly is the 39th wealthiest member of Congress, according to a 2018 analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, with a net worth of $12.4 million.
Other lawmakers who benefited from the PPP program include Reps. Roger Williams, R-Tex., and Vern Buchanan, R-Fla.
According to Sludge, Williams, who boasts a net worth of $27.7 million, took in over $1.4 million for his JRW Corporation, valued $50 million back in 2019. The conservative legislator also reaped federal aid for his Roger Williams Chrysler Dodge Jeep dealership in North Texas.
"I didn't personally benefit from [the loan]," he told Fox Business Network last year. "I've got hundreds of employees – they benefited from it."
Earlier that year, in March of 2020, Williams painted a very different picture of government subsidies, telling The Epoch Times that "a socialist wants you to get a check from the government...a capitalist wants you to get a check from the place that you work."
Williams, who voted against the TRUTH Act, also came under scrutiny from the House Ethics Committee back in 2016, when he tucked an ostensibly self-serving provision into President Obama's Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act. The line item, which he himself authored, effectively ensured that his own dealerships would be able to skirt a federal prohibition on renting out cars under safety recalls.
Rep. Buchanan, the third wealthiest member of Congress as of 2018, engaged in similar conduct with his various car dealerships. The Bradenton Herald reported that the Florida lawmaker, worth roughly $74 million, accepted loans totaling anywhere from $2.7 million to $7 million for three of his personal businesses. The largest went to Sarasota Ford, his Sarasota-based car dealership in which he reportedly owns a $50 million stake.
Like Kelly, Buchanan downplayed the significance of the federal aid, arguing that he himself does not manage the dealerships. But many government accountability advocates have speculated that Buchanan's move was an abuse of power.
"While small businesses in Sarasota and Bradenton struggled to get federal aid, Buchanan cut in line and got a loan in the earliest days of the program – after the Trump administration exempted members of Congress from going through a normally mandatory ethics review before getting a loan," Sarah Guggenheimer, DCCC Regional Press Secretary, wrote.
Buchanan did not vote on the TRUTH Act. His past campaign finance practices have been marred with accusations of corruption, as well as subsequent investigations by the Department of Justice, the FBI, the FEC, and the House Ethics Committee.
During the program's administration, which ended back in May, there was no rule barring federal lawmakers (or their families) from applying for a PPP loan, and no one has explicitly argued that such legislators broke any laws.
However, "it certainly looks bad and smells bad," Aaron Scherb, a spokesperson for Common Cause, told Fortune, suggesting that their participation in the program poses a significant conflict of interest. According to a Politico report from last year, Congress mandated no specific disclosure rules around PPP loans for its own members.
"There likely are several other cases of family and friends of public officials receiving bailout funds," echoed Craig Holman, Public Citizen's Capitol Hill lobbyist, to Roll Call. "However, the general lack of disclosure of most recipients of PPP funds prevents the public from knowing all the lawmakers who benefited from their legislative actions."
Back in December, The New York Times reported that just 1% of the businesses that received federal COVID-19 relief raked in over a quarter of the total loan amounts disbursed. "The money," the Times wrote, "was shared unevenly, with the biggest sums going to a sliver of the companies in need." Roughly 600 large businesses received maximum loans amounts of $10 million. Even public companies with massive cash reserves – like Ruth's Chris, Shake Shack, and AutoNation – took in PPP loans, casting doubt over the program's ability to fairly distribute aid.
The program, however, faced it's perhaps worst reputational blow even months before that report, when it was revealed that scores of lawmakers (and their families) received millions in loans for their own personal businesses, even when these same lawmakers may have had a hand in writing the program's provisions. To boot, some of these lawmakers opposed legislation that would have added to the program's transparency, potentially allowing them to benefit from undue federal aid behind the curtain.
According to a Sludge report, at least 28 members of Congress (or their spouses) benefited from some $27 million in small business loans. Some of these members include Reps. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., Kevin Hern, R-Okla., Greg Pence, R-Ind., and Carol Miller, R-W.Va.
One of these lawmakers, Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., received federal loans ranging between $150,000 and $350,000 for his various car dealerships, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Kelly, who voted "no" on the TRUTH Act – which would have required the SBA to disclose all of the PPP's recipients in addition to their loan amounts – is tied to four businesses that benefited from the program, including Mike Kelly Automotive Group Inc., Mike Kelly Automotive LP, Mike Kelly Hyundai Inc., and Kelly Chevrolet Cadillac.
A spokesperson for his office told the Inquirer that Kelly is "not involved in the day-to-day operations of his auto dealerships and was not part of the discussions between the business and the PPP lender." However, The Post Gazette found last July that he was still named as the president of Mike Kelly Hyundai, Mike Kelly Automotive, and Kelly Chevrolet Cadillac on one of his recent House financial disclosures, with his wife reporting a salary from Kelly Chevrolet Cadillac.
Kelly is the 39th wealthiest member of Congress, according to a 2018 analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, with a net worth of $12.4 million.
Other lawmakers who benefited from the PPP program include Reps. Roger Williams, R-Tex., and Vern Buchanan, R-Fla.
According to Sludge, Williams, who boasts a net worth of $27.7 million, took in over $1.4 million for his JRW Corporation, valued $50 million back in 2019. The conservative legislator also reaped federal aid for his Roger Williams Chrysler Dodge Jeep dealership in North Texas.
"I didn't personally benefit from [the loan]," he told Fox Business Network last year. "I've got hundreds of employees – they benefited from it."
Earlier that year, in March of 2020, Williams painted a very different picture of government subsidies, telling The Epoch Times that "a socialist wants you to get a check from the government...a capitalist wants you to get a check from the place that you work."
Williams, who voted against the TRUTH Act, also came under scrutiny from the House Ethics Committee back in 2016, when he tucked an ostensibly self-serving provision into President Obama's Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act. The line item, which he himself authored, effectively ensured that his own dealerships would be able to skirt a federal prohibition on renting out cars under safety recalls.
Rep. Buchanan, the third wealthiest member of Congress as of 2018, engaged in similar conduct with his various car dealerships. The Bradenton Herald reported that the Florida lawmaker, worth roughly $74 million, accepted loans totaling anywhere from $2.7 million to $7 million for three of his personal businesses. The largest went to Sarasota Ford, his Sarasota-based car dealership in which he reportedly owns a $50 million stake.
Like Kelly, Buchanan downplayed the significance of the federal aid, arguing that he himself does not manage the dealerships. But many government accountability advocates have speculated that Buchanan's move was an abuse of power.
"While small businesses in Sarasota and Bradenton struggled to get federal aid, Buchanan cut in line and got a loan in the earliest days of the program – after the Trump administration exempted members of Congress from going through a normally mandatory ethics review before getting a loan," Sarah Guggenheimer, DCCC Regional Press Secretary, wrote.
Buchanan did not vote on the TRUTH Act. His past campaign finance practices have been marred with accusations of corruption, as well as subsequent investigations by the Department of Justice, the FBI, the FEC, and the House Ethics Committee.
During the program's administration, which ended back in May, there was no rule barring federal lawmakers (or their families) from applying for a PPP loan, and no one has explicitly argued that such legislators broke any laws.
However, "it certainly looks bad and smells bad," Aaron Scherb, a spokesperson for Common Cause, told Fortune, suggesting that their participation in the program poses a significant conflict of interest. According to a Politico report from last year, Congress mandated no specific disclosure rules around PPP loans for its own members.
"There likely are several other cases of family and friends of public officials receiving bailout funds," echoed Craig Holman, Public Citizen's Capitol Hill lobbyist, to Roll Call. "However, the general lack of disclosure of most recipients of PPP funds prevents the public from knowing all the lawmakers who benefited from their legislative actions."
Public corruption investigation links prominent Republicans across Florida
Sarah K. Burris - RAW STORY
June 23, 2021
A trial is set to begin in Aug. for a Tallahassee-based political organization, reported the Miami Herald.
"The eight-month investigation is focused on former Sen. Frank Artiles, a Republican operative, Alexis 'Pedro' Rodriguez, an auto-parts dealer with financial woes and an alleged plot to successfully sway the outcome of Miami-Dade's Senate District 37 race in favor of the Republican candidate," the Herald explained.
According to prosecutors, Sen. Artiles got his longtime friend (Rodriguez) to change his party from a Republican to "no party" and enter the race because he had the same last name as the Democrat. For his troubles, Rodriguez would be given $50,000.
"The no-party candidate got more than 6,000 votes in a race decided by just over two dozen, ousting incumbent Democrat José Javier Rodríguez after a manual recount," said the report.
The arrest documents showed that Rodriguez thought Artiles would pay him because a GOP operative claimed, "We have money in an account." He never got the full $50,000 but he did get $45,000. It wasn't in an account either. It was part of stacks of cash that were found in Artiles' home.
"The transactions have spun into a chase for answers as to where the money came from — and whether secretive political groups have played a role in more than $500,000 spent on political mail advertisements to bolster Rodriguez's candidacy and two other no-party candidates who ran in two other competitive state Senate races, one in Miami-Dade and another in Seminole County, all won by Republicans," the Herald explained.
The men are now both facing felony charges but both have pleaded not guilty.
"In arrest documents, prosecutors also identified a third party who withdrew $9,000 from a First Horizon Bank branch in Palmetto Bay, and gave the cash to Rodriguez," the report also said. "The third party has yet to be named or charged, but court records show a Facebook friend of Artiles has retained an attorney as prosecutors look into one of his accounts at that same bank. The friend's attorney did not respond to multiple requests for comment."
The list of witnesses, however, is reaching deep into the Florida Republican Party with top GOP consultants being involved.
There's no talk of conducting another election for the Florida Senate seat, which had an outcome based on fraud.
Read the full report.
"The eight-month investigation is focused on former Sen. Frank Artiles, a Republican operative, Alexis 'Pedro' Rodriguez, an auto-parts dealer with financial woes and an alleged plot to successfully sway the outcome of Miami-Dade's Senate District 37 race in favor of the Republican candidate," the Herald explained.
According to prosecutors, Sen. Artiles got his longtime friend (Rodriguez) to change his party from a Republican to "no party" and enter the race because he had the same last name as the Democrat. For his troubles, Rodriguez would be given $50,000.
"The no-party candidate got more than 6,000 votes in a race decided by just over two dozen, ousting incumbent Democrat José Javier Rodríguez after a manual recount," said the report.
The arrest documents showed that Rodriguez thought Artiles would pay him because a GOP operative claimed, "We have money in an account." He never got the full $50,000 but he did get $45,000. It wasn't in an account either. It was part of stacks of cash that were found in Artiles' home.
"The transactions have spun into a chase for answers as to where the money came from — and whether secretive political groups have played a role in more than $500,000 spent on political mail advertisements to bolster Rodriguez's candidacy and two other no-party candidates who ran in two other competitive state Senate races, one in Miami-Dade and another in Seminole County, all won by Republicans," the Herald explained.
The men are now both facing felony charges but both have pleaded not guilty.
"In arrest documents, prosecutors also identified a third party who withdrew $9,000 from a First Horizon Bank branch in Palmetto Bay, and gave the cash to Rodriguez," the report also said. "The third party has yet to be named or charged, but court records show a Facebook friend of Artiles has retained an attorney as prosecutors look into one of his accounts at that same bank. The friend's attorney did not respond to multiple requests for comment."
The list of witnesses, however, is reaching deep into the Florida Republican Party with top GOP consultants being involved.
There's no talk of conducting another election for the Florida Senate seat, which had an outcome based on fraud.
Read the full report.
the corruption continues!!!
AS THE REVOLVING DOOR SPINS, LOBBYISTS HIRED FOR TOP JOBS IN CONGRESS YET AGAIN
Special interests and corporations will see familiar voices when visiting legislators.
Lee Fang - the intercept
January 11 2021, 8:27 a.m.
BEYOND THE HEADLINES around the unprecedented storming of Capitol Hill by rampagers and violent extremists, a more mundane group of Washington, D.C., insiders is trickling into the halls of government.
The newly elected Congress is hiring a wave of corporate lobbyists to fill key staff roles.
The embrace of lobbyists makes Congress a welcoming environment for their former corporate clients, which now have an inside voice in the legislative process. For many large companies seeking favor in Congress, their current lobbyists will meet with former colleagues to hash out policy.
In the Senate, lobbyists are scoring top jobs on a weekly basis. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, an influential moderate, hired a new chief of staff who previously represented Alaska mining interests last month. Shortly after his reelection in November, Sen. Gary Peter, D-Mich., who sits on a subcommittee overseeing internet policy, hired a former Google lobbyist as his counsel and committee legislative aide.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., after his reelection hired a Kentucky lobbyist whose firm touts its ties to the Kentucky congressional delegation while representing AT&T, DaVita, and Cisco, among other clients.
Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., the incoming ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, last week chose Martha Scott Poindexter as the committee’s top GOP staffer. Poindexter currently works as a lobbyist for the agribusiness transit firm Bunge.
In the House of Representatives, lobbyists are similarly snagging senior positions. The newly appointed chief of staff to Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., is Sarah Slocum Collins, who just left her position as an in-house lobbyist for Tyson Foods, the factory farming giant. Rep. Tracey Mann, R-Kan., selected the former government relations manager of the Farmers’ Rice Cooperative.
Earlier this month, Rep. Kathy Manning, D-N.C., appointed Sarah Curtis, a lobbyist for the Mayo Clinic, as her chief of staff.
None of the lawmakers’ offices responded to a request for comment.
Jeff Hauser, the director of the Revolving Door Project, an oversight initiative of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, has raised concerns about the personnel choices.
“We think decisions reveal a lot about people, and we believe most people are basically OK with their past decisions. So if you chose to lobby for Google last year, you’re unlikely to believe this year that Google is the consequence of dozens of illegal mergers and government action must render ‘Google’ unrecognizable,” said Hauser. “And that goes for all corporate lobbying: You’re choosing to associate yourself with a narrow private interest, and that will impact your ability to adjust when you’re suddenly tasked with working in the public interest.”
IT’S NOT JUST in Congress. The incoming Biden administration has announced several lobbyists for key positions. Louisa Terrell, a government affairs official at the consulting firm McKinsey & Company and a former lobbyist for Facebook, will serve as the director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, handling negotiations with Congress.
Steve Ricchetti, a longtime adviser to President-elect Joe Biden, was named as the White House counselor shortly after the election. Ricchetti is a former corporate lobbyist whose brother still operates a firm under the family name. Just after the announcement, Amazon signed the family lobbying firm, run by his brother Jeff Ricchetti, to represent its interests before the administration.
The rush of lobbyists taking jobs in government is a long-practiced tradition. President Barack Obama promised to crack down on the dynamic, issuing an executive order that banned registered lobbyists from his administration. But the order simply prompted a mass deregistration of lobbyists, concealing the public disclosure of influence peddling, while Obama continued to appoint lobbyists through special waivers.
President Donald Trump issued a relatively similar executive order, though his administration welcomed scores of corporate lobbyists nonetheless. Several cabinet members, such as Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator and former secretary of defense, were former corporate lobbyists, overseeing matters that impacted their former employers.
Congress receives less attention, though the dynamic is pervasive. In previous years, lobbyists who specialize in writing tax loopholes for businesses were appointed to the House and Senate committees in charge of tax policy. The top officials leading the House and Senate intelligence committees have often been former lobbyists for surveillance-focused defense contractors.
The newly elected Congress is hiring a wave of corporate lobbyists to fill key staff roles.
The embrace of lobbyists makes Congress a welcoming environment for their former corporate clients, which now have an inside voice in the legislative process. For many large companies seeking favor in Congress, their current lobbyists will meet with former colleagues to hash out policy.
In the Senate, lobbyists are scoring top jobs on a weekly basis. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, an influential moderate, hired a new chief of staff who previously represented Alaska mining interests last month. Shortly after his reelection in November, Sen. Gary Peter, D-Mich., who sits on a subcommittee overseeing internet policy, hired a former Google lobbyist as his counsel and committee legislative aide.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., after his reelection hired a Kentucky lobbyist whose firm touts its ties to the Kentucky congressional delegation while representing AT&T, DaVita, and Cisco, among other clients.
Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., the incoming ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, last week chose Martha Scott Poindexter as the committee’s top GOP staffer. Poindexter currently works as a lobbyist for the agribusiness transit firm Bunge.
In the House of Representatives, lobbyists are similarly snagging senior positions. The newly appointed chief of staff to Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., is Sarah Slocum Collins, who just left her position as an in-house lobbyist for Tyson Foods, the factory farming giant. Rep. Tracey Mann, R-Kan., selected the former government relations manager of the Farmers’ Rice Cooperative.
Earlier this month, Rep. Kathy Manning, D-N.C., appointed Sarah Curtis, a lobbyist for the Mayo Clinic, as her chief of staff.
None of the lawmakers’ offices responded to a request for comment.
Jeff Hauser, the director of the Revolving Door Project, an oversight initiative of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, has raised concerns about the personnel choices.
“We think decisions reveal a lot about people, and we believe most people are basically OK with their past decisions. So if you chose to lobby for Google last year, you’re unlikely to believe this year that Google is the consequence of dozens of illegal mergers and government action must render ‘Google’ unrecognizable,” said Hauser. “And that goes for all corporate lobbying: You’re choosing to associate yourself with a narrow private interest, and that will impact your ability to adjust when you’re suddenly tasked with working in the public interest.”
IT’S NOT JUST in Congress. The incoming Biden administration has announced several lobbyists for key positions. Louisa Terrell, a government affairs official at the consulting firm McKinsey & Company and a former lobbyist for Facebook, will serve as the director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, handling negotiations with Congress.
Steve Ricchetti, a longtime adviser to President-elect Joe Biden, was named as the White House counselor shortly after the election. Ricchetti is a former corporate lobbyist whose brother still operates a firm under the family name. Just after the announcement, Amazon signed the family lobbying firm, run by his brother Jeff Ricchetti, to represent its interests before the administration.
The rush of lobbyists taking jobs in government is a long-practiced tradition. President Barack Obama promised to crack down on the dynamic, issuing an executive order that banned registered lobbyists from his administration. But the order simply prompted a mass deregistration of lobbyists, concealing the public disclosure of influence peddling, while Obama continued to appoint lobbyists through special waivers.
President Donald Trump issued a relatively similar executive order, though his administration welcomed scores of corporate lobbyists nonetheless. Several cabinet members, such as Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator and former secretary of defense, were former corporate lobbyists, overseeing matters that impacted their former employers.
Congress receives less attention, though the dynamic is pervasive. In previous years, lobbyists who specialize in writing tax loopholes for businesses were appointed to the House and Senate committees in charge of tax policy. The top officials leading the House and Senate intelligence committees have often been former lobbyists for surveillance-focused defense contractors.
Jared Kushner signed off on secret payments to top campaign officials, source says
Source tells Salon that dubious shell-company arrangements to pay top officials were approved by Kushner and Trump
By ROGER SOLLENBERGER - SALON
DECEMBER 22, 2020 11:00AM (UTC)
Top White House adviser Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law, personally signed off on keeping salary payments to top campaign officials off the books, according to a person involved with the arrangements.
Federal Election Commission records show that the Trump campaign has made no salary payments to chief strategist Jason Miller, who came on board in June, or to campaign manager Bill Stepien, who joined the campaign in late 2018 and took over the top job from Brad Parscale in July. Kushner agreed to both arrangements, and personally directed the payments to Miller, the person involved said.
While the Trump campaign has reported $20,000 monthly salary payments to chief of staff Stephanie Alexander and senior adviser Katrina Pierson, it has not done the same for COO Jeff DeWit or senior advisers Bob Paduchik and Bill Shine. Deputy campaign manager Justin Clark has not taken a direct payment from the campaign since February 2019, according to federal records.
Instead, the campaign has paid these top-tier advisers through intermediaries — some of which are still unknown.
For instance, according to the source, after salary negotiations with Miller, Kushner directed the campaign to route the top strategist's $35,000 monthly payment through Jamestown Associates, a media and production firm where Miller once worked, and which the campaign contracts for video production. Miller, who is currently contesting child-support payments in court, requested the anonymous arrangement for the $420,000 annual rate, for unclear reasons. Communications, court documents and FEC filings reviewed by Salon make clear that the money was paid to by way of Jamestown. President Trump himself was aware of the deal, a person involved said.
To this point, the campaign has not told government that it has paid Miller anything. Instead, it has stated that all payments to Jamestown are for "video production," without mentioning Miller's name or strategy work. Furthermore, Miller's official role means that he has often directed how and when the campaign uses Jamestown Associates, the company that technically pays him.
Stepien replaced Parscale as campaign manager in mid-July, and allegedly pleased Trump by taking a pay cut when he accepted the position. Salon reported last week that in 2018 the campaign created an in-house shell company called American Made Media Consultants (AMMC) in response to rumors about Parscale's spending, which according to a campaign source had made the president uneasy.
Reports over the summer said that Parscale had stepped aside partly in response to criticism of his profligate spending, which Stepien promised to rein in. In fact, the campaign's expenses increased significantly after Stepien took over, including, FEC records show, payments to a company called Elections LLC, a legal firm that Stepien founded in 2019 with fellow campaign adviser Justin Clark.
Stepien and Clark, who worked together in the Trump White House until late 2018, were paid by the firm instead of directly by the campaign, according to a person involved, and Kushner approved the third-party arrangement. FEC records show that some campaign expenses to Elections LLC are marked "ATTN: Stefan Passantino" — the former White House deputy counsel who also incorporated the campaign committee for Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican and QAnon supporter. Payments to Elections LLC increased from $20,000 a month to $60,000 over the course of 2020.
Stepien and Clark formed another firm in February 2019, called National Public Affairs. A Trump spokesperson told Salon that AMMC does not pay that firm, but would not say whether Stepien was paid through Elections LLC.
By contrast, Parscale's salary came through a firm that had his name on it — Parscale Strategy — which took in more than $47,700 a month until the campaign reduced that by $15,000 a month following his demotion, federal filings show.
Another top campaign adviser, Bob Paduchik, also does not appear to have received any payments from the campaign. Paduchik served as co-chair of the Republican National Committee from January 2017 to January 2019, when he departed to work for the Trump campaign. Federal records show that the RNC had him on the payroll during that time, but those RNC payments actually increased after he left for the campaign — except they then went to his consulting firm, Agincourt.
It is even less clear how the campaign compensates Shine, a former Fox News executive who was on the network's payroll while serving in the Trump White House. The same holds true for campaign COO Jeff DeWit, whom Trump had previously appointed as CFO at NASA.
It's not clear what role Kushner had in those arrangements, if any, but the person familiar with the campaign told Salon that Kushner would have signed off on any and all decisions at that level.
Trump campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh told Salon that the allegation Kushner had signed off on the payment arrangements was false, and said that "the campaign reported all expenditures as required by federal law." Murtaugh did not respond to specific follow-up questions about how top campaign officials were compensated.
When previously asked about the missing payroll receipts, Brendan Fischer, director of the Federal Reform Program at the Campaign Legal Center, told Salon, "It doesn't surprise me at all. The Trump campaign has disguised millions of dollars in payments to personnel and vendors by routing the money through LLCs created or managed by senior Trump campaign officials."
In July the CLC filed an FEC complaint alleging that the Trump campaign had unlawfully covered up at least $170 million in payments through AMMC, thereby keeping its spending a secret from federal enforcement agencies, its own donors and the public. Some campaign disbursements allegedly went towards salaries, the complaint says, such as payments to Kimberly Guilfoyle and Lara Trump, who were on the Parscale Strategy payroll.
Federal Election Commission records show that the Trump campaign has made no salary payments to chief strategist Jason Miller, who came on board in June, or to campaign manager Bill Stepien, who joined the campaign in late 2018 and took over the top job from Brad Parscale in July. Kushner agreed to both arrangements, and personally directed the payments to Miller, the person involved said.
While the Trump campaign has reported $20,000 monthly salary payments to chief of staff Stephanie Alexander and senior adviser Katrina Pierson, it has not done the same for COO Jeff DeWit or senior advisers Bob Paduchik and Bill Shine. Deputy campaign manager Justin Clark has not taken a direct payment from the campaign since February 2019, according to federal records.
Instead, the campaign has paid these top-tier advisers through intermediaries — some of which are still unknown.
For instance, according to the source, after salary negotiations with Miller, Kushner directed the campaign to route the top strategist's $35,000 monthly payment through Jamestown Associates, a media and production firm where Miller once worked, and which the campaign contracts for video production. Miller, who is currently contesting child-support payments in court, requested the anonymous arrangement for the $420,000 annual rate, for unclear reasons. Communications, court documents and FEC filings reviewed by Salon make clear that the money was paid to by way of Jamestown. President Trump himself was aware of the deal, a person involved said.
To this point, the campaign has not told government that it has paid Miller anything. Instead, it has stated that all payments to Jamestown are for "video production," without mentioning Miller's name or strategy work. Furthermore, Miller's official role means that he has often directed how and when the campaign uses Jamestown Associates, the company that technically pays him.
Stepien replaced Parscale as campaign manager in mid-July, and allegedly pleased Trump by taking a pay cut when he accepted the position. Salon reported last week that in 2018 the campaign created an in-house shell company called American Made Media Consultants (AMMC) in response to rumors about Parscale's spending, which according to a campaign source had made the president uneasy.
Reports over the summer said that Parscale had stepped aside partly in response to criticism of his profligate spending, which Stepien promised to rein in. In fact, the campaign's expenses increased significantly after Stepien took over, including, FEC records show, payments to a company called Elections LLC, a legal firm that Stepien founded in 2019 with fellow campaign adviser Justin Clark.
Stepien and Clark, who worked together in the Trump White House until late 2018, were paid by the firm instead of directly by the campaign, according to a person involved, and Kushner approved the third-party arrangement. FEC records show that some campaign expenses to Elections LLC are marked "ATTN: Stefan Passantino" — the former White House deputy counsel who also incorporated the campaign committee for Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican and QAnon supporter. Payments to Elections LLC increased from $20,000 a month to $60,000 over the course of 2020.
Stepien and Clark formed another firm in February 2019, called National Public Affairs. A Trump spokesperson told Salon that AMMC does not pay that firm, but would not say whether Stepien was paid through Elections LLC.
By contrast, Parscale's salary came through a firm that had his name on it — Parscale Strategy — which took in more than $47,700 a month until the campaign reduced that by $15,000 a month following his demotion, federal filings show.
Another top campaign adviser, Bob Paduchik, also does not appear to have received any payments from the campaign. Paduchik served as co-chair of the Republican National Committee from January 2017 to January 2019, when he departed to work for the Trump campaign. Federal records show that the RNC had him on the payroll during that time, but those RNC payments actually increased after he left for the campaign — except they then went to his consulting firm, Agincourt.
It is even less clear how the campaign compensates Shine, a former Fox News executive who was on the network's payroll while serving in the Trump White House. The same holds true for campaign COO Jeff DeWit, whom Trump had previously appointed as CFO at NASA.
It's not clear what role Kushner had in those arrangements, if any, but the person familiar with the campaign told Salon that Kushner would have signed off on any and all decisions at that level.
Trump campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh told Salon that the allegation Kushner had signed off on the payment arrangements was false, and said that "the campaign reported all expenditures as required by federal law." Murtaugh did not respond to specific follow-up questions about how top campaign officials were compensated.
When previously asked about the missing payroll receipts, Brendan Fischer, director of the Federal Reform Program at the Campaign Legal Center, told Salon, "It doesn't surprise me at all. The Trump campaign has disguised millions of dollars in payments to personnel and vendors by routing the money through LLCs created or managed by senior Trump campaign officials."
In July the CLC filed an FEC complaint alleging that the Trump campaign had unlawfully covered up at least $170 million in payments through AMMC, thereby keeping its spending a secret from federal enforcement agencies, its own donors and the public. Some campaign disbursements allegedly went towards salaries, the complaint says, such as payments to Kimberly Guilfoyle and Lara Trump, who were on the Parscale Strategy payroll.
don't have to rob the bank when the bank is crooked, just get in line!!!
Trump-related vendors got millions in COVID aid — while still getting paid by his campaign
Law firm that defended Trump, company that made MAGA hats and many others “used PPP as their pandemic piggy bank"
By IGOR DERYSH - salon
DECEMBER 16, 2020 11:00AM (UTC)
More than a half-dozen Trump campaign vendors received in excess of $7 million in coronavirus small business aid — despite collecting more than $60 million from the campaign.
The Small Business Administration released previously undisclosed Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) data earlier this month, in response to lawsuits from multiple news outlets and government watchdogs. Though the PPP was designed to help small firms, more than half of the funds went to larger businesses, including some linked to President Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The data also shows that at least seven Trump campaign vendors, more than previously reported, were awarded $7.5 million despite being paid more than $68 million by Trump committees.
"This program was intended to be a lifeline for mom-and-pop small businesses struggling to keep the lights on and meet payroll," Kyle Herrig, president of progressive government watchdog Accountable.US, said in a statement to Salon. "These companies took millions in tax dollars while lining their pockets with millions more from the Trump campaign. They used PPP as their pandemic piggy bank while those in real need lost out."
Harder LLP, the law firm of Charles Harder — who represented Trump in lawsuits brought by Stormy Daniels, the former adult film star who alleged an affair with Trump, and Alva Johnson, a former campaign aide who accused Trump of forcibly kissing her — received $214,000 under the PPP on April 9. A week later, Harder's firm received a payment of $226,972 from the Trump campaign, FEC records show. The firm has received nearly $3.7 million from Trump's campaign since 2018.
"Harder LLP is a small business that was heavily impacted during the early stages of the pandemic," Harder said in a statement to Salon. "Our revenue dropped and we were forced to cut costs — but because of the PPP loan, we were able to keep everyone at our firm employed. That was the purpose of the PPP loan program. We have since recovered. We will repay the loan, with interest to the American taxpayer, as required by the loan terms."
Harder alleged that many larger law firms who "likely performed work for Democratic Party candidates and campaigns" have received bigger PPP loans while laying off employees.
Cali-Fame, a company that manufactures "Make America Great Again" hats, received $786,000 under the PPP on April 28, according to SBA data. The aid was granted one day before the Trump Make America Great Committee paid the company $30,000 in two payments, according to Federal Election Commission records. The company has received $13,669,340 in payments from the Make America Great Committee and Trump's campaign since 2015, according to FEC records.
Jamestown Associates, a Philadelphia-based consulting and media firm, received roughly $353,000 under the PPP on April 8, the same day Trump's campaign paid it $29,000. FEC data shows that the company has received $11,978,379 from Trump's campaign and the Make America Great Again Committee for video production and media services.
Another communications consulting firm, Virginia-based Proactive Communications, received just under $20,000 under the PPP. The aid came about two weeks after the Trump campaign paid it over $73,000 for consulting services. The firm has collected about $2.69 million from the campaign since 2017, according to FEC records.
Some of the loans have been previously reported. Phunware, a Texas-based digital technology company that collects smartphone location data, received an unusually large $2.85 million loan under the PPP, which CBS News noted was "nearly 14 times" larger than the average loan of $206,000. The firm received the loan two days after submitting its application, raising questions about why it was processed so quickly. The loan was granted after the company received nearly $3 million from the Trump campaign last year. It previously earned most of its $31 million in revenue in 2018 from Fox Networks.
FLS Connect, a conservative communications firm based in Minnesota, received a $1.67 PPP loan in April despite collecting more than $5.5 million from the Trump campaign and the Make America Great Again Committee since June, according to FEC data.
The Communications Corporation of America, a Virginia-based direct mail company, received a $1.59 million PPP loan on April 10, about a week before it received two payments from the Make America Great Again Committee totaling more than $800,000. The company has raked in $28,495,181 from the committee and Trump's campaign since July 2016, according to FEC records.
Though the PPP has drawn bipartisan support, data released by the SBA has prompted calls to reform the program if Congress approves another round of funding. A Washington Post analysis of the data showed that more than half the funding for the program went to just 5% of recipients, mostly to big companies and national chains. Meanwhile, smaller firms quickly ran out of money as their loans expired and were forced to lay off workers. Businesses that received PPP loans cut an estimated 900,000 jobs as the funding dried up, according to an analysis by the payroll company Gusto.
An NBC News analysis of the SBA data showed that more than 25 PPP loans worth over $3.65 million went to companies linked to Trump and Kushner, including 15 that reported the loans saved one job or no jobs — or did not report a number at all.
"Many months and broken promises later, the court-ordered release of this crucial data while the Trump administration is one foot out the door is a shameful dereliction of duty and flagrant mismanagement of a program that millions of workers and small businesses needed to get through this pandemic," Herrig told NBC News.
The SBA defended its handling of the program.
"SBA's historically successful Covid relief loan programs have helped millions of small businesses and tens of millions of American workers when they needed it most," an agency spokesperson said in a statement.
But watchdog groups argued that the Trump administration opted to prioritize helping wealthy corporations over small firms.
"The data shows that this program primarily benefited the well-banked and well-lawyered at the expense of the small businesses it was supposed to benefit," Liz Hempowicz, director of public policy at the nonpartisan watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, told the Post. "Businesses in that top 5% likely have access to other capital. These are not the ones you would traditionally think of as a small business. It really raises questions about what the priorities of this SBA are. … Is it to help small business, or is it to return money to the top segment of the economy?"
The program has been widely criticized by small business owners since its inception. A group of small business owners filed a lawsuit in the spring accusing banks distributing the loans of prioritizing bigger existing corporate clients over the program's intended recipients.
"This new data verifies what we have heard directly from our small-business members — that the PPP program advantaged big businesses over small and exacerbated long-standing disparities in access to credit and capital for underbanked communities," Amanda Ballantyne, executive director of the small business advocacy group Main Street Alliance, told the Post.
Ashley Harrington of the Center for Responsible Lending added that the program's fees for banks "incentivized loans to larger businesses because banks could bring in larger fees from those firms. … Funneling the loans through existing SBA-approved lenders, banks and credit unions disadvantaged businesses of color, which have historically lacked access to credit."
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., have called for the program to be reformed in the next round of coronavirus relief to cap the loans at $2 million instead of $10 million and limit the loans to businesses with up to 300 employees, down from 500, according to the Post. The next round of funding is also likely to require businesses to show they have lost income in order to qualify.
Congress is "certainly in agreement that you want to limit the amount that can be given to these large organizations," Cardin told the Post. "We learned from the first round that [the program] was very effective at getting money out quickly, but those with established banking relationships got to the front of the line, in some cases at the expense of underserved businesses."
Herrig urged the lawmakers to ensure the next round avoids the "mismanagement" and "malpractice" of the first round.
"Only now — after its hand has been forced, hundreds of thousands of small businesses have gone under, and millions of taxpayer dollars were wasted — has this administration pulled back the curtains to reveal the malpractice going on behind the scenes," he told NBC News. "Americans deserved an open, transparent small business aid program when this pandemic started, and any new small business relief program must take a lesson from the abject failures of this one."
The Small Business Administration released previously undisclosed Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) data earlier this month, in response to lawsuits from multiple news outlets and government watchdogs. Though the PPP was designed to help small firms, more than half of the funds went to larger businesses, including some linked to President Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The data also shows that at least seven Trump campaign vendors, more than previously reported, were awarded $7.5 million despite being paid more than $68 million by Trump committees.
"This program was intended to be a lifeline for mom-and-pop small businesses struggling to keep the lights on and meet payroll," Kyle Herrig, president of progressive government watchdog Accountable.US, said in a statement to Salon. "These companies took millions in tax dollars while lining their pockets with millions more from the Trump campaign. They used PPP as their pandemic piggy bank while those in real need lost out."
Harder LLP, the law firm of Charles Harder — who represented Trump in lawsuits brought by Stormy Daniels, the former adult film star who alleged an affair with Trump, and Alva Johnson, a former campaign aide who accused Trump of forcibly kissing her — received $214,000 under the PPP on April 9. A week later, Harder's firm received a payment of $226,972 from the Trump campaign, FEC records show. The firm has received nearly $3.7 million from Trump's campaign since 2018.
"Harder LLP is a small business that was heavily impacted during the early stages of the pandemic," Harder said in a statement to Salon. "Our revenue dropped and we were forced to cut costs — but because of the PPP loan, we were able to keep everyone at our firm employed. That was the purpose of the PPP loan program. We have since recovered. We will repay the loan, with interest to the American taxpayer, as required by the loan terms."
Harder alleged that many larger law firms who "likely performed work for Democratic Party candidates and campaigns" have received bigger PPP loans while laying off employees.
Cali-Fame, a company that manufactures "Make America Great Again" hats, received $786,000 under the PPP on April 28, according to SBA data. The aid was granted one day before the Trump Make America Great Committee paid the company $30,000 in two payments, according to Federal Election Commission records. The company has received $13,669,340 in payments from the Make America Great Committee and Trump's campaign since 2015, according to FEC records.
Jamestown Associates, a Philadelphia-based consulting and media firm, received roughly $353,000 under the PPP on April 8, the same day Trump's campaign paid it $29,000. FEC data shows that the company has received $11,978,379 from Trump's campaign and the Make America Great Again Committee for video production and media services.
Another communications consulting firm, Virginia-based Proactive Communications, received just under $20,000 under the PPP. The aid came about two weeks after the Trump campaign paid it over $73,000 for consulting services. The firm has collected about $2.69 million from the campaign since 2017, according to FEC records.
Some of the loans have been previously reported. Phunware, a Texas-based digital technology company that collects smartphone location data, received an unusually large $2.85 million loan under the PPP, which CBS News noted was "nearly 14 times" larger than the average loan of $206,000. The firm received the loan two days after submitting its application, raising questions about why it was processed so quickly. The loan was granted after the company received nearly $3 million from the Trump campaign last year. It previously earned most of its $31 million in revenue in 2018 from Fox Networks.
FLS Connect, a conservative communications firm based in Minnesota, received a $1.67 PPP loan in April despite collecting more than $5.5 million from the Trump campaign and the Make America Great Again Committee since June, according to FEC data.
The Communications Corporation of America, a Virginia-based direct mail company, received a $1.59 million PPP loan on April 10, about a week before it received two payments from the Make America Great Again Committee totaling more than $800,000. The company has raked in $28,495,181 from the committee and Trump's campaign since July 2016, according to FEC records.
Though the PPP has drawn bipartisan support, data released by the SBA has prompted calls to reform the program if Congress approves another round of funding. A Washington Post analysis of the data showed that more than half the funding for the program went to just 5% of recipients, mostly to big companies and national chains. Meanwhile, smaller firms quickly ran out of money as their loans expired and were forced to lay off workers. Businesses that received PPP loans cut an estimated 900,000 jobs as the funding dried up, according to an analysis by the payroll company Gusto.
An NBC News analysis of the SBA data showed that more than 25 PPP loans worth over $3.65 million went to companies linked to Trump and Kushner, including 15 that reported the loans saved one job or no jobs — or did not report a number at all.
"Many months and broken promises later, the court-ordered release of this crucial data while the Trump administration is one foot out the door is a shameful dereliction of duty and flagrant mismanagement of a program that millions of workers and small businesses needed to get through this pandemic," Herrig told NBC News.
The SBA defended its handling of the program.
"SBA's historically successful Covid relief loan programs have helped millions of small businesses and tens of millions of American workers when they needed it most," an agency spokesperson said in a statement.
But watchdog groups argued that the Trump administration opted to prioritize helping wealthy corporations over small firms.
"The data shows that this program primarily benefited the well-banked and well-lawyered at the expense of the small businesses it was supposed to benefit," Liz Hempowicz, director of public policy at the nonpartisan watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, told the Post. "Businesses in that top 5% likely have access to other capital. These are not the ones you would traditionally think of as a small business. It really raises questions about what the priorities of this SBA are. … Is it to help small business, or is it to return money to the top segment of the economy?"
The program has been widely criticized by small business owners since its inception. A group of small business owners filed a lawsuit in the spring accusing banks distributing the loans of prioritizing bigger existing corporate clients over the program's intended recipients.
"This new data verifies what we have heard directly from our small-business members — that the PPP program advantaged big businesses over small and exacerbated long-standing disparities in access to credit and capital for underbanked communities," Amanda Ballantyne, executive director of the small business advocacy group Main Street Alliance, told the Post.
Ashley Harrington of the Center for Responsible Lending added that the program's fees for banks "incentivized loans to larger businesses because banks could bring in larger fees from those firms. … Funneling the loans through existing SBA-approved lenders, banks and credit unions disadvantaged businesses of color, which have historically lacked access to credit."
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., have called for the program to be reformed in the next round of coronavirus relief to cap the loans at $2 million instead of $10 million and limit the loans to businesses with up to 300 employees, down from 500, according to the Post. The next round of funding is also likely to require businesses to show they have lost income in order to qualify.
Congress is "certainly in agreement that you want to limit the amount that can be given to these large organizations," Cardin told the Post. "We learned from the first round that [the program] was very effective at getting money out quickly, but those with established banking relationships got to the front of the line, in some cases at the expense of underserved businesses."
Herrig urged the lawmakers to ensure the next round avoids the "mismanagement" and "malpractice" of the first round.
"Only now — after its hand has been forced, hundreds of thousands of small businesses have gone under, and millions of taxpayer dollars were wasted — has this administration pulled back the curtains to reveal the malpractice going on behind the scenes," he told NBC News. "Americans deserved an open, transparent small business aid program when this pandemic started, and any new small business relief program must take a lesson from the abject failures of this one."
RNC's highest-paid vendor of the 2020 election: A mystery company formed nine months ago
Digital Consulting Group made $42 million in eight months for media and marketing services. But who's behind it?
By ROGER SOLLENBERGER - SALON
DECEMBER 4, 2020 12:00PM (UTC)
In August, Salon reported that the Republican National Committee (RNC) had paid about $5 million to a mystery marketing services company called Digital Consulting Group LLC, starting with a $2 million expenditure in February, just a month after the company was formed.
Now, filings with the Federal Election Commission show that the RNC paid Digital Consulting Group more than $42 million for media buys, consulting and marketing between February and October. The company went from nonexistent to being the Republican Party's highest-paid vendor of the 2020 election, all in the space of eight months.
But Digital Consulting Group presents a mystery. No other political campaign or committee has reported any payments at all to the company. While a number of organizations share the name, this particular Digital Consulting Group — a Delaware company founded Jan. 15, 2020 — does not appear to have a website, and a Delaware business entity search does not reveal an owner or location. The RNC's spending reports list a virtual address in Wilmington, but beyond that the company cannot be traced.
That $42 million in expenditures makes this anonymous company the RNC's highest-paid vendor of the last two years, pulling in nearly $3.5 million more than the next-largest vendor, the direct-mail firm Communications Corporation of America (CCA), and topping third-place JDB Marketing, another direct mail provider, by about $19 million.
For further perspective, Digital Consulting Group received four out of the five largest payments that the RNC doled out between 2019 and 2020, including a flat $6 million on Oct. 7 for an unspecified media buy. In fact, it has received three of the 10 largest payments that the RNC has ever made — all to a company that was evidently constructed to conceal is origins and prevent the public from knowing anything about it.
"Pretty impressive that an LLC that didn't exist at the beginning of this year and still doesn't have a website has received $42 million from the RNC," Brendan Fischer, director of federal reform at the Campaign Legal Center, told Salon. "The RNC likely wouldn't take a $42 million gamble on a newly-created operation with no track record; presumably, Digital Consulting Group LLC was set up by trusted political operatives."
The RNC did not reply to Salon's request for comment for this article, but a party official previously told Salon that the RNC had hired the firm to place "targeted acquisitions across all platforms," adding that the firm works with individuals with "industry knowledge and expertise" in order to "increase efficiencies, improve service and achieve better market rates."
Then the official added a "reminder" that as of August, "the RNC previously announced that we would not be using Parscale Strategy for digital media buys."
Indeed, the RNC cut ties with former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale's company in response to bad press and internal criticism resulting from revelations that Parscale had directed millions of dollars from the RNC to his personal consulting outfit.
Reached for comment about Digital Consulting Group, Parscale told Salon that he had "never heard of it."
"I have one company and my name is on it," Parscale said.
But Parscale still holds about half of the shares of a digital marketing company called CloudCommerce, SEC filings show. He sat on the company board until last December, a month before Digital Consulting Group was born.
Four days before Parscale left CloudCommerce, however, the company bought marketing rights to a set of data on 80 million "faith-based" individuals, a term of art likely designating evangelical Christians.
A former Trump campaign official told Salon that Digital Consulting Group appears to be an in-house operation, as was Parscale Strategy. If the company had been designed to fill the role previously occupied by Parscale Strategy, the official said, "there is no way" Parscale wouldn't know about it. Furthermore, the official added, Parscale worked on the Trump campaign until September, and would certainly be aware of a marketing and media vendor that had billed the RNC for $42 million.
In late July, the CLC filed a complaint with the FEC accusing the Trump campaign of laundering nearly $170 million through firms belonging to Parscale and campaign lawyers. The complaint claims that the campaign used one of those companies, American Made Media, to launder money to other vendors without disclosing the spending to the FEC.
Last month, Salon reported that the Trump campaign also made undisclosed payments to top strategist Jason Miller, via a media contractor called Jamestown Associates.
The CLC's Fischer told Salon that the Digital Consulting Group arrangement struck him as possibly similar.
"These transactions are likely permissible if the LLC actually provided $42 million in goods or services to the RNC," Fischer said. But the party may have violated federal disclosure requirements, he said, "if the LLC merely acted as a pass-through to disguise the ultimate recipients of the RNC's spending."
Campaign finance expert Brett Kappel told Salon that transparency regulations are in place so donors know how their money is spent.
"One of the purposes of the FEC disclosure requirements is to reveal whether a candidate or committee is using donor funds to engage in self-dealing," Kappel said. "That purpose is thwarted if donor funds are transferred to an anonymous LLC."
The RNC would not explain how the party discovered a company with no web presence one month after it was formed. It also did not respond when asked whether Digital Consulting Group was affiliated in any way with officials of the RNC or the Trump campaign.
At the end of November, the RNC reported four more payments to Digital Consulting Group — part of its marketing efforts for Georgia's runoff election next month.
Now, filings with the Federal Election Commission show that the RNC paid Digital Consulting Group more than $42 million for media buys, consulting and marketing between February and October. The company went from nonexistent to being the Republican Party's highest-paid vendor of the 2020 election, all in the space of eight months.
But Digital Consulting Group presents a mystery. No other political campaign or committee has reported any payments at all to the company. While a number of organizations share the name, this particular Digital Consulting Group — a Delaware company founded Jan. 15, 2020 — does not appear to have a website, and a Delaware business entity search does not reveal an owner or location. The RNC's spending reports list a virtual address in Wilmington, but beyond that the company cannot be traced.
That $42 million in expenditures makes this anonymous company the RNC's highest-paid vendor of the last two years, pulling in nearly $3.5 million more than the next-largest vendor, the direct-mail firm Communications Corporation of America (CCA), and topping third-place JDB Marketing, another direct mail provider, by about $19 million.
For further perspective, Digital Consulting Group received four out of the five largest payments that the RNC doled out between 2019 and 2020, including a flat $6 million on Oct. 7 for an unspecified media buy. In fact, it has received three of the 10 largest payments that the RNC has ever made — all to a company that was evidently constructed to conceal is origins and prevent the public from knowing anything about it.
"Pretty impressive that an LLC that didn't exist at the beginning of this year and still doesn't have a website has received $42 million from the RNC," Brendan Fischer, director of federal reform at the Campaign Legal Center, told Salon. "The RNC likely wouldn't take a $42 million gamble on a newly-created operation with no track record; presumably, Digital Consulting Group LLC was set up by trusted political operatives."
The RNC did not reply to Salon's request for comment for this article, but a party official previously told Salon that the RNC had hired the firm to place "targeted acquisitions across all platforms," adding that the firm works with individuals with "industry knowledge and expertise" in order to "increase efficiencies, improve service and achieve better market rates."
Then the official added a "reminder" that as of August, "the RNC previously announced that we would not be using Parscale Strategy for digital media buys."
Indeed, the RNC cut ties with former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale's company in response to bad press and internal criticism resulting from revelations that Parscale had directed millions of dollars from the RNC to his personal consulting outfit.
Reached for comment about Digital Consulting Group, Parscale told Salon that he had "never heard of it."
"I have one company and my name is on it," Parscale said.
But Parscale still holds about half of the shares of a digital marketing company called CloudCommerce, SEC filings show. He sat on the company board until last December, a month before Digital Consulting Group was born.
Four days before Parscale left CloudCommerce, however, the company bought marketing rights to a set of data on 80 million "faith-based" individuals, a term of art likely designating evangelical Christians.
A former Trump campaign official told Salon that Digital Consulting Group appears to be an in-house operation, as was Parscale Strategy. If the company had been designed to fill the role previously occupied by Parscale Strategy, the official said, "there is no way" Parscale wouldn't know about it. Furthermore, the official added, Parscale worked on the Trump campaign until September, and would certainly be aware of a marketing and media vendor that had billed the RNC for $42 million.
In late July, the CLC filed a complaint with the FEC accusing the Trump campaign of laundering nearly $170 million through firms belonging to Parscale and campaign lawyers. The complaint claims that the campaign used one of those companies, American Made Media, to launder money to other vendors without disclosing the spending to the FEC.
Last month, Salon reported that the Trump campaign also made undisclosed payments to top strategist Jason Miller, via a media contractor called Jamestown Associates.
The CLC's Fischer told Salon that the Digital Consulting Group arrangement struck him as possibly similar.
"These transactions are likely permissible if the LLC actually provided $42 million in goods or services to the RNC," Fischer said. But the party may have violated federal disclosure requirements, he said, "if the LLC merely acted as a pass-through to disguise the ultimate recipients of the RNC's spending."
Campaign finance expert Brett Kappel told Salon that transparency regulations are in place so donors know how their money is spent.
"One of the purposes of the FEC disclosure requirements is to reveal whether a candidate or committee is using donor funds to engage in self-dealing," Kappel said. "That purpose is thwarted if donor funds are transferred to an anonymous LLC."
The RNC would not explain how the party discovered a company with no web presence one month after it was formed. It also did not respond when asked whether Digital Consulting Group was affiliated in any way with officials of the RNC or the Trump campaign.
At the end of November, the RNC reported four more payments to Digital Consulting Group — part of its marketing efforts for Georgia's runoff election next month.
surprise, surprise: the thieves stole the money!!!
Release of PPP loan recipients' data reveals troubling patterns
The Trump Organization and Kushner Companies are major beneficiaries of PPP loans.
Dec. 1, 2020, 9:38 PM PST
By Ben Popken and Andrew W. Lehren - nbc news
Sweeping data released by the Small Business Administration on who benefited from pandemic relief programs raises questions about the equitability and distribution of loans intended for small businesses, an initial analysis by NBC News shows.
The analysis found that properties owned by the Trump Organization as well as the Kushner Companies, owned by the family of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, profited from the program.
After months of litigation, the SBA released the dataset Tuesday night on every small business that received a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) or Economic Injury Disaster (EIDL) loan.
The data reveals the most complete accounting to date of the more than $700 billion in forgivable loans Congress and the Trump administration introduced in the spring for allowable expenses, including payroll, rent, utilities and mortgage interest payments.
The analysis by NBC News, one of 11 newsrooms that sued for the release of data, also shows:
The findings immediately raised concerns with government accountability groups.
“Many months and broken promises later, the court-ordered release of this crucial data while the Trump administration is one foot out the door is a shameful dereliction of duty and flagrant mismanagement of a program that millions of workers and small businesses needed to get through this pandemic,” Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, an accountability watchdog, said in a statement.
---
Mixed responses
The SBA defended its handling of the program when it released its data on Tuesday evening.
“SBA’s historically successful Covid relief loan programs have helped millions of small businesses and tens of millions of American workers when they needed it most,” an SBA spokesman said in a statement accompanying the release.
But as government accountability groups sifted through the data late into the night and uploaded them to publicly searchable databases like SearchPPP.com, they expressed regret about what has happened to so many small businesses partly from mismanagement of the loan program.
“Only now — after its hand has been forced, hundreds of thousands of small businesses have gone under, and millions of taxpayer dollars were wasted — has this administration pulled back the curtains to reveal the malpractice going on behind the scenes,” Herrig said. “Americans deserved an open, transparent small business aid program when this pandemic started, and any new small business relief program must take a lesson from the abject failures of this one.”
The analysis found that properties owned by the Trump Organization as well as the Kushner Companies, owned by the family of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, profited from the program.
After months of litigation, the SBA released the dataset Tuesday night on every small business that received a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) or Economic Injury Disaster (EIDL) loan.
The data reveals the most complete accounting to date of the more than $700 billion in forgivable loans Congress and the Trump administration introduced in the spring for allowable expenses, including payroll, rent, utilities and mortgage interest payments.
The analysis by NBC News, one of 11 newsrooms that sued for the release of data, also shows:
- Over 25 PPP loans worth more than $3.65 million were given to businesses with addresses at Trump and Kushner real estate properties, paying rent to those owners. Fifteen of the properties self-reported that they only kept one job, zero jobs or did not report a number at all.
- The loans to Trump and Kushner properties included a $2,164,543 loan to the Triomphe Restaurant Corp., at the Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York City. The company reported the money didn’t go to keeping any jobs. It later closed.
- A company called LB City Inc, which is at Kushner’s Bungalow Hotel in Long Branch, New Jersey, received a loan for $505,552.50 that it used to keep 155 jobs.
- Two tenants at 725 5th Avenue, Trump Tower, received more than $100,000 and kept only three jobs.
- Four tenants at the Kushner-owned 666 5th Avenue combined received more than $204,000, and retained only six jobs.
The findings immediately raised concerns with government accountability groups.
“Many months and broken promises later, the court-ordered release of this crucial data while the Trump administration is one foot out the door is a shameful dereliction of duty and flagrant mismanagement of a program that millions of workers and small businesses needed to get through this pandemic,” Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, an accountability watchdog, said in a statement.
---
Mixed responses
The SBA defended its handling of the program when it released its data on Tuesday evening.
“SBA’s historically successful Covid relief loan programs have helped millions of small businesses and tens of millions of American workers when they needed it most,” an SBA spokesman said in a statement accompanying the release.
But as government accountability groups sifted through the data late into the night and uploaded them to publicly searchable databases like SearchPPP.com, they expressed regret about what has happened to so many small businesses partly from mismanagement of the loan program.
“Only now — after its hand has been forced, hundreds of thousands of small businesses have gone under, and millions of taxpayer dollars were wasted — has this administration pulled back the curtains to reveal the malpractice going on behind the scenes,” Herrig said. “Americans deserved an open, transparent small business aid program when this pandemic started, and any new small business relief program must take a lesson from the abject failures of this one.”
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Exclusive: U.S. investigators were told to take 'no further action' on Caterpillar, ex-client of Barr
By Aram Roston - REUTERS
11/18/2020
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Before William Barr became President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the U.S. Department of Justice, he represented Caterpillar Inc, a Fortune 100 company, in a federal criminal investigation by the department.
Much was at stake for Caterpillar: Since 2018, the Internal Revenue Service has been demanding $2.3 billion in payments from the company in connection with the tax matters under criminal investigation. The company is contesting that finding.
A week after Barr was nominated for the job of attorney general, Justice officials in Washington told the investigative team in the active criminal probe of Caterpillar to take “no further action” in the case, according to an email written by one of the agents and reviewed by Reuters.
The decision, the email said, came from the Justice Department’s Tax Division and the office of the deputy attorney general, who was then Rod Rosenstein.
“I was instructed on December 13, 2018,” wrote the agent, Jason LeBeau, “that the Tax Division and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General jointly came to the decision that no further action was to be taken on the matter until further notice.” LeBeau, an inspector general agent at the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, declined interview requests from Reuters.
Since then, a source close to the case says, the investigation has “stalled.” The order to freeze the Caterpillar investigation has not been previously reported.
Reuters was unable to determine why Justice issued the “no further action” directive. It was not issued by Barr, as it came before he was confirmed. A Justice Department spokesperson said Barr recused himself from any Caterpillar discussions once he became attorney general, but declined further comment. Barr, in testimony during his confirmation hearings, said rules of legal privilege precluded him from discussing his work for the company.
Rosenstein, who left the government in May 2019, did not respond to a phone message and emails seeking comment. The IRS declined to comment about the case.
Caterpillar, for its part, has reported to investors that the grand jury investigation is ongoing. The company told Reuters the DOJ’s Tax Division is reviewing the investigation. Caterpillar has said for years that it did nothing wrong.
Potential conflicts of interest, whether real or apparent, often arise when high-powered lawyers switch between private practice and government service. Bruce A. Green, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at Fordham Law School, said it is not unheard of for attorney generals to have clients who had business before the DOJ. He noted that in 2009, President Barack Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, recused himself from a case involving Swiss Bank UBS, a prior client.
But Green said he could not recall a case where agents were told to take no further action on a matter involving an incoming attorney general’s former client without some kind of explanation. “Why would you just stop?” he asked.
A source familiar with the progress of the investigation, which is being conducted out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of Illinois, said that since December 2018, “it’s slowed, it’s stalled, it’s languishing. Not a lot of action is being taken.” But the source stressed the probe is not technically closed, and couldn’t be called “dead.”
The government’s questions about Caterpillar’s tax structure started with a whistleblower lawsuit in 2009 that laid out what it said was a complex “tax dodge” to route Caterpillar profits on parts sales through a company in Switzerland. Then, in 2014, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations dug into the issue, and alleged the company adopted a sales strategy that “shifted billions of dollars in profits away from the United States and into Switzerland, where Caterpillar had negotiated an effective corporate tax rate of 4% to 6%.” The Senate investigators quoted company insiders who said the system was structured for “tax avoidance.”
At the time, Caterpillar said the transactions, and tax strategy, were entirely legal. A Caterpillar vice president testified to the committee that having an offshore subsidiary collect profits and pay taxes was “nothing more than the standard business operations and tax planning that any prudent multinational enterprise would employ.”
The next year, a federal grand jury in Illinois launched a criminal investigation. In March 2017, federal agents raided three Caterpillar offices, wheeling out evidence in large black plastic boxes. In a report written for the government, a consultant for the investigators, Leslie Robinson, called the tax strategy “fraudulent rather than negligent.”
Two weeks after the raid, Caterpillar Chief Executive Jim Umpleby announced the hiring of Barr as company counsel. Barr would “take a fresh look at Caterpillar’s disputes with the government, get all the facts, and then help us bring these matters to proper resolution based on the merits.”
Robinson, the investigative consultant who had questioned Caterpillar’s tactics, told Reuters she met with Barr in May 2017, briefing him on why she thought the tax strategy was illegal, and to hear why the company thought it was not. Robinson said she would not discuss the meeting details or the basis for her conclusion in the government’s report.
In November 2018, as the White House scanned potential lawyers to take the job of attorney general, Barr’s name was among those floated. On December 7, the White House announced his selection. “He was my first choice from day one,” Trump said. Barr has emerged as one of Trump’s most aggressive aides, most recently authorizing federal prosecutors to investigate the counting of votes in this month’s presidential election, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
In January 2019, Robinson, a professor at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, sent a note to FDIC agent LeBeau asking if the case was “dead or progressing.” Robinson wrote, “From a personal standpoint, it is a bit peculiar to have spent so much of my time and energy on something and then to have no idea if it will amount to anything concrete.”
“Quite frankly I am somewhat in the dark as well,” LeBeau replied. He said he had understood that a new U.S. attorney was in discussions with Caterpillar, but knew little more. “I know the process is going incredibly slow.”
This October, Robinson communicated again with the investigators. In emails reviewed by Reuters, she asked what had happened to the case, explaining that a Reuters reporter had inquired. That’s when LeBeau explained, copying other agents and a prosecutor on the email, that they had been told to take no further action a week after Barr’s nomination 20 months ago.
“We were given no additional explanation,” he wrote.
Much was at stake for Caterpillar: Since 2018, the Internal Revenue Service has been demanding $2.3 billion in payments from the company in connection with the tax matters under criminal investigation. The company is contesting that finding.
A week after Barr was nominated for the job of attorney general, Justice officials in Washington told the investigative team in the active criminal probe of Caterpillar to take “no further action” in the case, according to an email written by one of the agents and reviewed by Reuters.
The decision, the email said, came from the Justice Department’s Tax Division and the office of the deputy attorney general, who was then Rod Rosenstein.
“I was instructed on December 13, 2018,” wrote the agent, Jason LeBeau, “that the Tax Division and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General jointly came to the decision that no further action was to be taken on the matter until further notice.” LeBeau, an inspector general agent at the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, declined interview requests from Reuters.
Since then, a source close to the case says, the investigation has “stalled.” The order to freeze the Caterpillar investigation has not been previously reported.
Reuters was unable to determine why Justice issued the “no further action” directive. It was not issued by Barr, as it came before he was confirmed. A Justice Department spokesperson said Barr recused himself from any Caterpillar discussions once he became attorney general, but declined further comment. Barr, in testimony during his confirmation hearings, said rules of legal privilege precluded him from discussing his work for the company.
Rosenstein, who left the government in May 2019, did not respond to a phone message and emails seeking comment. The IRS declined to comment about the case.
Caterpillar, for its part, has reported to investors that the grand jury investigation is ongoing. The company told Reuters the DOJ’s Tax Division is reviewing the investigation. Caterpillar has said for years that it did nothing wrong.
Potential conflicts of interest, whether real or apparent, often arise when high-powered lawyers switch between private practice and government service. Bruce A. Green, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at Fordham Law School, said it is not unheard of for attorney generals to have clients who had business before the DOJ. He noted that in 2009, President Barack Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, recused himself from a case involving Swiss Bank UBS, a prior client.
But Green said he could not recall a case where agents were told to take no further action on a matter involving an incoming attorney general’s former client without some kind of explanation. “Why would you just stop?” he asked.
A source familiar with the progress of the investigation, which is being conducted out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of Illinois, said that since December 2018, “it’s slowed, it’s stalled, it’s languishing. Not a lot of action is being taken.” But the source stressed the probe is not technically closed, and couldn’t be called “dead.”
The government’s questions about Caterpillar’s tax structure started with a whistleblower lawsuit in 2009 that laid out what it said was a complex “tax dodge” to route Caterpillar profits on parts sales through a company in Switzerland. Then, in 2014, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations dug into the issue, and alleged the company adopted a sales strategy that “shifted billions of dollars in profits away from the United States and into Switzerland, where Caterpillar had negotiated an effective corporate tax rate of 4% to 6%.” The Senate investigators quoted company insiders who said the system was structured for “tax avoidance.”
At the time, Caterpillar said the transactions, and tax strategy, were entirely legal. A Caterpillar vice president testified to the committee that having an offshore subsidiary collect profits and pay taxes was “nothing more than the standard business operations and tax planning that any prudent multinational enterprise would employ.”
The next year, a federal grand jury in Illinois launched a criminal investigation. In March 2017, federal agents raided three Caterpillar offices, wheeling out evidence in large black plastic boxes. In a report written for the government, a consultant for the investigators, Leslie Robinson, called the tax strategy “fraudulent rather than negligent.”
Two weeks after the raid, Caterpillar Chief Executive Jim Umpleby announced the hiring of Barr as company counsel. Barr would “take a fresh look at Caterpillar’s disputes with the government, get all the facts, and then help us bring these matters to proper resolution based on the merits.”
Robinson, the investigative consultant who had questioned Caterpillar’s tactics, told Reuters she met with Barr in May 2017, briefing him on why she thought the tax strategy was illegal, and to hear why the company thought it was not. Robinson said she would not discuss the meeting details or the basis for her conclusion in the government’s report.
In November 2018, as the White House scanned potential lawyers to take the job of attorney general, Barr’s name was among those floated. On December 7, the White House announced his selection. “He was my first choice from day one,” Trump said. Barr has emerged as one of Trump’s most aggressive aides, most recently authorizing federal prosecutors to investigate the counting of votes in this month’s presidential election, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
In January 2019, Robinson, a professor at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, sent a note to FDIC agent LeBeau asking if the case was “dead or progressing.” Robinson wrote, “From a personal standpoint, it is a bit peculiar to have spent so much of my time and energy on something and then to have no idea if it will amount to anything concrete.”
“Quite frankly I am somewhat in the dark as well,” LeBeau replied. He said he had understood that a new U.S. attorney was in discussions with Caterpillar, but knew little more. “I know the process is going incredibly slow.”
This October, Robinson communicated again with the investigators. In emails reviewed by Reuters, she asked what had happened to the case, explaining that a Reuters reporter had inquired. That’s when LeBeau explained, copying other agents and a prosecutor on the email, that they had been told to take no further action a week after Barr’s nomination 20 months ago.
“We were given no additional explanation,” he wrote.
This GOP senator received more than $20,000 in contributions from drug companies after backing pharma-friendly bill
September 17, 2020
By Alex Henderson, AlterNet
In late 2019, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina co-sponsored a bill on prescription drug prices — and WBTV, the CBS affiliate in Charlotte, North Carolina, is reporting that Tillis received more than $20,000 in campaign contributions from pharma-associated political action committees “within two weeks.”
The bill that Tillis co-sponsored was the Lower Costs, More Cures Act, which was introduced on December 19, 2019 and was similar to a competing bill sponsored by another Republican, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa. But a key difference between the bills, WBTV reporter Nick Ochsner notes, is that the one Tillis co-sponsored “omitted a key provision opposed by the pharmaceutical industry that would cap drug prices at inflation.”
Ochsner reports, “Campaign finance records shows Tillis received $20,500 in campaign contributions from political action committees tied to pharmaceutical companies in the days before and after the bill was filed, including two contributions totaling $7000 on December 16 and 18, respectively — and seven contributions totaling $13,500 given on December 20, 26 and 31.”
Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, discussed the contributions with WBTV — saying, “It doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a quid pro quo. It may indicate a cordial relationship they’ve developed over a period of time, but it is worth noting. And it doesn’t happen every day.”
The Center for Responsive Politics operates the Open Secrets website, which tracks campaign contributions.
Krumholz also told WBTV, “I think that indicates the fact that he is viewed as a very close ally of the industry — that they view him as a very dependable vote in favor of their interest and somebody who, clearly, is willing to champion their legislation, their legislative agenda. And I think that is borne out by the pattern of contributions that you examined last December.”
Tillis is among the incumbent Republican U.S. senators who is considered vulnerable in the 2020 election. Recent polls have shown a close race between Tillis and his Democratic opponent, Cal Cunningham, with Cunningham having single-digit leads. According to polls released in September, Cunningham is ahead by 4% (USA Today/Suffolk), 1% (CNN/SSRS and Trafalgar), 2% (Monmouth) or 3% (Rasmussen). However, polls by WRAL-TV in Raleigh and CNBC/Change Research found Cunningham ahead by 7%. And a Fox News poll released in early September found Tillis trailing Cunningham by 6%.
The bill that Tillis co-sponsored was the Lower Costs, More Cures Act, which was introduced on December 19, 2019 and was similar to a competing bill sponsored by another Republican, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa. But a key difference between the bills, WBTV reporter Nick Ochsner notes, is that the one Tillis co-sponsored “omitted a key provision opposed by the pharmaceutical industry that would cap drug prices at inflation.”
Ochsner reports, “Campaign finance records shows Tillis received $20,500 in campaign contributions from political action committees tied to pharmaceutical companies in the days before and after the bill was filed, including two contributions totaling $7000 on December 16 and 18, respectively — and seven contributions totaling $13,500 given on December 20, 26 and 31.”
Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, discussed the contributions with WBTV — saying, “It doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a quid pro quo. It may indicate a cordial relationship they’ve developed over a period of time, but it is worth noting. And it doesn’t happen every day.”
The Center for Responsive Politics operates the Open Secrets website, which tracks campaign contributions.
Krumholz also told WBTV, “I think that indicates the fact that he is viewed as a very close ally of the industry — that they view him as a very dependable vote in favor of their interest and somebody who, clearly, is willing to champion their legislation, their legislative agenda. And I think that is borne out by the pattern of contributions that you examined last December.”
Tillis is among the incumbent Republican U.S. senators who is considered vulnerable in the 2020 election. Recent polls have shown a close race between Tillis and his Democratic opponent, Cal Cunningham, with Cunningham having single-digit leads. According to polls released in September, Cunningham is ahead by 4% (USA Today/Suffolk), 1% (CNN/SSRS and Trafalgar), 2% (Monmouth) or 3% (Rasmussen). However, polls by WRAL-TV in Raleigh and CNBC/Change Research found Cunningham ahead by 7%. And a Fox News poll released in early September found Tillis trailing Cunningham by 6%.
trump administration: another thief exposed!!!
$2,933 for ‘Girl’s Night’: Medicaid chief’s consulting expenses revealed
Seema Verma, a member of the coronavirus task force, spent more than $3.5 million taxpayer dollars on GOP-aligned consultants, a congressional report found.
By DAN DIAMOND and ADAM CANCRYN
politico
09/10/2020 05:00 AM EDT
When Seema Verma, the Trump administration's top Medicaid official, went to a reporter's home in November 2018 for a "Girl's Night" thrown in her honor, taxpayers footed the bill to organize the event: $2,933.
When Verma wrote an op-ed on Fox News' website that fall, touting President Donald Trump's changes to Obamacare, taxpayers got charged for one consultant's price to place it: $977.
And when consultants spent months promoting Verma to win awards like Washingtonian magazine's "Most Powerful Women in Washington" and appear on high-profile panels, taxpayers got billed for that too: more than $13,000.
The efforts were steered by Pam Stevens, a Republican communications consultant and former Trump administration official working to raise the brand of Verma, who leads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The prices were the amount a consulting company billed the government for her services, based on her invoices, which were obtained by congressional Democrats.
They are among the revelations included in a sweeping congressional investigation chronicling how Verma spent more than $3.5 million on a range of GOP-connected consultants, who polished her public profile, wrote her speeches and Twitter posts, brokered meetings with high-profile individuals — and even billed taxpayers for connecting Verma with fellow Republicans in Congress.
The 49-year-old Verma, who advised then-Gov. Mike Pence in Indiana on health policy before joining the Trump administration, has strongly rejected any suggestion of wrongdoing in her consulting practices. In October 2019, she told a House committee that “all the contracts we have at CMS are based on promoting the work of CMS” and the spending was “consistent with how the agency has used resources in the past.”
But the probe — conducted by Democrats across four congressional committees — found that Verma surrounded herself with a rotating cast of at least 15 highly paid communications consultants during her first two years in office, even as she publicly called for fiscal restraint and championed policies like work requirements for Americans on Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income people.
"Verma and her top aides abused the federal contracting process to Administrator Verma’s benefit and wasted millions of taxpayer dollars," the Democrats concluded in a 53-page summary of the investigation, which was shared with POLITICO and will be released later Thursday.
Verma declined to comment through the health department's top spokesperson, Michael Caputo, who described the report as "another reckless drive-by election year hit job."
“The CMS Administrator will continue her unprecedented efforts to transform the American healthcare system to ensure health policy innovation drives public discussion — not purposefully timed political attacks," Caputo said in a statement.
Stevens declined to address the specific line items in her invoices, but said in a statement that a top consulting firm, Porter Novelli, “asked me to put together a plan to educate media about CMS’s work through meetings with the CMS Administrator. I was then asked to facilitate meetings with some of the organizations in the plan as well as with thought leaders. That was the extent of my work.”
A spokesperson for Porter Novelli declined comment until the organization could review the Democrats' report.
The congressional committees’ investigation, which spanned 18 months, found that the consultants worked directly for Verma and her top officials — an unusual arrangement that gave some of them broad power over CMS' daily activities and policy planning and access at times to sensitive nonpublic information. Other contractors, meanwhile, racked up hefty expenses as Verma's personal drivers and press aides; during a two-day trip to New York City in September 2018, contractors filed for almost $8,900 in reimbursements, including stays in a hotel that cost more than $500 per room per night, the report found.
The consultants separately spent eight months refining and implementing a plan intended to "highlight and promote Seema Verma leadership and accomplishment," according to one draft of the plan, which formed the backbone of a concerted effort to secure major interviews, speaking opportunities and awards, at a cost billed to taxpayers that stretched into the tens of thousands of dollars.
While CMS has previously downplayed the "executive visibility" proposal as conceived by contractors and filled with recommendations that were mostly ignored, the congressional committees found that Verma's aides at the health department were regularly briefed on the plan. Meanwhile, consultants pursued its objectives, such as having Verma contend for Glamour Magazine’s “Woman of the Year" award and network with brand-building organizations like Girlboss.
Consultants also charged the health department hundreds of dollars to set up each of Verma's off-record conversations with reporters, pundits and influencers, such as billing taxpayers $837 to arrange Verma's lunch with Marc Siegel, a Fox News contributor, and $209 for a conversation with then-Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.). The consultants also billed taxpayers at least $1,117 for arranging Verma's profile in AARP's magazine and at least $3,400 to coordinate Verma's appearance on POLITICO's "Women Rule" podcast.
Meanwhile, Verma and her aides frequently shared market-sensitive proposals with her hand-picked team of GOP contractors before announcing the information publicly — in one case, about three months before the agency's proposed rules were publicly issued, investigators found. That information, containing key details about Verma's plan to overhaul the $15 billion electronic health record market, was shared with contractors in mid-November 2018 in hopes of pitching CNN's Sanjay Gupta to do a story. Federal officials raised concerns that the information should not be shared, with Verma's top aide warning in an email that she was "fairly concerned about giving this much info prior to a rollout." The rules weren't issued until Feb. 11, 2019.[...]
READ MORE
When Verma wrote an op-ed on Fox News' website that fall, touting President Donald Trump's changes to Obamacare, taxpayers got charged for one consultant's price to place it: $977.
And when consultants spent months promoting Verma to win awards like Washingtonian magazine's "Most Powerful Women in Washington" and appear on high-profile panels, taxpayers got billed for that too: more than $13,000.
The efforts were steered by Pam Stevens, a Republican communications consultant and former Trump administration official working to raise the brand of Verma, who leads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The prices were the amount a consulting company billed the government for her services, based on her invoices, which were obtained by congressional Democrats.
They are among the revelations included in a sweeping congressional investigation chronicling how Verma spent more than $3.5 million on a range of GOP-connected consultants, who polished her public profile, wrote her speeches and Twitter posts, brokered meetings with high-profile individuals — and even billed taxpayers for connecting Verma with fellow Republicans in Congress.
The 49-year-old Verma, who advised then-Gov. Mike Pence in Indiana on health policy before joining the Trump administration, has strongly rejected any suggestion of wrongdoing in her consulting practices. In October 2019, she told a House committee that “all the contracts we have at CMS are based on promoting the work of CMS” and the spending was “consistent with how the agency has used resources in the past.”
But the probe — conducted by Democrats across four congressional committees — found that Verma surrounded herself with a rotating cast of at least 15 highly paid communications consultants during her first two years in office, even as she publicly called for fiscal restraint and championed policies like work requirements for Americans on Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income people.
"Verma and her top aides abused the federal contracting process to Administrator Verma’s benefit and wasted millions of taxpayer dollars," the Democrats concluded in a 53-page summary of the investigation, which was shared with POLITICO and will be released later Thursday.
Verma declined to comment through the health department's top spokesperson, Michael Caputo, who described the report as "another reckless drive-by election year hit job."
“The CMS Administrator will continue her unprecedented efforts to transform the American healthcare system to ensure health policy innovation drives public discussion — not purposefully timed political attacks," Caputo said in a statement.
Stevens declined to address the specific line items in her invoices, but said in a statement that a top consulting firm, Porter Novelli, “asked me to put together a plan to educate media about CMS’s work through meetings with the CMS Administrator. I was then asked to facilitate meetings with some of the organizations in the plan as well as with thought leaders. That was the extent of my work.”
A spokesperson for Porter Novelli declined comment until the organization could review the Democrats' report.
The congressional committees’ investigation, which spanned 18 months, found that the consultants worked directly for Verma and her top officials — an unusual arrangement that gave some of them broad power over CMS' daily activities and policy planning and access at times to sensitive nonpublic information. Other contractors, meanwhile, racked up hefty expenses as Verma's personal drivers and press aides; during a two-day trip to New York City in September 2018, contractors filed for almost $8,900 in reimbursements, including stays in a hotel that cost more than $500 per room per night, the report found.
The consultants separately spent eight months refining and implementing a plan intended to "highlight and promote Seema Verma leadership and accomplishment," according to one draft of the plan, which formed the backbone of a concerted effort to secure major interviews, speaking opportunities and awards, at a cost billed to taxpayers that stretched into the tens of thousands of dollars.
While CMS has previously downplayed the "executive visibility" proposal as conceived by contractors and filled with recommendations that were mostly ignored, the congressional committees found that Verma's aides at the health department were regularly briefed on the plan. Meanwhile, consultants pursued its objectives, such as having Verma contend for Glamour Magazine’s “Woman of the Year" award and network with brand-building organizations like Girlboss.
Consultants also charged the health department hundreds of dollars to set up each of Verma's off-record conversations with reporters, pundits and influencers, such as billing taxpayers $837 to arrange Verma's lunch with Marc Siegel, a Fox News contributor, and $209 for a conversation with then-Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.). The consultants also billed taxpayers at least $1,117 for arranging Verma's profile in AARP's magazine and at least $3,400 to coordinate Verma's appearance on POLITICO's "Women Rule" podcast.
Meanwhile, Verma and her aides frequently shared market-sensitive proposals with her hand-picked team of GOP contractors before announcing the information publicly — in one case, about three months before the agency's proposed rules were publicly issued, investigators found. That information, containing key details about Verma's plan to overhaul the $15 billion electronic health record market, was shared with contractors in mid-November 2018 in hopes of pitching CNN's Sanjay Gupta to do a story. Federal officials raised concerns that the information should not be shared, with Verma's top aide warning in an email that she was "fairly concerned about giving this much info prior to a rollout." The rules weren't issued until Feb. 11, 2019.[...]
READ MORE
he's been a criminal all along!!!
Jim Inhofe caught in decades-long corruption scandal to get government contracts to his close associates
August 24, 2020
By Sarah K. Burris - raw story
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) turns 86 this year, and it’s unclear if he’s forgotten the promise he made to his voters to root out corruption in Washington. The four-term incumbent has been linked to a lobbyist-turned-senate-staffer-turn-lobbyist-then-staffer again for the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Meet John Bonsell, who was appointed to the Senate Armed Services Committee (which Inhofe chairs) in 2018, and that promotion was a long time in the making.
Bonsell started working for Inhofe in 2001, but he left in 2007 to become a Vice President of Robison International Inc, a D.C. lobbying firm. The following year he joined an Altus, Oklahoma company named Aviation Training Consulting (ATC), because they hoped to obtain some contracts from the federal government. Bonsell appeared to have delivered because, by September, he’d scored $582,295 worth of contracts for the company in a single month.
Aviation Training Consulting received its first-ever defense contract, acquiring $582,295 worth of contracts his first month on the job.
Lobbyists often use their past relationships on the Hill and parlay that into lucrative government contracts. What is different in the Inhofe case, however, is the back and forth between the government and lobbying offices — and that the contracts continued to flow in with Inhofe’s enthusiastic endorsements when the lobbyist moved back to a taxpayer-funded Senate office.
Bonsel left Robison International after a little under four years, going back to Inhofe’s Senate staff. Staff for his two lobbying employers, Robison and ATC, forked over $20,100 to Inhofe’s campaign along with $8,800 coming directly from Bonsell. ATC CEO Robert Cox and his wife maxed out to Inhofe’s campaign at $6,700.
Once Bonsell went back to the Senate office, Aviation Training Consulting had been handed a total of $11,558,584 in defense contracts in less than four years — something the GOP senator celebrated. At that time, the Republicans had taken over Congress and the Senate and had shut down all of President Barack Obama’s pieces of legislation and judges, and provoked a government shutdown in 2013. Inhofe also began speaking out publicly in favor of a deal between the small Altus company and Sikorsky, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin.
ATC had hoped to have a Blackhawk Helicopter school in Altus, but the deal fell through, and Sikorsky backed out. Inhofe publicly expressed his disappointment, saying that he and his staff had been in contact with Sikorsky on the proposed partnership with Aviation Training Consulting.
After that, Bonsell left Inhofe’s office to go lobby for the defense industry again. He was able to score $37,229,253 in government contracts. When Inhofe took over the Armed Services Committee in 2018 after Sen. John McCain passed away, Bonsell joined the committee along with him.
Something strange happened this year, however. The Altum Trading Company in Altus turned up again in Inhofe’s life. His campaign started renting offices at the same office address in Edmond, Oklahoma: at 3540 S Boulevard Suite 350. The building is accessible and was able to explain it is merely the Edmond branch of the group. Based on the building’s listings, the office would be around 75 square feet given Inhofe only paid $120 a month.
As of June 2020, Inhofe’s campaign hasn’t reported paying rent for any other office space. In fact, according to the Oklahoma Secretary of State’s office, three businesses operate out of the same office and all of them link back to Aviation Training Consulting: Altum Trading Company, Aviation Training Company (official Edmond Location), and ALTUM-ATC JV LLC.
Aviation Training Consulting has gotten a total of $216,837,028.83 in defense contracts since hiring Bonsell to lobby for them in 2008, with the most recent reported contract being signed just a day after Inhofe’s campaign started renting the office.
Other than the revolving door of lobbyists, another problem is that it doesn’t seem to be clear what exactly Altum Trading Services does. Altum Trading Company LLC was formed on August 10th, 2017. That same day, the company registered with the System for Award Management for providing flight training and Other Aircraft Parts and Auxiliary Equipment Manufacturing. Those are the same services for which Aviation Training Consulting receives contracts.
“Altum Trading Company provides contract services and solutions for the U.S. Government, Department of Defense and its allies,” their website says. No contracts have ever been awarded to Altum Trading Company, LLC and only two people list it as a past employer, both of whom say they were “flight dispatchers.”
It also claimed to be a woman-owned company, which gets it benefits for federal contractors and small business. Carly McDavid, the daughter of Aviation Training Consulting CEO Robert Cox, became the CEO of Altum Trading Services Company after being listed as an employee of Aviation Training Consulting on her LinkedIn profile. Her uncle, Philip Cox is the CFO of Aviation Training Consulting. McDavid’s LinkedIn says she left her father’s company in May 2018, but she still listed her employer as Aviation Training Consulting, LLC on campaign contributions as recently as October 2019, over two years after Altum Trading Company was founded. Her profile lists herself as a “Proposal Coordinator” when she worked for her father.
Inhofe has spent the past several years advocating for record-high defense spending, even buying stocks in defense contractors.
If the swamp seems to be a little more populated with creatures it might be due to Inhofe’s campaign renting campaign space the size of a closet in an office of a company that wouldn’t have any contracts without Inhofe’s top military staffer. Even if the staffer is doing everything above board, Inhofe is still getting a pretty sweat real estate deal well below fair market value from a defense contractor that has given him donations and regularly lobbies him for contracts. That’s a Federal Elections Commission and ethics violation at the very least.
Meet John Bonsell, who was appointed to the Senate Armed Services Committee (which Inhofe chairs) in 2018, and that promotion was a long time in the making.
Bonsell started working for Inhofe in 2001, but he left in 2007 to become a Vice President of Robison International Inc, a D.C. lobbying firm. The following year he joined an Altus, Oklahoma company named Aviation Training Consulting (ATC), because they hoped to obtain some contracts from the federal government. Bonsell appeared to have delivered because, by September, he’d scored $582,295 worth of contracts for the company in a single month.
Aviation Training Consulting received its first-ever defense contract, acquiring $582,295 worth of contracts his first month on the job.
Lobbyists often use their past relationships on the Hill and parlay that into lucrative government contracts. What is different in the Inhofe case, however, is the back and forth between the government and lobbying offices — and that the contracts continued to flow in with Inhofe’s enthusiastic endorsements when the lobbyist moved back to a taxpayer-funded Senate office.
Bonsel left Robison International after a little under four years, going back to Inhofe’s Senate staff. Staff for his two lobbying employers, Robison and ATC, forked over $20,100 to Inhofe’s campaign along with $8,800 coming directly from Bonsell. ATC CEO Robert Cox and his wife maxed out to Inhofe’s campaign at $6,700.
Once Bonsell went back to the Senate office, Aviation Training Consulting had been handed a total of $11,558,584 in defense contracts in less than four years — something the GOP senator celebrated. At that time, the Republicans had taken over Congress and the Senate and had shut down all of President Barack Obama’s pieces of legislation and judges, and provoked a government shutdown in 2013. Inhofe also began speaking out publicly in favor of a deal between the small Altus company and Sikorsky, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin.
ATC had hoped to have a Blackhawk Helicopter school in Altus, but the deal fell through, and Sikorsky backed out. Inhofe publicly expressed his disappointment, saying that he and his staff had been in contact with Sikorsky on the proposed partnership with Aviation Training Consulting.
After that, Bonsell left Inhofe’s office to go lobby for the defense industry again. He was able to score $37,229,253 in government contracts. When Inhofe took over the Armed Services Committee in 2018 after Sen. John McCain passed away, Bonsell joined the committee along with him.
Something strange happened this year, however. The Altum Trading Company in Altus turned up again in Inhofe’s life. His campaign started renting offices at the same office address in Edmond, Oklahoma: at 3540 S Boulevard Suite 350. The building is accessible and was able to explain it is merely the Edmond branch of the group. Based on the building’s listings, the office would be around 75 square feet given Inhofe only paid $120 a month.
As of June 2020, Inhofe’s campaign hasn’t reported paying rent for any other office space. In fact, according to the Oklahoma Secretary of State’s office, three businesses operate out of the same office and all of them link back to Aviation Training Consulting: Altum Trading Company, Aviation Training Company (official Edmond Location), and ALTUM-ATC JV LLC.
Aviation Training Consulting has gotten a total of $216,837,028.83 in defense contracts since hiring Bonsell to lobby for them in 2008, with the most recent reported contract being signed just a day after Inhofe’s campaign started renting the office.
Other than the revolving door of lobbyists, another problem is that it doesn’t seem to be clear what exactly Altum Trading Services does. Altum Trading Company LLC was formed on August 10th, 2017. That same day, the company registered with the System for Award Management for providing flight training and Other Aircraft Parts and Auxiliary Equipment Manufacturing. Those are the same services for which Aviation Training Consulting receives contracts.
“Altum Trading Company provides contract services and solutions for the U.S. Government, Department of Defense and its allies,” their website says. No contracts have ever been awarded to Altum Trading Company, LLC and only two people list it as a past employer, both of whom say they were “flight dispatchers.”
It also claimed to be a woman-owned company, which gets it benefits for federal contractors and small business. Carly McDavid, the daughter of Aviation Training Consulting CEO Robert Cox, became the CEO of Altum Trading Services Company after being listed as an employee of Aviation Training Consulting on her LinkedIn profile. Her uncle, Philip Cox is the CFO of Aviation Training Consulting. McDavid’s LinkedIn says she left her father’s company in May 2018, but she still listed her employer as Aviation Training Consulting, LLC on campaign contributions as recently as October 2019, over two years after Altum Trading Company was founded. Her profile lists herself as a “Proposal Coordinator” when she worked for her father.
Inhofe has spent the past several years advocating for record-high defense spending, even buying stocks in defense contractors.
If the swamp seems to be a little more populated with creatures it might be due to Inhofe’s campaign renting campaign space the size of a closet in an office of a company that wouldn’t have any contracts without Inhofe’s top military staffer. Even if the staffer is doing everything above board, Inhofe is still getting a pretty sweat real estate deal well below fair market value from a defense contractor that has given him donations and regularly lobbies him for contracts. That’s a Federal Elections Commission and ethics violation at the very least.
a government of corruption!!!
EPA chief’s former lobbying clients get a long list of favors from agency
One former client, top Trump donor Robert Murray, has gotten most of his deregulation "wish list" filled
IGOR DERYSH - salon
AUGUST 22, 2020 10:00AM (UTC)
At least three former lobbying clients of Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler have received favorable decisions from the EPA under his leadership.
Wheeler spent years as an energy lobbyist at the law firm Faegre Baker Daniels, where he represented companies like the coal giant Murray Energy, whose owner Robert Murray is a major Trump donor. Wheeler signed a pledge in May 2018 to recuse himself from matters related to former clients after he replaced embattled former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. But the two-year pledge expired earlier this year and he has been repeatedly accused of violating the agreement by approving rules that he lobbied for as a lobbyist for Murray Energy and others.
At least three of Wheeler's former clients have pushed for rules that the EPA has proposed or implemented under his leadership.
"Andrew Wheeler is overseeing policies that damage the air we breathe and water we drink while his associates benefit," Chris Saeger, a spokesperson for the progressive watchdog group Accountable.US, told Salon. "This is a clear abuse of his taxpayer-funded position and ethics agreement."
In April, the EPA weakened regulations on the release of mercury and toxic metals from oil and coal-fired power plants, which experts said was aimed at "potentially constraining or handcuffing future efforts by the EPA to regulate air pollution."
The New York Times described the change as a "particular victory" for Murray, who pressed for the change in a "wish list" of environmental regulation rollbacks he handed to President Trump just weeks after his inauguration. Murray donated $300,000 to Trump's inaugural committee.
The Trump administration and federal agencies "have completed or are on track to fulfill most of the 16 detailed requests" in Murray's wish list, the Times reported in 2018. But Murray had "unsuccessfully pressed the administration in 2017" to roll back the mercury emissions rule, E&E News reported, before it was rescinded under Wheeler.
The government watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington filed an ethics complaint against Wheeler last year over his involvement in the rule change, noting that he "participated in the matter less than a year" after signing the pledge.
"It is becoming more and more clear why coal and energy companies are happy to have their former lobbyist Andrew Wheeler in charge of the EPA," CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said at the time. "Administrator Wheeler's apparent failure to abide by ethics obligations and to avoid the reality or appearance of conflicts continues to undermine the EPA's integrity and weakens public confidence in our government."
Earlier this year, the EPA also finalized a rule that would extend deadlines to start closing unlined coal ash ponds. Coal ash from coal plants is dumped into excavated holes in the ground, where it mixes with water to create "coal ash ponds," which can leak if they are not properly lined. The proposed rule would allow some coal plants five more years before requiring them to close the unlined ash ponds.
One of the major backers of the rule is the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group (USWAG), a secretive trade group whose members include Xcel Energy, a longtime former Wheeler client. Xcel Energy called for the rule change and the USWAG petitioned Pruitt for the rule in 2017. The USWAG praised the EPA for proposing the change under Wheeler last year.
Accountable.US criticized the EPA for rolling back regulations on coal ash at the behest of Wheeler's former client.
"Administrator Wheeler is part of a corrupt pattern in the Trump administration, putting the interests of his allies above the public he is supposed to serve," Saeger said last month. "This administration is abusing its power to hand out favors to corporate lobbyists, selling out Americans' health and the environment in the process."
In May, the EPA proposed no additional measures to mitigate negative air quality impacts associated with renewable fuel standards as required under the Clean Air Act. The proposed rule has been open for public comment ever since but has only received 16 thus far, including one supporting the rule from Growth Energy. The company has been one of the biggest supporters of the rule.
Growth Energy was one of Wheeler's clients before he joined the EPA, according to his financial disclosure, which said he provided the company "strategic advice and counseling." Wheeler had pledged to recuse himself from matters related to Growth Energy until shortly before the proposed rule was published.
The trend has played out in other agencies whose heads were appointed by the president. The Interior Department has made at least 15 policy changes or proposals that benefited Secretary David Bernhardt's former energy industry clients. Several of acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf's former lobbying clients have also received millions in government contracts while he held senior positions in the department. More than 280 of Trump's political appointments have been former lobbyists, according to an analysis by ProPublica.
CREW has repeatedly called for the EPA's inspector general to investigate whether Wheeler violated his ethics pledge in connection to rules that benefited his former clients.
"Administrator Wheeler has repeatedly used his government position at EPA to benefit the former clients that made him rich, and to the detriment of the agency's critical mission," CREW Deputy Director Donald Sherman said in a statement to Salon. "Administrator Wheeler's continued lobbying on behalf of industry from within EPA, is clear evidence that patronage is a feature, not a bug, of the Trump administration."
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Wheeler spent years as an energy lobbyist at the law firm Faegre Baker Daniels, where he represented companies like the coal giant Murray Energy, whose owner Robert Murray is a major Trump donor. Wheeler signed a pledge in May 2018 to recuse himself from matters related to former clients after he replaced embattled former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. But the two-year pledge expired earlier this year and he has been repeatedly accused of violating the agreement by approving rules that he lobbied for as a lobbyist for Murray Energy and others.
At least three of Wheeler's former clients have pushed for rules that the EPA has proposed or implemented under his leadership.
"Andrew Wheeler is overseeing policies that damage the air we breathe and water we drink while his associates benefit," Chris Saeger, a spokesperson for the progressive watchdog group Accountable.US, told Salon. "This is a clear abuse of his taxpayer-funded position and ethics agreement."
In April, the EPA weakened regulations on the release of mercury and toxic metals from oil and coal-fired power plants, which experts said was aimed at "potentially constraining or handcuffing future efforts by the EPA to regulate air pollution."
The New York Times described the change as a "particular victory" for Murray, who pressed for the change in a "wish list" of environmental regulation rollbacks he handed to President Trump just weeks after his inauguration. Murray donated $300,000 to Trump's inaugural committee.
The Trump administration and federal agencies "have completed or are on track to fulfill most of the 16 detailed requests" in Murray's wish list, the Times reported in 2018. But Murray had "unsuccessfully pressed the administration in 2017" to roll back the mercury emissions rule, E&E News reported, before it was rescinded under Wheeler.
The government watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington filed an ethics complaint against Wheeler last year over his involvement in the rule change, noting that he "participated in the matter less than a year" after signing the pledge.
"It is becoming more and more clear why coal and energy companies are happy to have their former lobbyist Andrew Wheeler in charge of the EPA," CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said at the time. "Administrator Wheeler's apparent failure to abide by ethics obligations and to avoid the reality or appearance of conflicts continues to undermine the EPA's integrity and weakens public confidence in our government."
Earlier this year, the EPA also finalized a rule that would extend deadlines to start closing unlined coal ash ponds. Coal ash from coal plants is dumped into excavated holes in the ground, where it mixes with water to create "coal ash ponds," which can leak if they are not properly lined. The proposed rule would allow some coal plants five more years before requiring them to close the unlined ash ponds.
One of the major backers of the rule is the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group (USWAG), a secretive trade group whose members include Xcel Energy, a longtime former Wheeler client. Xcel Energy called for the rule change and the USWAG petitioned Pruitt for the rule in 2017. The USWAG praised the EPA for proposing the change under Wheeler last year.
Accountable.US criticized the EPA for rolling back regulations on coal ash at the behest of Wheeler's former client.
"Administrator Wheeler is part of a corrupt pattern in the Trump administration, putting the interests of his allies above the public he is supposed to serve," Saeger said last month. "This administration is abusing its power to hand out favors to corporate lobbyists, selling out Americans' health and the environment in the process."
In May, the EPA proposed no additional measures to mitigate negative air quality impacts associated with renewable fuel standards as required under the Clean Air Act. The proposed rule has been open for public comment ever since but has only received 16 thus far, including one supporting the rule from Growth Energy. The company has been one of the biggest supporters of the rule.
Growth Energy was one of Wheeler's clients before he joined the EPA, according to his financial disclosure, which said he provided the company "strategic advice and counseling." Wheeler had pledged to recuse himself from matters related to Growth Energy until shortly before the proposed rule was published.
The trend has played out in other agencies whose heads were appointed by the president. The Interior Department has made at least 15 policy changes or proposals that benefited Secretary David Bernhardt's former energy industry clients. Several of acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf's former lobbying clients have also received millions in government contracts while he held senior positions in the department. More than 280 of Trump's political appointments have been former lobbyists, according to an analysis by ProPublica.
CREW has repeatedly called for the EPA's inspector general to investigate whether Wheeler violated his ethics pledge in connection to rules that benefited his former clients.
"Administrator Wheeler has repeatedly used his government position at EPA to benefit the former clients that made him rich, and to the detriment of the agency's critical mission," CREW Deputy Director Donald Sherman said in a statement to Salon. "Administrator Wheeler's continued lobbying on behalf of industry from within EPA, is clear evidence that patronage is a feature, not a bug, of the Trump administration."
RELATED: The three amigos of scam artistry
The three amigos of scam artistry: Steve Bannon, Roy Moore and the My Pillow guy
Trump's regime in a nutshell: A trio of right-wing con men who hose the rubes with ridiculous schemes
GOP senator took donations from drug companies who benefited from his vaccine bills
Big Pharma gave thousands to Montana Sen. Steve Daines — while he was writing a law to award them federal funds
ROGER SOLLENBERGER - salon
AUGUST 3, 2020 9:00AM (UTC)
Republican Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, who faces a tough re-election fight this year, received thousands of dollars from pharmaceutical companies while pushing Congress to fund a fast-tracked coronavirus treatment and vaccine development program that eventually awarded contracts to those companies, Federal Election Commission records show.
The $10 billion program, dubbed Operation Warp Speed, was Daines' marquee contribution to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), which President Trump signed into law on March 27.
In the days and weeks that Daines worked on the bill, PACs affiliated with the pharmaceutical corporations Pfizer and Sanofi gave his campaign $2,500 and $2,000, respectively. Four days before Trump signed the act, a Merck corporate PAC gave Daines $4,000.
In total, from the end of March to the end of June, Daines took a combined $24,000 from the corporate PACs of pharmaceutical companies involved with Operation Warp Speed.
In addition to Merck, Sanofi and Pfizer — which made two donations — Daines saw contributions from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, who in late June contributed $2,500 and $3,000, respectively.
While all these companies donated to senators and candidates on both sides of the aisle, these contributions are notable in that AstraZeneca tripled its other donations to Daines, and Johnson & Johnson had never given him money before.
All donors were among the six finalists chosen as finalists for Warp Speed contracts in June.
For reasons that are still unclear, these pharmaceutical PACs all but stopped donations entirely through the month of April, before resuming in late May.
Operation Warp Speed was created as part of a "moonshot" joint public-private effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine by early 2021. The federal government announced Friday that it had reached a $2.1 billion agreement with drugmakers GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi — a Daines donor — the largest contract awarded through the program yet. The week before, Pfizer, another Daines donor, won a contract worth nearly $2 billion.
Daines promoted the project as recently as last week, boasting about the initiative at a Senate Finance Committee hearing last Wednesday, along with legislation to bring drug manufacturing back to the U.S. from China.
In total, the Montana Republican has accepted nearly $140,000 from pharmaceutical companies over the years, FEC records show. Those companies have little to no presence in Montana.
Daines' 2018 financial disclosure form, the most recent available, shows that he has a Vanguard Health Care Adm Mutual Fund valued as much as $250,000. That fund includes slices of Teva and Amneal, pharmaceutical corporations that have promoted hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19, despite health warnings from federal regulators.
That same financial disclosure also reveals that Daines owns several parcels of commercial real estate in Bozeman, Montana. One of his tenants there is Golden Helix, a company that makes genome-sequencing analytics software — key to vaccine and drug development — which received between $350,000 and $2 million in CARES Act small business loans. The company says it counts nine of American's 10 largest pharmaceutical companies as customers.
In the first quarter of 2020, pharmaceutical companies Sanofi, Pfizer, Merck, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca reported spending more than $6.6 million to lobby Congress on various issues, including the CARES Act and COVID-19.
Congressional oversight bodies and watchdogs have expressed concerns about the lack of transparency surrounding the award of vaccine contracts under Operation Warp Speed.
Daines will face current Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, in November. Trump took the state by 20 points in 2016, but Montana has a record of electing Democrats in statewide races while favoring national Republicans. Recent polls show Bullock and Daines neck-and-neck, and Roll Call currently considers the race one of four "toss-ups" in the U.S. Senate.
The Daines campaign did not reply to Salon's request for comment.
The $10 billion program, dubbed Operation Warp Speed, was Daines' marquee contribution to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), which President Trump signed into law on March 27.
In the days and weeks that Daines worked on the bill, PACs affiliated with the pharmaceutical corporations Pfizer and Sanofi gave his campaign $2,500 and $2,000, respectively. Four days before Trump signed the act, a Merck corporate PAC gave Daines $4,000.
In total, from the end of March to the end of June, Daines took a combined $24,000 from the corporate PACs of pharmaceutical companies involved with Operation Warp Speed.
In addition to Merck, Sanofi and Pfizer — which made two donations — Daines saw contributions from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, who in late June contributed $2,500 and $3,000, respectively.
While all these companies donated to senators and candidates on both sides of the aisle, these contributions are notable in that AstraZeneca tripled its other donations to Daines, and Johnson & Johnson had never given him money before.
All donors were among the six finalists chosen as finalists for Warp Speed contracts in June.
For reasons that are still unclear, these pharmaceutical PACs all but stopped donations entirely through the month of April, before resuming in late May.
Operation Warp Speed was created as part of a "moonshot" joint public-private effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine by early 2021. The federal government announced Friday that it had reached a $2.1 billion agreement with drugmakers GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi — a Daines donor — the largest contract awarded through the program yet. The week before, Pfizer, another Daines donor, won a contract worth nearly $2 billion.
Daines promoted the project as recently as last week, boasting about the initiative at a Senate Finance Committee hearing last Wednesday, along with legislation to bring drug manufacturing back to the U.S. from China.
In total, the Montana Republican has accepted nearly $140,000 from pharmaceutical companies over the years, FEC records show. Those companies have little to no presence in Montana.
Daines' 2018 financial disclosure form, the most recent available, shows that he has a Vanguard Health Care Adm Mutual Fund valued as much as $250,000. That fund includes slices of Teva and Amneal, pharmaceutical corporations that have promoted hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19, despite health warnings from federal regulators.
That same financial disclosure also reveals that Daines owns several parcels of commercial real estate in Bozeman, Montana. One of his tenants there is Golden Helix, a company that makes genome-sequencing analytics software — key to vaccine and drug development — which received between $350,000 and $2 million in CARES Act small business loans. The company says it counts nine of American's 10 largest pharmaceutical companies as customers.
In the first quarter of 2020, pharmaceutical companies Sanofi, Pfizer, Merck, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca reported spending more than $6.6 million to lobby Congress on various issues, including the CARES Act and COVID-19.
Congressional oversight bodies and watchdogs have expressed concerns about the lack of transparency surrounding the award of vaccine contracts under Operation Warp Speed.
Daines will face current Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, in November. Trump took the state by 20 points in 2016, but Montana has a record of electing Democrats in statewide races while favoring national Republicans. Recent polls show Bullock and Daines neck-and-neck, and Roll Call currently considers the race one of four "toss-ups" in the U.S. Senate.
The Daines campaign did not reply to Salon's request for comment.
greed has no limits!!!
W.Va. governor's companies get millions in virus loans
Anthony Izaguirre, Associated Press m- chron
Updated 4:24 pm CDT, Monday, July 6, 2020
Billionaire West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice's family businesses received at least $11.1 million from a federal rescue package meant to keep small businesses afloat during the coronavirus pandemic, according to data released by the Treasury Department on Monday.
Justice, a Republican, is considered to be West Virginia's richest man through ownership of dozens of coal and agricultural businesses, many of which have been sued for unpaid debts.
At least six Justice family entities received the Paycheck Protection Program loans, including the governor's lavish resort The Greenbrier, as well as The Greenbrier Sporting Club, an exclusive members-only club linked to the resort, according to the data. Those six businesses were listed as collecting between $11.1 million and $24.3 million because the federal government disclosed the dollar figures in ranges, not specific amounts.
The aid package is the centerpiece of the federal government’s plan to rescue an economy devastated by shutdowns and uncertainty, with the data released Monday presenting the fullest accounting of the program thus far.
Justice acknowledged last week that his private companies received money from the program but said he did not know specific dollar amounts. A representative for the governor's family companies did not immediately return an email seeking comment. At a news briefing Monday, Justice again said he was unsure of the dollar amount but added that he pushed for companies to take advantage of any federal virus relief programs.
“I encouraged all business in our state to try to seek anything and everything that they could possibly seek from the federal government in regards to loans,” Justice said, adding that around $2 billion has come into the state from the federal package.
The governor said he wanted to place his assets in a blind trust shortly after he was elected but has not done so. He maintains that his children are in control of the family business empire. Still, Justice has faced criticism throughout his time as governor from those who argue he is too focused on his private companies to perform his government duties. The governor has repeatedly pushed back on such claims.
Justice bought The Greenbrier resort out of bankruptcy in 2009. Nestled in the Allegheny Mountains in southeastern West Virginia, The Greenbrier bills itself as America’s Resort and once served as a secret Cold War-era bunker for the federal engorgement. Now, the National Historic Landmark boasts more than 700 rooms and has hosted a PGA Tour stop. It closed temporarily because of the pandemic.
The resort came under the scrutiny of federal prosecutors last year, when attorneys in a public corruption unit sent three subpoenas to the Justice administration seeking documents related to The Greenbrier, the PGA tournament, the tournament’s nonprofit financial arm and Justice’s tax records. The governor’s personal legal team told reporters at a January news conference the investigation ended with no finding of wrongdoing.
Last year, another one of Justice’s family businesses, Justice Farms of North Carolina, received $125,000 in soybean and corn subsidies, the maximum allowed from a separate federal program meant to help American farmers through the U.S. trade war with China. The payments, made public through records provided to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act, highlighted the sometimes fraught relationship between the billionaire’s businesses and his role as chief executive.
Justice won office in 2016 as a Democrat but announced after less than a year as governor that he was changing his party affiliation to Republican during a rally with President Donald Trump.
Under the Paycheck Protection Program, the government is backing $659 billion in low-interest loans written by banks. Taxpayer money will pay off the loans if borrowers use them on payroll, rent and similar expenses. Companies typically must have fewer than 500 workers to qualify.
Demand was so great that a first infusion of $349 billion ran out in just two weeks. Many Main Street businesses could not navigate the application process rapidly enough to get one of those first loans before funding dried up. Meanwhile, several hundred companies traded on stock exchanges -- hardly the image of a small business -- received loans maxing out at $10 million each, causing a public backlash and leading dozens to return the money.
Congress added $310 billion to the program, but confusing, shifting and sometimes restrictive rules cooled interest. About $140 billion was unclaimed as the application deadline closed June 30. With money still available, Congress voted to extend the program just as it was expiring, setting a new date of Aug. 8.
The public may never know the identity of more than 80% of the nearly 5 million beneficiaries to date because the administration has refused to release details on loans under $150,000 -- the vast majority of borrowers. That secrecy spurred an open-records lawsuit by a group of news organizations, including The Associated Press.
Justice, a Republican, is considered to be West Virginia's richest man through ownership of dozens of coal and agricultural businesses, many of which have been sued for unpaid debts.
At least six Justice family entities received the Paycheck Protection Program loans, including the governor's lavish resort The Greenbrier, as well as The Greenbrier Sporting Club, an exclusive members-only club linked to the resort, according to the data. Those six businesses were listed as collecting between $11.1 million and $24.3 million because the federal government disclosed the dollar figures in ranges, not specific amounts.
The aid package is the centerpiece of the federal government’s plan to rescue an economy devastated by shutdowns and uncertainty, with the data released Monday presenting the fullest accounting of the program thus far.
Justice acknowledged last week that his private companies received money from the program but said he did not know specific dollar amounts. A representative for the governor's family companies did not immediately return an email seeking comment. At a news briefing Monday, Justice again said he was unsure of the dollar amount but added that he pushed for companies to take advantage of any federal virus relief programs.
“I encouraged all business in our state to try to seek anything and everything that they could possibly seek from the federal government in regards to loans,” Justice said, adding that around $2 billion has come into the state from the federal package.
The governor said he wanted to place his assets in a blind trust shortly after he was elected but has not done so. He maintains that his children are in control of the family business empire. Still, Justice has faced criticism throughout his time as governor from those who argue he is too focused on his private companies to perform his government duties. The governor has repeatedly pushed back on such claims.
Justice bought The Greenbrier resort out of bankruptcy in 2009. Nestled in the Allegheny Mountains in southeastern West Virginia, The Greenbrier bills itself as America’s Resort and once served as a secret Cold War-era bunker for the federal engorgement. Now, the National Historic Landmark boasts more than 700 rooms and has hosted a PGA Tour stop. It closed temporarily because of the pandemic.
The resort came under the scrutiny of federal prosecutors last year, when attorneys in a public corruption unit sent three subpoenas to the Justice administration seeking documents related to The Greenbrier, the PGA tournament, the tournament’s nonprofit financial arm and Justice’s tax records. The governor’s personal legal team told reporters at a January news conference the investigation ended with no finding of wrongdoing.
Last year, another one of Justice’s family businesses, Justice Farms of North Carolina, received $125,000 in soybean and corn subsidies, the maximum allowed from a separate federal program meant to help American farmers through the U.S. trade war with China. The payments, made public through records provided to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act, highlighted the sometimes fraught relationship between the billionaire’s businesses and his role as chief executive.
Justice won office in 2016 as a Democrat but announced after less than a year as governor that he was changing his party affiliation to Republican during a rally with President Donald Trump.
Under the Paycheck Protection Program, the government is backing $659 billion in low-interest loans written by banks. Taxpayer money will pay off the loans if borrowers use them on payroll, rent and similar expenses. Companies typically must have fewer than 500 workers to qualify.
Demand was so great that a first infusion of $349 billion ran out in just two weeks. Many Main Street businesses could not navigate the application process rapidly enough to get one of those first loans before funding dried up. Meanwhile, several hundred companies traded on stock exchanges -- hardly the image of a small business -- received loans maxing out at $10 million each, causing a public backlash and leading dozens to return the money.
Congress added $310 billion to the program, but confusing, shifting and sometimes restrictive rules cooled interest. About $140 billion was unclaimed as the application deadline closed June 30. With money still available, Congress voted to extend the program just as it was expiring, setting a new date of Aug. 8.
The public may never know the identity of more than 80% of the nearly 5 million beneficiaries to date because the administration has refused to release details on loans under $150,000 -- the vast majority of borrowers. That secrecy spurred an open-records lawsuit by a group of news organizations, including The Associated Press.
After months of inquiry, Trump campaign still appears to have not returned illegal foreign donation
The campaign has refused to answer questions about the money. Recent filings indicate it never disgorged the cash
ROGER SOLLENBERGER - salon
JULY 3, 2020 8:59AM (UTC)
Following two published reports and months of follow-up conversations via phone and email, the Trump campaign has consistently refused to answer the question of what happened to an unlawful $2,800 donation which ended up on its balance sheets in 2019.
The most recent Federal Election Commission (FEC) records indicate that the Trump campaign has still not disgorged Turkish national Rabia Kazan's 2019 donation.
Outside of an accidental $225 donation from a Canadian Muslim in April 2016, Kazan's donation is the Trump campaign's only known illegal foreign contribution.
The Trump campaign told Salon that it had refunded the $225 donation, but there is no FEC record indicating that it did so. When asked, the campaign failed to provide proof.
The $2,800 donation in question was made by Rabia Kazan, a Turkish writer and author living in the U.S. on a student visa, who made the contribution in exchange for access to a March 2019 campaign event at Mar-a-Lago, where she met the president.
BuzzFeed News first reported the contribution this February, and Kazan did not know she had violated the law until journalists informed her of it.
Kazan made the payment on the website for Trump Victory, which is the official joint fundraising vehicle shared between the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee. Trump Victory transferred the money off of its ledgers and into the Trump campaign account the same day, FEC records show.
The transfer was made in Kazan's name — not Trump Victory.
"This is actually one of the rare areas where election law is quite clear," Brennan Center fellow and Stetson University election law expert Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, told BuzzFeed at the time.
"Unless you've got a green card, foreign nationals can't give money to campaigns," she added. "And campaigns can't accept that money."
However, it also appears that neither Kazan, Trump Victory nor the campaign committed actions at the time which would have risen to the standard of "willful intent" required for a criminal conviction.
Upon the story's publication, Trump Victory refunded Kazan's money Feb. 6, which is confirmed in FEC filings, as well as in receipts shared with Salon by Kazan and an RNC spokesperson.
However, the Trump campaign offered Salon no documentation of its own transactions regarding the donation. Additionally, there is still no evidence in the campaign's most recent filings that it ever disgorged the $2,800 from its balance sheet in any way.
Though Trump Victory and Kazan would be spared "willful intent," the Trump campaign has known for months that this money on its balance sheet is unlawful.
Federal law requires campaigns to return all known illegal contributions. If money cannot be otherwise returned to a donor or committee, it must be disgorged to the Treasury Department. The campaign has yet to do so.
When Salon asked spokesperson Courtney Parella what the Trump campaign had done about the unlawful $2,800 on its balance sheet, she ceased email and phone communications about the subject matter.
Kazan, who converted from Islam to Catholicism while in the U.S., had for years been a familiar face at the Trump International Hotel in Washington and on the "Make America Great Again" booster circuit. However, Kazan renounced Trump and MAGA-world in late 2019. She denounced the president's supporters as a "cult" amid claims that she had been harassed, threatened with deportation and even shaken down for cash.
Kazan told Salon she is currently at work on a tell-all about her four years inside the movement.
She also shared with BuzzFeed, and later with Salon, evidence that two Trump campaign surrogates from her old world, Amy Kremer and Ximena Barreto — who both knew her Turkish background — had unlawfully solicited donations from her, as well as from her sister, Betul, who lives in Turkey. Kazan did not make those donations.
Curiously, there is also no FEC record indicating that the campaign ever delivered on its 2016 promise to refund its only other known foreign donor.
Shahriyar Nasir — a "proud Muslim" who lives in Toronto and does not support the president — made the donation after having lost a bet with a friend when he skipped a workout day.
He claimed that the rules of their bet required the loser to donate to an "anti-charity," which in this case was the Trump Foundation. However, he donated to the campaign by accident.
Hope Hicks, at the time a campaign spokeswoman, said the campaign was in the process of refunding Nasir's $225. However, there is no record of a refund.
Nasir did not respond to Salon's request for comment, but the campaign claimed — without providing evidence — that the money was repaid.
Though it seems clear that Trump Victory has knowingly eaten the cost of a comparatively petty refund to one of only two known foreign donors on behalf of the campaign, it is unclear why.
It is possible, experts tell Salon, that the committee wants to shield the campaign from the embarrassment of an illicit donation of this particular nature — even though doing so may further extend wrongdoing.
Trump has been dogged by serious allegations of soliciting and accepting political assistance from foreign nationals, including possibly millions of dollars through complex schemes, as well as through spending at his various properties in the U.S. and abroad. This continual pattern of behavior led directly to his impeachment last year.
Following a brief, shining one-month window of enforcement capability, the FEC lost its quorum once more when Republican commissioner Caroline Hunter resigned late last month. Without a quorum, the agency cannot enforce its own laws.
Shortly after Hunter's announcement, the White House said it would nominate Allen Dickerson to replace her. Dickerson, however, is the legal director at the Institute for Free Speech, an organization known generally to oppose campaign finance regulations.
In a statement, Dickerson called the nomination "a tremendous honor."
"I am grateful for the president's confidence and hope to have the opportunity to serve the American people in this important role," he said.
But even amid an election which promises to shatter fundraising and spending records, the pressure to restore the agency's basic functionality does not guarantee that Dickerson will be confirmed anytime soon.
The Republican-controlled Senate refused for years even to hold hearings for Trump's 2017 FEC nominee, James Trainor. After several renominations, he was granted a hearing this March and was sworn in two months later.
It is unclear exactly how campaigns, committees and dark-money groups will behave among what appears to be effectively a lawless zone during what is shaping up to be the most consequential election in U.S. history.
When asked about available recourse, a senior FEC official told Salon: "Anyone can file a complaint if they think a violation of campaign finance law or Commission regulations has occurred."
The most recent Federal Election Commission (FEC) records indicate that the Trump campaign has still not disgorged Turkish national Rabia Kazan's 2019 donation.
Outside of an accidental $225 donation from a Canadian Muslim in April 2016, Kazan's donation is the Trump campaign's only known illegal foreign contribution.
The Trump campaign told Salon that it had refunded the $225 donation, but there is no FEC record indicating that it did so. When asked, the campaign failed to provide proof.
The $2,800 donation in question was made by Rabia Kazan, a Turkish writer and author living in the U.S. on a student visa, who made the contribution in exchange for access to a March 2019 campaign event at Mar-a-Lago, where she met the president.
BuzzFeed News first reported the contribution this February, and Kazan did not know she had violated the law until journalists informed her of it.
Kazan made the payment on the website for Trump Victory, which is the official joint fundraising vehicle shared between the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee. Trump Victory transferred the money off of its ledgers and into the Trump campaign account the same day, FEC records show.
The transfer was made in Kazan's name — not Trump Victory.
"This is actually one of the rare areas where election law is quite clear," Brennan Center fellow and Stetson University election law expert Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, told BuzzFeed at the time.
"Unless you've got a green card, foreign nationals can't give money to campaigns," she added. "And campaigns can't accept that money."
However, it also appears that neither Kazan, Trump Victory nor the campaign committed actions at the time which would have risen to the standard of "willful intent" required for a criminal conviction.
Upon the story's publication, Trump Victory refunded Kazan's money Feb. 6, which is confirmed in FEC filings, as well as in receipts shared with Salon by Kazan and an RNC spokesperson.
However, the Trump campaign offered Salon no documentation of its own transactions regarding the donation. Additionally, there is still no evidence in the campaign's most recent filings that it ever disgorged the $2,800 from its balance sheet in any way.
Though Trump Victory and Kazan would be spared "willful intent," the Trump campaign has known for months that this money on its balance sheet is unlawful.
Federal law requires campaigns to return all known illegal contributions. If money cannot be otherwise returned to a donor or committee, it must be disgorged to the Treasury Department. The campaign has yet to do so.
When Salon asked spokesperson Courtney Parella what the Trump campaign had done about the unlawful $2,800 on its balance sheet, she ceased email and phone communications about the subject matter.
Kazan, who converted from Islam to Catholicism while in the U.S., had for years been a familiar face at the Trump International Hotel in Washington and on the "Make America Great Again" booster circuit. However, Kazan renounced Trump and MAGA-world in late 2019. She denounced the president's supporters as a "cult" amid claims that she had been harassed, threatened with deportation and even shaken down for cash.
Kazan told Salon she is currently at work on a tell-all about her four years inside the movement.
She also shared with BuzzFeed, and later with Salon, evidence that two Trump campaign surrogates from her old world, Amy Kremer and Ximena Barreto — who both knew her Turkish background — had unlawfully solicited donations from her, as well as from her sister, Betul, who lives in Turkey. Kazan did not make those donations.
Curiously, there is also no FEC record indicating that the campaign ever delivered on its 2016 promise to refund its only other known foreign donor.
Shahriyar Nasir — a "proud Muslim" who lives in Toronto and does not support the president — made the donation after having lost a bet with a friend when he skipped a workout day.
He claimed that the rules of their bet required the loser to donate to an "anti-charity," which in this case was the Trump Foundation. However, he donated to the campaign by accident.
Hope Hicks, at the time a campaign spokeswoman, said the campaign was in the process of refunding Nasir's $225. However, there is no record of a refund.
Nasir did not respond to Salon's request for comment, but the campaign claimed — without providing evidence — that the money was repaid.
Though it seems clear that Trump Victory has knowingly eaten the cost of a comparatively petty refund to one of only two known foreign donors on behalf of the campaign, it is unclear why.
It is possible, experts tell Salon, that the committee wants to shield the campaign from the embarrassment of an illicit donation of this particular nature — even though doing so may further extend wrongdoing.
Trump has been dogged by serious allegations of soliciting and accepting political assistance from foreign nationals, including possibly millions of dollars through complex schemes, as well as through spending at his various properties in the U.S. and abroad. This continual pattern of behavior led directly to his impeachment last year.
Following a brief, shining one-month window of enforcement capability, the FEC lost its quorum once more when Republican commissioner Caroline Hunter resigned late last month. Without a quorum, the agency cannot enforce its own laws.
Shortly after Hunter's announcement, the White House said it would nominate Allen Dickerson to replace her. Dickerson, however, is the legal director at the Institute for Free Speech, an organization known generally to oppose campaign finance regulations.
In a statement, Dickerson called the nomination "a tremendous honor."
"I am grateful for the president's confidence and hope to have the opportunity to serve the American people in this important role," he said.
But even amid an election which promises to shatter fundraising and spending records, the pressure to restore the agency's basic functionality does not guarantee that Dickerson will be confirmed anytime soon.
The Republican-controlled Senate refused for years even to hold hearings for Trump's 2017 FEC nominee, James Trainor. After several renominations, he was granted a hearing this March and was sworn in two months later.
It is unclear exactly how campaigns, committees and dark-money groups will behave among what appears to be effectively a lawless zone during what is shaping up to be the most consequential election in U.S. history.
When asked about available recourse, a senior FEC official told Salon: "Anyone can file a complaint if they think a violation of campaign finance law or Commission regulations has occurred."
"Shocking level of corruption": Watchdogs question if firm was rewarded for supporting Trump's wall
A company that offered its "services" for the border wall got "quick approval" to mine outside of normal protocol
IGOR DERYSH - salon
JUNE 28, 2020 9:00AM (UTC)
Multiple government watchdog groups have called for an investigation after a Mexican company received rapid approval on a multi-million-dollar mining contract in Colorado shortly after it expressed support for President Donald Trump's border wall.
Days after Trump's election in 2016, Enrique Escalante, the chief executive of Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC), told Reuters that the company was "ready to lend its services" to build the border wall that the president promised during his campaign.
"For the business we're in, Trump is a candidate that does favor the industry quite a bit," he told the outlet.
The announcement drew headlines around the world as outlets seized on the idea of a Mexican firm helping to build the wall.
The company has seen business boom since Trump's inauguration with some help from the administration.
About a year after the announcement, the company's subsidiary, GCC Energy, received "quick approval" to expand operations in the King II coal mine near Hesperus, Colo., The Durango Herald reported. The company has operated the mine since 2007 and had asked the Bureau of Land Management for a 950-acre expansion.
But the request did not go through the normal process. The expansion was granted by the Interior Department in Washington rather than the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) state office in Denver.
Normally, a mining company which operates on BLM land in Colorado has to go through the Denver office and can then appeal to the Interior Board of Land Appeals, which is part of the Interior Department. But the GCC expansion was instead approved by Katharine MacGregor, then the department's deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management, which meant the decision could not be appealed.
Watchdog groups cried foul over the move.
"Even by the Trump administration's standards, trading a coal mine for the border wall is a shocking level of corruption," Kyle Herrig, the president of the progressive watchdog group Accountable.US, told Salon. "Our public lands belong to all Americans — not to foreign corporations that pander to the president by pledging allegiance to his divisive and dangerous political agenda."
GCC Energy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company told The Herald that it would have been forced to shut down if it did not receive approval to expand. Steven Hall, a spokesman for the BLM office in Denver, told the outlet that the decision "reflects the Trump administration's orders to expedite energy development" and "streamline decision-making processes."
The mine had long drawn complaints from residents, who cited "impacts on health, noise, traffic and water safety," according to The Herald. The complaints prompted numerous public comments calling for the BLM to conduct an environmental impact analysis before approving the expansion. BLM later said the analysis was unnecessary, The Herald reported.
A BLM spokesman told Salon that the agency did complete an environmental assessment and found no significant impact.
"The premise of this story is completely ridiculous. The Bureau of Land Management's review of the King II Mine in Colorado followed the BLM's longstanding and lawful protocols, including multiple opportunities for public involvement," the agency said in a statement to Salon. "Further, this is only the first step before mining on this tract can occur – the operator still must obtain additional permits under [Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act], and the [Assistant Secretary for Lands and Minerals] still must approve a mining plan."
Activists cast doubt upon the agency's argument.
"This is yet another example of the Trump administration tripping over itself to grant favors to the mining industry. It's also symptomatic of President Trump's refusal to nominate a director of the Bureau of Land Management, pushing decisions all the way to Washington rather than letting them be made on the ground in the states that are most affected by them," Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, a nonpartisan conservation and advocacy group, told Salon.
"Whether or not the offer to help build the border wall had any impact on the rushed mine expansion is almost beside the point," he added. "This administration will always put profits over people, risking public health and our public lands to extract every bit of coal, oil and gas available."
The Trump administration's push to expedite energy projects and bypass environmental reviews is well-reported. But critics said the decision to bypass the normal process to approve the mine expansion was "an attempt to silence opponents and deny people an opportunity to have their voices heard," The Herald reported at the time.
Last year, Casey Hammond, the current acting assistant secretary for land and minerals management, announced that the company was approved to expand the mine by another 2,462 acres, which is expected to extend the life of the mine for at least another two decades.
Along with support from within the administration, the company also paid tens of thousands to lobby officials to the law firm WilmerHale, which has extensive ties to the Trump administration and the president's family.
WilmerHale "represents at least two of President Donald Trump's family members who also are White House officials — his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law, Jared Kushner — as well as former campaign chairman Paul Manafort," Politico reported in 2017.
Last year, Trump quietly appointed Gail Ennis, who previously earned $2 million per year at WilmerHale and donated thousands to Trump's campaign, to oversee the Interior Department's Office of the Inspector General. Staffers at the office reported that they were silenced during Ennis' brief tenure at the agency. Ennis currently serves as the inspector general at the Social Security Administration.
The Trump administration also appointed former WilmerHale attorney Jeffrey Kessler as the assistant secretary for enforcement and compliance at the Commerce Department.
GCC is represented by WilmerHale's Raya Treiser. Independent reporting shows extensive contact and meetings between WilmerHale and Treiser and top officials at the Interior Department.
Donald K. Sherman, the deputy director of the Washington-based watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, told Salon that the Interior Department's inspector general should "investigate the GCC deal immediately."
"What we see is that patronage and cronyism are core values of the Trump administration, especially when they involve the president's vanity project at the Southern border," he said. "This situation reeks of favoritism, and I think the administration's record of self-dealing doesn't afford them the benefit of the doubt. This needs to be looked into."
The questions over GCC's business boom after supporting Trump's border wall come after a small scandal-plagued North Dakota company landed a $1.28 billion border wall contract — the largest yet — after its chief executive repeatedly appeared on Fox News in an effort to win over the president.
Trump's decision reportedly "alarmed" and "concerned" career officials. Democrats slammed the move after the administration failed to disclose the contract before it was reported by a local news outlet.
The Interior Department, run by former lobbyist David Bernhardt, has also been accused of favoritism, ethics violations and blocking scientific reports.
An ethics complaint filed by the Campaign Legal Center, a government watchdog group, described a "disturbing pattern of misconduct" by numerous top officials at the department, which it said was filled with former lobbyists that are cozy with their previous employers.
"The inspector general should investigate the officials involved in the abnormal approval of the mining company's expansion and hold them accountable if their actions fit the pattern of disregard for ethical norms demonstrated across the Department of Interior since 2017," Kedric Payne, the group's general counsel and director of ethics, told Salon.
Days after Trump's election in 2016, Enrique Escalante, the chief executive of Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC), told Reuters that the company was "ready to lend its services" to build the border wall that the president promised during his campaign.
"For the business we're in, Trump is a candidate that does favor the industry quite a bit," he told the outlet.
The announcement drew headlines around the world as outlets seized on the idea of a Mexican firm helping to build the wall.
The company has seen business boom since Trump's inauguration with some help from the administration.
About a year after the announcement, the company's subsidiary, GCC Energy, received "quick approval" to expand operations in the King II coal mine near Hesperus, Colo., The Durango Herald reported. The company has operated the mine since 2007 and had asked the Bureau of Land Management for a 950-acre expansion.
But the request did not go through the normal process. The expansion was granted by the Interior Department in Washington rather than the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) state office in Denver.
Normally, a mining company which operates on BLM land in Colorado has to go through the Denver office and can then appeal to the Interior Board of Land Appeals, which is part of the Interior Department. But the GCC expansion was instead approved by Katharine MacGregor, then the department's deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management, which meant the decision could not be appealed.
Watchdog groups cried foul over the move.
"Even by the Trump administration's standards, trading a coal mine for the border wall is a shocking level of corruption," Kyle Herrig, the president of the progressive watchdog group Accountable.US, told Salon. "Our public lands belong to all Americans — not to foreign corporations that pander to the president by pledging allegiance to his divisive and dangerous political agenda."
GCC Energy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company told The Herald that it would have been forced to shut down if it did not receive approval to expand. Steven Hall, a spokesman for the BLM office in Denver, told the outlet that the decision "reflects the Trump administration's orders to expedite energy development" and "streamline decision-making processes."
The mine had long drawn complaints from residents, who cited "impacts on health, noise, traffic and water safety," according to The Herald. The complaints prompted numerous public comments calling for the BLM to conduct an environmental impact analysis before approving the expansion. BLM later said the analysis was unnecessary, The Herald reported.
A BLM spokesman told Salon that the agency did complete an environmental assessment and found no significant impact.
"The premise of this story is completely ridiculous. The Bureau of Land Management's review of the King II Mine in Colorado followed the BLM's longstanding and lawful protocols, including multiple opportunities for public involvement," the agency said in a statement to Salon. "Further, this is only the first step before mining on this tract can occur – the operator still must obtain additional permits under [Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act], and the [Assistant Secretary for Lands and Minerals] still must approve a mining plan."
Activists cast doubt upon the agency's argument.
"This is yet another example of the Trump administration tripping over itself to grant favors to the mining industry. It's also symptomatic of President Trump's refusal to nominate a director of the Bureau of Land Management, pushing decisions all the way to Washington rather than letting them be made on the ground in the states that are most affected by them," Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, a nonpartisan conservation and advocacy group, told Salon.
"Whether or not the offer to help build the border wall had any impact on the rushed mine expansion is almost beside the point," he added. "This administration will always put profits over people, risking public health and our public lands to extract every bit of coal, oil and gas available."
The Trump administration's push to expedite energy projects and bypass environmental reviews is well-reported. But critics said the decision to bypass the normal process to approve the mine expansion was "an attempt to silence opponents and deny people an opportunity to have their voices heard," The Herald reported at the time.
Last year, Casey Hammond, the current acting assistant secretary for land and minerals management, announced that the company was approved to expand the mine by another 2,462 acres, which is expected to extend the life of the mine for at least another two decades.
Along with support from within the administration, the company also paid tens of thousands to lobby officials to the law firm WilmerHale, which has extensive ties to the Trump administration and the president's family.
WilmerHale "represents at least two of President Donald Trump's family members who also are White House officials — his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law, Jared Kushner — as well as former campaign chairman Paul Manafort," Politico reported in 2017.
Last year, Trump quietly appointed Gail Ennis, who previously earned $2 million per year at WilmerHale and donated thousands to Trump's campaign, to oversee the Interior Department's Office of the Inspector General. Staffers at the office reported that they were silenced during Ennis' brief tenure at the agency. Ennis currently serves as the inspector general at the Social Security Administration.
The Trump administration also appointed former WilmerHale attorney Jeffrey Kessler as the assistant secretary for enforcement and compliance at the Commerce Department.
GCC is represented by WilmerHale's Raya Treiser. Independent reporting shows extensive contact and meetings between WilmerHale and Treiser and top officials at the Interior Department.
Donald K. Sherman, the deputy director of the Washington-based watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, told Salon that the Interior Department's inspector general should "investigate the GCC deal immediately."
"What we see is that patronage and cronyism are core values of the Trump administration, especially when they involve the president's vanity project at the Southern border," he said. "This situation reeks of favoritism, and I think the administration's record of self-dealing doesn't afford them the benefit of the doubt. This needs to be looked into."
The questions over GCC's business boom after supporting Trump's border wall come after a small scandal-plagued North Dakota company landed a $1.28 billion border wall contract — the largest yet — after its chief executive repeatedly appeared on Fox News in an effort to win over the president.
Trump's decision reportedly "alarmed" and "concerned" career officials. Democrats slammed the move after the administration failed to disclose the contract before it was reported by a local news outlet.
The Interior Department, run by former lobbyist David Bernhardt, has also been accused of favoritism, ethics violations and blocking scientific reports.
An ethics complaint filed by the Campaign Legal Center, a government watchdog group, described a "disturbing pattern of misconduct" by numerous top officials at the department, which it said was filled with former lobbyists that are cozy with their previous employers.
"The inspector general should investigate the officials involved in the abnormal approval of the mining company's expansion and hold them accountable if their actions fit the pattern of disregard for ethical norms demonstrated across the Department of Interior since 2017," Kedric Payne, the group's general counsel and director of ethics, told Salon.
Donald Trump, hydroxychloroquine and the world's largest fund manager: A love story?
Does BlackRock explain Trump's strange affection for hydroxychloroquine — and a specific brand of COVID-19 test?
ROGER SOLLENBERGER - salon
JUNE 11, 2020 10:00AM (UTC)
...Research compiled and shared with Salon by American Bridge — a political action committee that advocates for Democratic candidates — in conjunction with Salon's independent investigation has revealed previously unreported connections between the president, his pet drug of choice and powerful investors.
"With no coronavirus treatment available, Trump's willingness to push snake-oil cures and stymie medical experts is sickening. We need a president who listens to science, not those pitching get-rich-quick schemes," said Kyle Morse, an American Bridge spokesperson.
In April, Trump named Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world's largest fund manager, to the council advising him on the economic response to the pandemic. Though a number of council nominees told media outlets that they had not been notified, Fink was one of a few who was contacted.
BlackRock currently holds an approximate 6% stake — equivalent to $515 million — in the pharmaceutical company Mylan, which makes a hydroxychloroquine sulfate tablet. Mylan announced it would begin to ratchet up HCL production on March 19, the day Trump began promoting the treatment publicly.
In February, BlackRock disclosed an 8.4% stake in Mylan. It is unclear when BlackRock sold off the balance.
Though Fink has not been afraid to criticize the president, Trump has been uncharacteristically deferential to the investment mogul.
"People like Larry Fink we're talking to, that's BlackRock — we have the smartest people, and they all want to do it," Trump told reporters at the White House on March 28.
"This, to them, they love this country, they all want to do it, so we're speaking to people like that and they'll be able to work it out," he added.
That same week, Bloomberg reported that the Federal Reserve asked BlackRock to steward debt-buying programs on its behalf.
BlackRock had also staked hundreds of millions of dollars in several other companies that produced hydroxychloroquine, including an approximate 6% share of Sanofi as of February 2020.
Trump reportedly has about $3,000 invested in Sanofi, through another fund. He has repeatedly rejected reports that he "owns the company" that makes HCL.
BlcakRock also disclosed in February that it held about 7% of Abbott Labs, the company that produced the rapid-response COVID-19 test Trump promoted, showroom-style, in a March 30 Rose Garden press briefing.
On April 16, Fink told CNBC that he believed the country would not be able to open unless and until it ramped up rapid testing capacity.
"We're going to still see elements of the disease increasing in other parts of the world and until we have adequate testing, rapid testing, it's very hard to see how we're going to reboot in the next 30 days," the CEO said on CNBC's Squawk Box.
That same day, CNBC reported that BlackRock and Abbott Labs were two of the country's biggest market movers.
In mid-May, however, the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning about the Abbott test after it was revealed to miss up to half of positive cases. Trump defended it anyway.
"It's a great test. It's a very quick test, and it can always be very rapidly double-checked," the president told reporters at a May 15 press briefing. "If you're testing positive or negative, it can always be double-checked. But it's a very good test — very portable, very quick."
The parallel to hydroxychloroquine — which Trump claims to have ingested despite an FDA warning — is difficult to ignore.
According to Trump's 2016 financial disclosures, he had between $25 million and $50 million stashed in BlackRock's "Obsidian Fund." The president claims to have sold off his stocks in June 2016, but has not provided documentation.
Trump has praised Fink, saying in February 2017 that he had put money in BlackRock investment vehicles, and that Fink got him "great returns last year."
Three months later, Fink, speaking at an investor conference, said he generally approved of Trump's policy proposals, but threw shade on the president personally.
The policies represent a "bucket list of things we'd like to see done," Fink said, adding that he was worried Trump's personality might destabilize markets.
"There are many who believe the U.S. is less welcoming," Fink said. "Hotels are seeing bookings down dramatically. Universities are seeing a drop in applications from foreign students. There's something that is slowing everything down."
"You can't take personality out of the debate," he added. "Politics is about personality."
Though Trump's motivation is unclear, and political self-interest is just as likely as any financial incentive, the two are not necessarily independent.
For instance, this spring Trump tapped hedge fund manager John Paulson of Paulson & Co. to join the coronavirus economic advisory council. Paulson has contributed more than $500,000 to Trump campaign vehicles, and served as an economic adviser to his 2016 campaign. Paulson also owns 2.3% of Mylan.
BlackRock's massive market clout imbues the firm with a political dimension by default — especially critical for a president whose electoral fate seems inextricable from the economy.
Mylan itself has spent $680,000 this year on lobbying efforts related to coronavirus legislation, according to research documented by American Bridge.
In late April, ABC reported that state and local governments across the country had stockpiled 30 million doses of hydroxychloroquine. The FDA issued its warning two weeks later. It is still unclear when BlackRock sold off 2.4% of its holdings in Mylan.
Larry Fink did not respond to requests for comment.
"With no coronavirus treatment available, Trump's willingness to push snake-oil cures and stymie medical experts is sickening. We need a president who listens to science, not those pitching get-rich-quick schemes," said Kyle Morse, an American Bridge spokesperson.
In April, Trump named Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world's largest fund manager, to the council advising him on the economic response to the pandemic. Though a number of council nominees told media outlets that they had not been notified, Fink was one of a few who was contacted.
BlackRock currently holds an approximate 6% stake — equivalent to $515 million — in the pharmaceutical company Mylan, which makes a hydroxychloroquine sulfate tablet. Mylan announced it would begin to ratchet up HCL production on March 19, the day Trump began promoting the treatment publicly.
In February, BlackRock disclosed an 8.4% stake in Mylan. It is unclear when BlackRock sold off the balance.
Though Fink has not been afraid to criticize the president, Trump has been uncharacteristically deferential to the investment mogul.
"People like Larry Fink we're talking to, that's BlackRock — we have the smartest people, and they all want to do it," Trump told reporters at the White House on March 28.
"This, to them, they love this country, they all want to do it, so we're speaking to people like that and they'll be able to work it out," he added.
That same week, Bloomberg reported that the Federal Reserve asked BlackRock to steward debt-buying programs on its behalf.
BlackRock had also staked hundreds of millions of dollars in several other companies that produced hydroxychloroquine, including an approximate 6% share of Sanofi as of February 2020.
Trump reportedly has about $3,000 invested in Sanofi, through another fund. He has repeatedly rejected reports that he "owns the company" that makes HCL.
BlcakRock also disclosed in February that it held about 7% of Abbott Labs, the company that produced the rapid-response COVID-19 test Trump promoted, showroom-style, in a March 30 Rose Garden press briefing.
On April 16, Fink told CNBC that he believed the country would not be able to open unless and until it ramped up rapid testing capacity.
"We're going to still see elements of the disease increasing in other parts of the world and until we have adequate testing, rapid testing, it's very hard to see how we're going to reboot in the next 30 days," the CEO said on CNBC's Squawk Box.
That same day, CNBC reported that BlackRock and Abbott Labs were two of the country's biggest market movers.
In mid-May, however, the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning about the Abbott test after it was revealed to miss up to half of positive cases. Trump defended it anyway.
"It's a great test. It's a very quick test, and it can always be very rapidly double-checked," the president told reporters at a May 15 press briefing. "If you're testing positive or negative, it can always be double-checked. But it's a very good test — very portable, very quick."
The parallel to hydroxychloroquine — which Trump claims to have ingested despite an FDA warning — is difficult to ignore.
According to Trump's 2016 financial disclosures, he had between $25 million and $50 million stashed in BlackRock's "Obsidian Fund." The president claims to have sold off his stocks in June 2016, but has not provided documentation.
Trump has praised Fink, saying in February 2017 that he had put money in BlackRock investment vehicles, and that Fink got him "great returns last year."
Three months later, Fink, speaking at an investor conference, said he generally approved of Trump's policy proposals, but threw shade on the president personally.
The policies represent a "bucket list of things we'd like to see done," Fink said, adding that he was worried Trump's personality might destabilize markets.
"There are many who believe the U.S. is less welcoming," Fink said. "Hotels are seeing bookings down dramatically. Universities are seeing a drop in applications from foreign students. There's something that is slowing everything down."
"You can't take personality out of the debate," he added. "Politics is about personality."
Though Trump's motivation is unclear, and political self-interest is just as likely as any financial incentive, the two are not necessarily independent.
For instance, this spring Trump tapped hedge fund manager John Paulson of Paulson & Co. to join the coronavirus economic advisory council. Paulson has contributed more than $500,000 to Trump campaign vehicles, and served as an economic adviser to his 2016 campaign. Paulson also owns 2.3% of Mylan.
BlackRock's massive market clout imbues the firm with a political dimension by default — especially critical for a president whose electoral fate seems inextricable from the economy.
Mylan itself has spent $680,000 this year on lobbying efforts related to coronavirus legislation, according to research documented by American Bridge.
In late April, ABC reported that state and local governments across the country had stockpiled 30 million doses of hydroxychloroquine. The FDA issued its warning two weeks later. It is still unclear when BlackRock sold off 2.4% of its holdings in Mylan.
Larry Fink did not respond to requests for comment.
Before Getting No-Bid Contract, Iowan Made 1st Big Trump Donation
Posted May 20th, 2020 at 12:11
pm by Pat Rynard - iowa starting line
David Greenspon has long been a donor to Iowa Republican causes. But the first time he ever contributed to Donald Trump was this February, two months before he happened to receive a no-bid contract on obtaining Personal Protective Equipment for the state of Iowa.
The West Des Moines businessman donated $15,000 to the Trump Victory joint fundraising PAC on February 4. The same day, he also maxed out to Trump’s presidential campaign committee with two donations of $2,800.
The $7.2 million that Greenspon’s Competitive Edge business was awarded in early April has come under scrutiny after reporting from the AP’s Ryan Foley. Greenspon’s business has never produced or acquired medical equipment before; his business has been known for producing t-shirts and Republican campaign signs in the past. He was tasked with obtaining one million gowns and 100,000 plastic goggles.
“Greenspon … said state agencies reached out unsolicited asking for help securing supplies from China because he has long imported from there,” Foley wrote.
In subsequent reporting, Greenspon’s recent arrest and charge for felony assault on a woman from this past November was highlighted, a charge he disputes.
Greenspon has donated thousands of dollars over the years to state and federal Iowa Republican campaigns, including Terry Branstad, Joni Ernst, David Young, Kim Reynolds and others.
The businessman has been particularly close to Branstad in the past. Branstad’s campaign rented their office space from Greenspon, and Branstad attempted to appoint Greenspon to the Iowa Finance Authority in 2017 but eventually withdrew his name.
Perhaps coincidentally, Branstad was talking in early April about how he was trying to get PPE sent from China to the U.S., though that was more on the federal side with FEMA.
The West Des Moines businessman donated $15,000 to the Trump Victory joint fundraising PAC on February 4. The same day, he also maxed out to Trump’s presidential campaign committee with two donations of $2,800.
The $7.2 million that Greenspon’s Competitive Edge business was awarded in early April has come under scrutiny after reporting from the AP’s Ryan Foley. Greenspon’s business has never produced or acquired medical equipment before; his business has been known for producing t-shirts and Republican campaign signs in the past. He was tasked with obtaining one million gowns and 100,000 plastic goggles.
“Greenspon … said state agencies reached out unsolicited asking for help securing supplies from China because he has long imported from there,” Foley wrote.
In subsequent reporting, Greenspon’s recent arrest and charge for felony assault on a woman from this past November was highlighted, a charge he disputes.
Greenspon has donated thousands of dollars over the years to state and federal Iowa Republican campaigns, including Terry Branstad, Joni Ernst, David Young, Kim Reynolds and others.
The businessman has been particularly close to Branstad in the past. Branstad’s campaign rented their office space from Greenspon, and Branstad attempted to appoint Greenspon to the Iowa Finance Authority in 2017 but eventually withdrew his name.
Perhaps coincidentally, Branstad was talking in early April about how he was trying to get PPE sent from China to the U.S., though that was more on the federal side with FEMA.
bribe money!!!
Kelly Loeffler’s husband donated $1 million to Trump PAC right after insider trading allegations
Loeffler, who has been accused of buying her Senate seat, trails in recent election polls amid federal scrutiny
IGOR DERYSH - salon
MAY 21, 2020 3:19PM (UTC)
The husband of Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., made his largest federal donation ever with a $1 million contribution to a pro-Trump super PAC shortly after the couple's controversial stock trades following a private Senate briefing on the new coronavirus was reported.
Jeff Sprecher, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, gave the pro-Trump America First Action PAC a $1 million donation in April, according to a Federal Election Commission filing. The contribution came shortly after The Daily Beast reported that he and Loeffler had unloaded millions in stock ahead of a market plunge in March. The outlet reported that it was the largest federal contribution ever made by the executive, whose net worth is estimated at $500 million.
Loeffler, who immediately became the wealthiest member of the Senate, was appointed to replace retired Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., last year after pledging $20 million of her personal wealth to Gov. Brian Kemp and fellow state Republicans, drawing allegations from Democrats that she had bought her Senate seat.
The latest donation came as Loeffler faces federal scrutiny over the trades, which she claims were made by a third-party without her knowledge. Loeffler is also up for re-election and trails badly in recent polls.
Much of the focus surrounding trades made by senators following private coronavirus briefings has been on Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., who stepped aside as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee after the FBI reportedly seized his phone in a probe of the trades. But Loeffler's office acknowledged last week that she had also turned over "documents and information" to the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Senate Ethics Committee.
According to news reports, Loeffler and her husband sold off between $1.2 million and $3.1 million in stock on Jan. 24, the same day the Health Committee she sits on was briefed by top health officials on the coronavirus. The sales included stock in companies which saw their value plunge in subsequent weeks. The couple also purchased stock in Citrix, which sells the teleworking software GoToMeeting, whose value has since increased.
Loeffler has denied any wrongdoing, as well as attacked media outlets for reporting the trades.
"This is a ridiculous and baseless attack. I do not make investment decisions for my portfolio. Investment decisions are made by multiple third-party advisors without my or my husband's knowledge or involvement," she tweeted. "As confirmed in the periodic transaction report to Senate Ethics, I was informed of these purchases and sales on February 16, 2020—three weeks after they were made."
A spokesperson for Loeffler later said the documents turned over to the the three groups show "she and her husband acted entirely appropriately and observed both the letter and the spirit of the law."
Despite insisting there was no wrongdoing, the couple agreed to liquidate their individual stock shares last month.
"Amid this health crisis, the temptation to circulate lies and misinformation is too great for the media and my political opponents," Loeffler said in a statement. "That is why I'm taking steps to remove this temptation so that we can turn our focus back to where it belongs: on combating COVID-19 and restoring our country to health and economic recovery."
The move came after the stock market had rebounded from its low. "Loeffler's liquidation is consistent with her earlier stock sales, in that it will turn out to be profitable in the event of future stock market declines," said Axios' Felix Salmon.
The move has not helped the re-election chances of Loeffler, who faces about 20 challengers in an open special election for her seat, which is expected to go to a runoff in January. Loeffler is polling in fourth place in the race at just 12%, behind two Democrats, while Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., leads with 34%. She was in a dead heat with Collins in early March, before the news broke.
Just 21% of voters recently said they have a favorable opinion of Loeffler compared to 59% who said they had an unfavorable opinion.
Dan McLagan, a spokesman for Collins, said the campaign was not "buying" Loeffler's explanation of the trades after she said she would sell off her portfolio.
"This is essentially a guilty plea," he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "and Georgians who just saw their retirement plans crater while she profited are not going to agree to the plea deal."
Jeff Sprecher, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, gave the pro-Trump America First Action PAC a $1 million donation in April, according to a Federal Election Commission filing. The contribution came shortly after The Daily Beast reported that he and Loeffler had unloaded millions in stock ahead of a market plunge in March. The outlet reported that it was the largest federal contribution ever made by the executive, whose net worth is estimated at $500 million.
Loeffler, who immediately became the wealthiest member of the Senate, was appointed to replace retired Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., last year after pledging $20 million of her personal wealth to Gov. Brian Kemp and fellow state Republicans, drawing allegations from Democrats that she had bought her Senate seat.
The latest donation came as Loeffler faces federal scrutiny over the trades, which she claims were made by a third-party without her knowledge. Loeffler is also up for re-election and trails badly in recent polls.
Much of the focus surrounding trades made by senators following private coronavirus briefings has been on Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., who stepped aside as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee after the FBI reportedly seized his phone in a probe of the trades. But Loeffler's office acknowledged last week that she had also turned over "documents and information" to the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Senate Ethics Committee.
According to news reports, Loeffler and her husband sold off between $1.2 million and $3.1 million in stock on Jan. 24, the same day the Health Committee she sits on was briefed by top health officials on the coronavirus. The sales included stock in companies which saw their value plunge in subsequent weeks. The couple also purchased stock in Citrix, which sells the teleworking software GoToMeeting, whose value has since increased.
Loeffler has denied any wrongdoing, as well as attacked media outlets for reporting the trades.
"This is a ridiculous and baseless attack. I do not make investment decisions for my portfolio. Investment decisions are made by multiple third-party advisors without my or my husband's knowledge or involvement," she tweeted. "As confirmed in the periodic transaction report to Senate Ethics, I was informed of these purchases and sales on February 16, 2020—three weeks after they were made."
A spokesperson for Loeffler later said the documents turned over to the the three groups show "she and her husband acted entirely appropriately and observed both the letter and the spirit of the law."
Despite insisting there was no wrongdoing, the couple agreed to liquidate their individual stock shares last month.
"Amid this health crisis, the temptation to circulate lies and misinformation is too great for the media and my political opponents," Loeffler said in a statement. "That is why I'm taking steps to remove this temptation so that we can turn our focus back to where it belongs: on combating COVID-19 and restoring our country to health and economic recovery."
The move came after the stock market had rebounded from its low. "Loeffler's liquidation is consistent with her earlier stock sales, in that it will turn out to be profitable in the event of future stock market declines," said Axios' Felix Salmon.
The move has not helped the re-election chances of Loeffler, who faces about 20 challengers in an open special election for her seat, which is expected to go to a runoff in January. Loeffler is polling in fourth place in the race at just 12%, behind two Democrats, while Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., leads with 34%. She was in a dead heat with Collins in early March, before the news broke.
Just 21% of voters recently said they have a favorable opinion of Loeffler compared to 59% who said they had an unfavorable opinion.
Dan McLagan, a spokesman for Collins, said the campaign was not "buying" Loeffler's explanation of the trades after she said she would sell off her portfolio.
"This is essentially a guilty plea," he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "and Georgians who just saw their retirement plans crater while she profited are not going to agree to the plea deal."
more trump administration corruption!!!
Scandal at State: A huge arms deal, a revolving-door lobbyist and the fired inspector general
An $8 billion Saudi arms deal, a revolving-door lobbyist and a fired inspector general: Is Pompeo in trouble?
ROGER SOLLENBERGER - salon
MAY 20, 2020 10:00AM (UTC)
Charles Faulkner, a former Raytheon lobbyist and former principal deputy secretary of state who was forced to resign in 2019 due to conflicts of interest surrounding an $8 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia, was rehired by the administration four months later, Salon has learned.
Faulkner's resignation kicked off two investigations, and appears to have landed him in the center of a probe of that arms deal by the recently-fired State Department inspector general.
The deal funneled $2 billion to defense contractor Raytheon, a firm Faulkner formerly represented as a lobbyist for BGR Group. Faulkner was reportedly forced to resign from his senior State Department position last May amid concerns about the key role he played in pushing the sale, which bypassed congressional objections through the rare step of declaring a national emergency.
In September 2019, however, the Trump administration quietly rehired Faulkner as chief of staff in the Office of Legislative Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, four months following his resignation at State and right in the middle of the Ukraine scandal that led to President Trump's impeachment.
Faulker lobbied on behalf of Raytheon for the full duration of his stint BGR, starting in 2012. His LinkedIn page and filings under the Foreign Agent Registration Act report that Faulkner left BGR in May 2016, two months after the firm registered as an agent for the Saudi Arabian government. (Several months late.)
A year later, in June 2017, Faulkner joined the State Department as the chief Congressional liaison in the office of legislative affairs, a position he held until his resignation in May 2019. The administration declared the national emergency to expedite the arms sales that same month.
President Donald Trump's lobbying ban signed shortly after his inauguration in January 2017, allowed lobbyists to enter the administration immediately, but imposed a two-year ban on such employees from working on issues related to their prior lobbying portfolio. Some officials received waivers, but reportedly not Faulkner, whose timeline would appear to violate Trump's order.
Moreover, it was specifically Faulkner's connection to the Saudi arms deal — which allowed Raytheon to cooperate with the Saudi government to build precision-guided bombs at plants in Saudi Arabia, reportedly giving the Saudis an inside look at sensitive U.S. military technology — that sparked an investigation last June by the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
"I want to hear from the State Department official tomorrow: Who all was involved in this decision making?" Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., a committee member, said to the New York Times last June. "It would be problematic if a former lobbyist for a defense contractor was involved."
On Monday, Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., linked that same investigation directly to the abrupt ouster of State Department Inspector General Steve Linick last week.
"I have learned that there may be another reason for Mr. Linick's firing. His office was investigating — at my request — Trump's phony declaration of an emergency so he could send weapons to Saudi Arabia," Engel said in a statement. "We don't have the full picture yet, but it's troubling that Secretary Pompeo wanted Mr. Linick pushed out before this work could be completed."
Last Friday, Trump fired Linick, at Pompeo's request.
"I went to the president and made clear to him that Inspector General Linick wasn't performing a function in a way that we had tried to get him to, that was additive for the State Department, very consistent with what the statute says he's supposed to be doing," Pompeo said. "The kinds of activities he's supposed to undertake to make us better, to improve us."
---
However, reports about the inspector general's work quickly expanded to the investigation into the workings behind the Saudi arms sale, in which a minority group of State employees steamrolled diplomatic and congressional officials.
At the time of those internal negotiations, which began in 2018, the administration had been trying to push weapons deals through with both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — understood as principal U.S. allies in the Gulf region — amid increasing tensions with Iran. But a recently-enacted law required Pompeo to suspend such military support unless he certified in a letter to Congress that he believed the Saudis were doing their best to keep civilian casualties to a minimum in their brutal air war on Yemen.
During the contentious 2018 debates, Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., placed a freeze on a $2 billion Raytheon proposal, which entailed the sale of 120,000 precision-guided missiles to the Saudi-led coalition involved in the Yemen war.
Faulkner and his legislative affairs team reportedly encouraged Pompeo to certify that Saudi Arabia had in fact addressed the casualty issue, reportedly out of concern over the pending arms sales, which included the stalled Raytheon deals, government officials told the Wall Street Journal.
While arguments on these issues were ongoing in the U.S., a contingent of Saudi agents, believed to be acting at the direction of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, murdered and dismembered Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul.
In the aftermath of that apparent crime, BGR joined four other prominent lobbying firms in dropping its lucrative contract with the Saudi government, reportedly worth $80,000 a month.
In May 2019, Pompeo overruled a majority of State Department staff and sided with Faulkner, sidestepping Congress and issuing an emergency declaration that certified the Saudis were acting in accord with U.S. concerns. Faulkner resigned from the department shortly thereafter.
BGR did not register as a Raytheon client in 2019, the year the arms sale went through and the year Faulkner resigned at the State Department. It was the first time in a decade that BGR had not filed as a Raytheon representative.
On Monday, Pompeo told the Washington Post that Linick's ouster was not related to any ongoing investigation, although his language appeared deliberately confusing. "It is not possible that this decision, or my recommendation rather, to the president rather, was based on any effort to retaliate for any investigation that was going on or is currently going on," Pompeo said.
The State Department and the White House did not reply to Salon's requests for comment.
Pompeo also denied any knowledge of the pending release of an investigation. "Because I simply don't know. I'm not briefed on it. I usually see these investigations in final draft form 24 hours, 48 hours before the IG is prepared to release them," he told the Washington Post on Monday. "So it's simply not possible for this to be an act of retaliation. End of story."
His denial appears to contradict reports by Politico and CNN that Pompeo had recently refused to sit for an interview with the inspector general's office as part of its investigation into the Saudi weapons deal.
Pompeo said on Monday that he recalled only one case during his tenure at the department in which he knew of the existence of an investigation before a report on that investigation was released to the public. According to the Post, that investigation had been "involving a national security matter."
In 2015, BGR was paid $90,000 to represent the Ukrainian Investment Alliance. Public disclosure forms indicate Faulkner was the sole lobbyist on the account.
The same year BGR Group hired Faulkner, it also added Kurt Volker, the former ambassador who collaborated with Rudy Giuliani in the Ukraine scandal. That scandal also involved a block on a State Department weapons deal in the summer of 2019, a deal that directly benefited Raytheon.
Volker told Salon he did not know about investigations into Faulkner or the Saudi deal, beyond what he had read in recent press reports.
On the same day in July 2019 that the Saudi arms deal was passed by the Senate, a Saudi-led coalition air strike on a market in northern Yemen killed at least 10 civilians, some of them children.
Reached for comment, Faulkner told Salon that he was not aware of the investigations beyond recent news reports. Asked whether he had been contacted by the State Department, Linick or the House Foreign Affairs Committee, he said, "No comment," then hung up.
Faulkner's resignation kicked off two investigations, and appears to have landed him in the center of a probe of that arms deal by the recently-fired State Department inspector general.
The deal funneled $2 billion to defense contractor Raytheon, a firm Faulkner formerly represented as a lobbyist for BGR Group. Faulkner was reportedly forced to resign from his senior State Department position last May amid concerns about the key role he played in pushing the sale, which bypassed congressional objections through the rare step of declaring a national emergency.
In September 2019, however, the Trump administration quietly rehired Faulkner as chief of staff in the Office of Legislative Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, four months following his resignation at State and right in the middle of the Ukraine scandal that led to President Trump's impeachment.
Faulker lobbied on behalf of Raytheon for the full duration of his stint BGR, starting in 2012. His LinkedIn page and filings under the Foreign Agent Registration Act report that Faulkner left BGR in May 2016, two months after the firm registered as an agent for the Saudi Arabian government. (Several months late.)
A year later, in June 2017, Faulkner joined the State Department as the chief Congressional liaison in the office of legislative affairs, a position he held until his resignation in May 2019. The administration declared the national emergency to expedite the arms sales that same month.
President Donald Trump's lobbying ban signed shortly after his inauguration in January 2017, allowed lobbyists to enter the administration immediately, but imposed a two-year ban on such employees from working on issues related to their prior lobbying portfolio. Some officials received waivers, but reportedly not Faulkner, whose timeline would appear to violate Trump's order.
Moreover, it was specifically Faulkner's connection to the Saudi arms deal — which allowed Raytheon to cooperate with the Saudi government to build precision-guided bombs at plants in Saudi Arabia, reportedly giving the Saudis an inside look at sensitive U.S. military technology — that sparked an investigation last June by the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
"I want to hear from the State Department official tomorrow: Who all was involved in this decision making?" Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., a committee member, said to the New York Times last June. "It would be problematic if a former lobbyist for a defense contractor was involved."
On Monday, Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., linked that same investigation directly to the abrupt ouster of State Department Inspector General Steve Linick last week.
"I have learned that there may be another reason for Mr. Linick's firing. His office was investigating — at my request — Trump's phony declaration of an emergency so he could send weapons to Saudi Arabia," Engel said in a statement. "We don't have the full picture yet, but it's troubling that Secretary Pompeo wanted Mr. Linick pushed out before this work could be completed."
Last Friday, Trump fired Linick, at Pompeo's request.
"I went to the president and made clear to him that Inspector General Linick wasn't performing a function in a way that we had tried to get him to, that was additive for the State Department, very consistent with what the statute says he's supposed to be doing," Pompeo said. "The kinds of activities he's supposed to undertake to make us better, to improve us."
---
However, reports about the inspector general's work quickly expanded to the investigation into the workings behind the Saudi arms sale, in which a minority group of State employees steamrolled diplomatic and congressional officials.
At the time of those internal negotiations, which began in 2018, the administration had been trying to push weapons deals through with both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — understood as principal U.S. allies in the Gulf region — amid increasing tensions with Iran. But a recently-enacted law required Pompeo to suspend such military support unless he certified in a letter to Congress that he believed the Saudis were doing their best to keep civilian casualties to a minimum in their brutal air war on Yemen.
During the contentious 2018 debates, Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., placed a freeze on a $2 billion Raytheon proposal, which entailed the sale of 120,000 precision-guided missiles to the Saudi-led coalition involved in the Yemen war.
Faulkner and his legislative affairs team reportedly encouraged Pompeo to certify that Saudi Arabia had in fact addressed the casualty issue, reportedly out of concern over the pending arms sales, which included the stalled Raytheon deals, government officials told the Wall Street Journal.
While arguments on these issues were ongoing in the U.S., a contingent of Saudi agents, believed to be acting at the direction of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, murdered and dismembered Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul.
In the aftermath of that apparent crime, BGR joined four other prominent lobbying firms in dropping its lucrative contract with the Saudi government, reportedly worth $80,000 a month.
In May 2019, Pompeo overruled a majority of State Department staff and sided with Faulkner, sidestepping Congress and issuing an emergency declaration that certified the Saudis were acting in accord with U.S. concerns. Faulkner resigned from the department shortly thereafter.
BGR did not register as a Raytheon client in 2019, the year the arms sale went through and the year Faulkner resigned at the State Department. It was the first time in a decade that BGR had not filed as a Raytheon representative.
On Monday, Pompeo told the Washington Post that Linick's ouster was not related to any ongoing investigation, although his language appeared deliberately confusing. "It is not possible that this decision, or my recommendation rather, to the president rather, was based on any effort to retaliate for any investigation that was going on or is currently going on," Pompeo said.
The State Department and the White House did not reply to Salon's requests for comment.
Pompeo also denied any knowledge of the pending release of an investigation. "Because I simply don't know. I'm not briefed on it. I usually see these investigations in final draft form 24 hours, 48 hours before the IG is prepared to release them," he told the Washington Post on Monday. "So it's simply not possible for this to be an act of retaliation. End of story."
His denial appears to contradict reports by Politico and CNN that Pompeo had recently refused to sit for an interview with the inspector general's office as part of its investigation into the Saudi weapons deal.
Pompeo said on Monday that he recalled only one case during his tenure at the department in which he knew of the existence of an investigation before a report on that investigation was released to the public. According to the Post, that investigation had been "involving a national security matter."
In 2015, BGR was paid $90,000 to represent the Ukrainian Investment Alliance. Public disclosure forms indicate Faulkner was the sole lobbyist on the account.
The same year BGR Group hired Faulkner, it also added Kurt Volker, the former ambassador who collaborated with Rudy Giuliani in the Ukraine scandal. That scandal also involved a block on a State Department weapons deal in the summer of 2019, a deal that directly benefited Raytheon.
Volker told Salon he did not know about investigations into Faulkner or the Saudi deal, beyond what he had read in recent press reports.
On the same day in July 2019 that the Saudi arms deal was passed by the Senate, a Saudi-led coalition air strike on a market in northern Yemen killed at least 10 civilians, some of them children.
Reached for comment, Faulkner told Salon that he was not aware of the investigations beyond recent news reports. Asked whether he had been contacted by the State Department, Linick or the House Foreign Affairs Committee, he said, "No comment," then hung up.
But Republicans think it’s all OK!
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