Bloomberg: Jack Abramoff, the onetime Washington insider who went to prison in a lobbying scandal, was charged with a criminal conspiracy related to cryptocurrency and lobbying disclosure, a U.S. prosecutor said.Abramoff has agreed to plead guilty and faces as long … Continue reading
Category Archives: lobbying
NYT reports. … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
NYT: Ot became such a central slogan of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 campaign that at rallies his supporters would chant the three words representing his pledge to take on big donors and special interests: “Drain the swamp.”But as President Trump … Continue reading
The Hill: A number of prominent former lawmakers associated with the Tea Party Caucus have joined the ranks of K Street in the last year, bringing their small government agendas to the lobbying world. … Continue reading
The door revolves. From Politico: The California Democrat, who spent a decade in the House and 24 years in the Senate, doesn’t plan to register as a lobbyist. Instead, she’ll advise clients of Mercury Public Affairs, which represents corporate clients … Continue reading
ProPublica on the draining of the swamp. … Continue reading
A piece in the Atlantic on the governance options available to billionaires: When people think about the political relevance of Michael Bloomberg’s money, they tend to think about how his massive spending helps his campaigns: the record $261 million he … Continue reading
Speaking of mobilization, the Washington Times has questions: The National Rifle Association, after shedding its president and top lobbyist this year amid a string of internal disputes and legal battles, finds itself at a crossroads with Republican politicos wondering whether … Continue reading
I missed this last week: Direct donations to campaigns for the Florida Legislature are limited to $1,000. . . . [But t]he amount of money a company or individual can donate to a legislator’s PAC is limitless. . . . … Continue reading
If I had more time, I’d write this up, but for now I will leave you with just the link to Calzone v. Summers. … Continue reading
NYT: Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating whether President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani broke lobbying laws in his dealings in Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the inquiry.The investigators are examining Mr. Giuliani’s efforts to undermine the … Continue reading
Timely exploration by Tim Mooney at NPQ. … Continue reading
New report from the Center for Responsive Politics. … Continue reading
Time reports. … Continue reading
NYT: A federal judge on Tuesday threw out the conviction of a business associate of the former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, saying prosecutors had failed to offer enough evidence to sustain their charges that he had secretly lobbied … Continue reading
NYT: It is a trial tailor-made to grab the attention of this city’s power brokers: In a federal courtroom this month, one of Washington’s most prominent lawyers — a former White House counsel and attorney to global statesmen and other … Continue reading
NYT: Not long before Christmas 2012, Paul Manafort, then a foreign lobbyist, congratulated Gregory B. Craig, a well-known Washington lawyer, on the release of a report that Mr. Manafort had commissioned to help Ukraine’s pro-Russian president polish his image in … Continue reading
Politico reports. … Continue reading
WaPo: Among New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker’s donors to his presidential campaign is a vice president of a leading pharmaceutical company. The senior vice president of Comcast who oversees the company’s lobbying efforts hosted a fundraiser for former vice president Joe … Continue reading
NYT: As Donald J. Trump was preparing to deliver an address on energy policy in May 2016, Paul Manafort, his campaign chairman, had a question about the speech’s contents for Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a top campaign fund-raiser and close … Continue reading
Politico: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and other leading Democratic presidential candidates have sworn off contributions from Washington lobbyists as a way to insulate themselves from those who might try to shape their agendas if elected.But they’re hardly walling … Continue reading
WaPo: Ocasio-Cortez tweeted an analysis from the watchdog group Public Citizen that found nearly 60 percent of former members from the last Congress who have jobs taken outside of politics are lobbying or influencing federal policy in some way, including Joseph … Continue reading
See the opinion in Schickel v. Moellman here. Some rejections were on standing grounds and some on the merits. … Continue reading
NYT: Pete Buttigieg, whose upstart presidential campaign has benefited from an early surge of donations and national attention, will no longer accept contributions from federal lobbyists, his campaign said Friday, bowing to pressure from fellow Democrats who want to reform … Continue reading
NYT: Lawyers for Gregory B. Craig, a White House counsel in the Obama administration, expect him to be indicted in the coming days on charges related to his work for the Russia-aligned government of Ukraine.The case against Mr. Craig, 74, … Continue reading
NYT: A long-running federal investigation into a former White House counsel in the Obama administration is reaching a critical stage, presenting the Justice Department with a decision about whether to charge a prominent Democrat as part of a more aggressive … Continue reading
IFS: The Institute for Free Speech today published a first-of-its-kind survey of campaign speech regulations and grassroots lobbying laws that implicate First Amendment freedoms.The survey looks at state laws in twelve distinct policy areas, ranging from electioneering communications statutes to … Continue reading
DOJ announces a step up in enforcement of statutes regulating foreign influence, including the Foreign Agents Registration Act … including a new team headed by a former Mueller prosecutor. And a useful thread here explaining the import. … Continue reading
Press release via email: The Institute for Free Speech applauds the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals’ significant and unusual decision to rehear Calzone v. Missouri Ethics Commission. The case concerns a Missouri law that forces unpaid citizen activists to comply with … Continue reading
WaPo: The political war over prescription drug practices is spawning a frenzy of activity by outside lobbying groups, some with names that mask their ties to industry and one that has gone to great lengths to disguise its origins. The … Continue reading
David Dayen: Few have paid much attention to Kyl, who is wrapping up one of the strangest and — to his critics — one of the most corrupt tenures in the modern history of the Senate. Kyl was a registered … Continue reading
KC Star: Ron Calzone has been walking the hallways of the Missouri statehouse for years, meeting with lawmakers and their staffs, testifying before legislative committees and advocating for the conservative causes he holds dear. But he swears he’s not a … Continue reading
Open Secrets: Foreign lobbyists and agents acting on behalf of foreign interests have reported hundreds of millions of dollars in payments since January 2017, an analysis of OpenSecrets’ exclusive new Foreign Lobby Watch data reveals. Today we’re making available, for the first … Continue reading
CPI reports. … Continue reading
The Atlantic reports. … Continue reading
Quite a story in the WSJ. … Continue reading
Raymond Fisman writes. … Continue reading
Ellen Aprill oped in the Hill: As a result of these changes, estimates of the percentage of taxpayers who will itemize has fallen to somewhere between 5 percent and 10 percent. The vast majority of taxpayers will benefit more from taking the standard deduction. Those … Continue reading
ProPublica: When the Trump administration took office early last year, hundreds of staffers from lobbying firms, conservative think tanks and Trump campaign groups began pouring into the very agencies they once lobbied or whose work they once opposed. Today we’re … Continue reading
CPI: By law, corporations and organizations that lobby the federal government must disclose certain charitable contributions to nonprofits, including ones such as the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation that are intimately tied to lawmakers. They also must disclose spending to “honor” lawmakers and … Continue reading
Roll Call reports. … Continue reading
Fredreka Schouten for USA Today. … Continue reading
The Hill reports. … Continue reading
Fredreka Schouten for USA Today. … Continue reading
Bloomberg Businessweek. … Continue reading
Legbranch.com reports. … Continue reading
What a lede on this NYT story; Vanessa Alarid was a lobbyist in New Mexico when she asked a lawmaker over drinks one night if she could count on his support for a bill that appeared to be coming down … Continue reading
BuzzFeed: The threat of serving hard time for failing to disclose foreign lobbying work is rattling Washington’s multi-billion dollar influence industry following Monday’s 12-count indictment against Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates. And although the charges … Continue reading
NBC: The sources said the investigation into Podesta and his company began as more of a fact-finding mission about the ECMU and Manafort’s role in the campaign, but has now morphed into a criminal inquiry into whether the firm violated … Continue reading