Foreign donor funder
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relatively new cat? primary on shitcoin qatari jet
no merri
stalking horse to ~ corp dark $?
SEE CRYPTO-CURRENCY TRUMP
see oligarch ussr veks
see emoluments trump hotel
amazon airbnb
see FARA
SEE ARAB TAG QATAR UAE MBS MBZ
819 expand to facebook dark posts
==
obama soutu post CU 2010 warned, alito mouthed NO?
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BRET K ON CT OF APPEALS?
CORTESE STAFF MTG, PASS; 1 26 JOHN F
ALEX LEE PROGRESSIVE BUT NO CLOUT INTRO LAST TIME [KALRA?]
WANT STATE SENATOR
fiorettajohn@gmail.com>
| to: | Rebecca Elliott <indivisiblesanjose@gmail.com>, |
Patrick McKercher <patmck13@gmail.com>,
gogoglo19@gmail.com
| date: | Jan 28, 2026 |
TOOL:
OpenSecrets,
Underlying the drama surrounding the impeachment hearings and calls between Presidents Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, there is newfound attention to issues involving the decades-old Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and the information it discloses.
Consider these developments the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) uncovered in recent months involving Ukrainian actors:
- Networks of shell companies, limited liability companies and other secretive entities reported millions of dollars in U.S. lobbying and influence spending on interests tied to Ukrainian politician Yulia Tymoshenko.
- On the eve of the Ukraine 2019 presidential election, a delegation of Zelensky campaign representatives orchestrated a secretive influence campaign during which they reportedly paid Trump International Hotel’s BLT restaurant $1,912 to dine with “around a dozen unknown others.”
- A little known U.S.-based attorney quietly poured six figures into foreign influence operations for President Zelensky, hoping to be rewarded with a job in his administration.
The breadth and scale of conflicts of interest make it more vital than ever to expose the connections between money, governance and policy. Moreover, the escalation in FARA-related activity –– and enforcement –– is unprecedented. In the past fifty years there were only seven FARA prosecutions. In 2018 alone, more than 20 individuals were charged with criminal prosecutions. Investigations and reports that draw on CRP's Foreign Lobby Watch data—by OpenSecrets, the press and civil society—are revealing the relationships and activities of people wielding inordinate influence over policy, and bringing transparency to these networks.
Foreign Lobby Watch (FLW) is the essential resource for exploring these patterns. FLW digitizes and curates the FARA data into an accurate and easily accessible format. And CRP is adding features to make it the most comprehensive tool available. By integrating the data with CRP's domestic lobbying archive FLW provides deeper access into who is in these networks of influence, donations to lawmakers made by lobbyists, details about their political ad spending and the lobbying activities of foreign companies.
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movi
CORPORATION Company 2017 to 6/30/2025 Committee 2017 to 6/30/2025 Total 2017 to 6/30/2025
ANHEUSER BUSCH COMPANIES (INBEV) BELGIAN-BRITISH $6,667,283.00 $6,559,079.00 $13,226,362.00
DELOITTE BRITISH $1,189,125.00 $1,227,600.00 $2,416,725.00
DIAGEO NORTH AMERICA BRITISH NA $1,098,878.00 $1,098,878.00
FRESENIUS MEDICAL CARE GERMAN $23,100.00 $91,016,281.00 $91,039,381.00
GENENTECH SWISS (ROCHE) $36,500.00 $2,376,136.00 $2,412,636.00
KPMG LLC BRITISH $985,127.00 $868,700.00 $1,853,827.00
MOLSON COORS CANADIAN-AMERICAN $486,150.00 $831,976.00 $1,318,126.00
NOVARTIS SERVICES SWISS $371,500.00 $374,500.00 $746,000.00
STRIPE IRISH $266,900.00 $322,700.00 $589,600.00
T-MOBILE USA INC GERMAN (DEUTSCHE TELEKOM) NA $730,491.00 $730,491.00
ZENITH INSURANCE CANADIAN $1,071,150.00 NA $1,071,150.00
ZURICH AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL SWISS $70,600.00 $635,250.00 $705,850.00
Grand Total $117,2xx,xxx
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AN 525 qatar lux jet trump keep after; trump will visit none of std 3 mil ally on trip
Trump—no stranger to allegations of blatant corruption—faced an onslaught of criticism on Sunday in response to ABC Newsreporting that his administration is preparing to accept "what may be the most valuable gift ever extended to the United States from a foreign government."
Ahead of Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, sources told ABC that the administration "is preparing to accept a super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar—a gift that is to be available for use by... Trump as the new Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office, at which time ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation."
The unnamed sources also explained that "lawyers for the White House counsel's office and the Department of Justice drafted an analysis for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth concluding that is legal for the Department of Defense to accept the aircraft as a gift and later turn it over to the Trump library, and that it does not violate laws against bribery or the Constitution's prohibition (the emoluments clause) of any U.S. government official accepting gifts 'from any king, prince, or foreign state.'"
"Even in a presidency defined by grift, this move is shocking. It makes clear that U.S. foreign policy under Donald Trump is up for sale."
ABC's revelations about the $400 million "flying palace" follow The Wall Street Journalreporting earlier this month that "the U.S. government has commissioned L3Harris to overhaul a Boeing 747 formerly used by the Qatari government... into a presidential jet."
The White House, Boeing, and L3Harris declined to comment on the Journal's report. Similarly, on Sunday, the White House, Justice Department, and a spokesperson for the Qatari Embassy did not respond to ABC's inquiries.
However, as The Associated Pressreported Sunday:
Hours after the news, Ali Al-Ansari, Qatar's media attaché, in a statement said, "Reports that a jet is being gifted by Qatar to the United States government during the upcoming visit of President Trump are inaccurate.""The possible transfer of an aircraft for temporary use as Air Force One is currently under consideration between Qatar's Ministry of Defense and the U.S. Department of Defense," the statement said. "But the matter remains under review by the respective legal departments, and no decision has been made."
Amid the uncertainty, a range of people across the internet blasted the supposed plan, slamming it as "indefensible," "incredibly illegal," and "comically corrupt." Some critics pointed out that the reporting comes after the Trump Organization, the Saudi partner DarGlobal, and a company owned by the Qatari government last month reached a deal to build a luxury golf resort in Qatar.
Journalist Mike Rothschild said that "this is spectacularly corrupt, a level of greed and depravity that is breathtaking, even for Trump. Air Force One—the people's plane—is going to be a flying palace donated by Qatar. No American should accept this."
Some critics highlighted security concerns. One legal expert declared, "An emolument and security risk all wrapped up in one!"
Robert Weissman, co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, said in a statement that "Trump's plan to accept a luxury plane from Qatar is blatantly unconstitutional, a textbook violation of the emoluments clause. The concern with foreign gifts is that they can sway a president's policy and predilections—and there's little doubt that Qatar wants to gift Trump a 'palace in the sky' for exactly that reason."
Weissman continued:
"The legal counsel who advised that this gift is OK because Trump will take personal control of it (through his library) only after leaving office should resign immediately, in shame and disgrace. The situation is no different than if the Qataris gave $400 million in cash to Trump and told him to keep it under his bed until 2029, when he could spend it freely. Except possibly it's worse, because he will use the plane in the interim, at great cost to the U.S. taxpayer, who will have to upgrade it.Even in a presidency defined by grift, this move is shocking. It makes clear that U.S. foreign policy under Donald Trump is up for sale. The juxtaposition with cancelled foreign aid grants and programs for poor and vulnerable people—cancellations that will cost millions of lives unless reversed—could not be starker or more morally grotesque.
"Is taking a gift from a foreign government this big a bribe or bad judgment? Or just Trump?" Congressman Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) asked on social media. "Wish the MAGA movement cared about ethics in their president."
Congressman Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) said: "The level of corruption from President Trump and his White House is unlike anything we have ever seen in American history. It is appalling and criminal. Openly taking bribes."
Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) noted that the reporting comes amid issues at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
"While ordinary Americans' flights are grounded because of problems at the FAA, Trump is taking a $400 million bribe in the form of a 'palace in the sky' from a foreign government," Casar said. "Over and over: He gets paid. Everyone else gets screwed."
NOW READ:This is the only way to defeat the morbidly rich
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john f
12 24
alex lee CA
...“Foreign investment in U.S. companies has increased dramatically to own 40% of all U.S. corporate equity, far greater than from about 5% in 1982,” said Assemblymember Alex Lee. “Our reform to stop foreign money from exerting influence on California elections is needed to plug this giant loophole in Citizens United.”
Major foreign investors (including money from government-owned oil wealth funds) own substantial positions in politically active U.S. companies. For example, Norges Bank, the central bank of Norway, has a stake in more than 9,000 companies worldwide and on average holds 1.4% of the US’s publicly traded companies including Microsoft, Facebook, and Netflix. In 2014, fossil fuel giant Chevron, of which Norges Bank is among its top stockholders, spent nearly $3 million to influence a Richmond City Council election.
Recently, when Elon Musk acquired Twitter and took it private, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia agreed to convert his shares of Twitter, worth nearly $2 billion, and became Twitter’s second largest shareholder after Musk. He now owns approximately 4% of Twitter.
Similar legislation has been passed in Seattle in 2020 and has been introduced in the US Congress and in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, and Oregon. In March 2022, the City of San José voted to write an ordinance to prohibit foreign-influenced corporations or donors from contributing to local elections....
1% and 5% threshold prevent being donor in CA sj seattle, minnesota [ca coc]
If you would like to explore the issue in more depth see Free Speech for People’s comprehensive comments to the Chair of the Elections Committee of the CA Legislature:
There’s also a brief video by Robert Reich.
“Get Foreign Money Out of California Elections Act” Is Set To Advance | Allen Matkins - JDSupra
jan 2024
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12 24 ymail fs4ppl
2024 was another record-shattering year for campaign spending, with $16 billion spent on federal races. According to OpenSecrets, nearly $4.5 billion came from independent expenditure groups such as super PACs, and $1.1 billion came from dark money groups.
Citizens United created a massive loophole for foreign interests to acquire stakes in U.S. corporations and then use that leverage to influence or control the corporation’s political activity, including campaign contributions, contributions to super PACs, and independent expenditures. Companies like Amazon and Airbnb, which have significant foreign ownership, have circumvented direct bans on foreign influence enshrined in federal law and used their money to impact the outcome of elections and to advance political agendas in their favor.
WATCH: Re-Introducing the “Get Foreign Money Out of U.S. Elections Act”
Share this video on Facebook and X!
Congressman Jamie Raskin and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse have reintroduced the “Get Foreign Money Out of U.S. Elections Act,” a bill to ban foreign-influenced corporations from contributing to candidates, parties, or committees (including super PACs) or from engaging in their direct election spending. Free Speech For People was instrumental in drafting and helping to pass this model legislation in Minnesota, San Jose, California, and Seattle, Washington, and we have worked closely with the offices of Congressman Raskin and Senator Whitehouse to reintroduce this federal bill.
Now more than ever, we must do all we can to restore faith and confidence in our democracy. By banning multinational corporations from pouring unlimited sums of money into our elections, we are upholding the letter of the law and getting us one step closer to a democracy that is truly by and for the people.
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judd pop info 12 24 ymail
On Monday, Popular Information reported that Justin Sun, a Chinese national currently being prosecuted for fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission, sent President-elect Donald Trump $18 million in cash. Sun did so by purchasing $30 million in tokens from World Liberty Financial, a crypto company backed by Trump.
World Liberty Financial planned to sell $300 million of its crypto tokens, known as WLF, which valued the company at $1.5 billion. Before Sun's purchase, the offering looked like a bust. Only $22 million in tokens had been sold. Per the terms of his deal with World Liberty Financial, Trump is entitled to 75% of proceeds from the token sale, but only after the first $30 million in tokens are sold.
So before Sun's purchase, Trump was entitled to nothing. Sun conveniently purchased enough tokens to meet the entire reserve, allowing Trump to collect 75% of the revenue of all other tokens sold. As a direct result of Sun's purchase, Trump netted over $18 million.
Trump's relationship with World Liberty Financial is a vehicle for any person or entity seeking to curry favor with Trump — foreign or domestic — to send him millions of dollars. This can be done in secret. Justin Sun decided to make his purchase public, but he was not required to do so. The next foreign national seeking to send Trump cash through World Liberty Financial could do so anonymously.
And yet, Sun's purchase of $30 million in WLF tokens has been ignored by several major media outlets. The New York Times has not mentioned Sun's purchase of the tokens, even in passing. Other major outlets, like the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal, have briefly mentioned Sun's purchase in the context of other coverage.
For some reason, the direct transfer of $18 million by a foreign national being prosecuted by the SEC to the president-elect has not been deemed worthy of meaningful coverage. This is a dramatic change from how the same outlets handled the potential influence of foreign money on other politicians.
In the leadup to the 2016 election, there was extensive coverage from every major media outlet concerning how foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation created conflicts of interest for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. This was a legitimate subject of journalistic inquiry but differed in several respects from Sun's enrichment of Trump:
- Nearly all of the payments to the Clinton Foundation at issue occurred when Clinton was not in public office. Most of the coverage centered around donations made after Clinton left the State Department and before she launched her presidential campaign.
- The foreign money was donated to benefit the Clinton Foundation, a charity, and not Clinton personally. The money did not go into Clinton's bank account, but to the foundation's charitable activities.
- The Clinton Foundation disclosed its donors, even though it was not required.
- Clinton had not been elected president.
An analysis by Popular Information reveals that between January 1, 2015, and November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the New York Times published 79 pieces that were about or referenced foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation. That is nearly one story a week for 22 months.
In a February 20, 2015, column by the New York Times Editorial Board — before Clinton had formally announced her candidacy — the paper emphasized why even an indirect connection between a presidential candidate and foreign dollars was deeply problematic:
Foreign nationals are banned by law from contributing to American politicians’ campaign coffers. This ban does not apply to private foundations, but the idea behind it — that influence should not be bought — is relevant to a political campaign, where appearances can count for much.
…Substantial overlap was found between foundation contributors and familiar Clinton campaign donors and money bundlers. Considering the Clintons’ popularity and influence in their party, this is no surprise. But it does make it important that Mrs. Clinton, in defending the family’s efforts on behalf of the world’s needy, reassure the public that the foundation will not become a vehicle for insiders’ favoritism, should she run for and win the White House.
After Clinton declared her candidacy in April 2015, the Clinton Foundation reimposed restrictions on foreign donations, increased the frequency of its voluntary disclosures, and announced it would stop holding events overseas. The New York Times noted that "questions about the donations have created weeks of negative headlines for Mrs. Clinton leading up to her campaign rollout."
At the same time, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Fox News struck a deal with Peter Schweizer, a right-wing operative and frequent collaborator with Steve Bannon. Schweizer had rebranded himself as a journalist and was publishing a book called "Clinton Cash." The book alleged "that foreign entities who made payments to the Clinton Foundation and to Mr. Clinton through high speaking fees received favors from Mrs. Clinton’s State Department in return." Schweizer later admitted that he had no actual evidence to back up the central premise of his book. Nevertheless, the extensive coverage continued in the New York Times based on Schweizer's work.
On April 23, 2015, the New York Times Editorial Board dedicated another column devoted to foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation:
The increasing scrutiny of the foundation has raised several points that need to be addressed by Mrs. Clinton and the former president. These relate most importantly to the flow of multimillions in donations from foreigners and others to the foundation, how Mrs. Clinton dealt with potential conflicts as secretary of state and how she intends to guard against such conflicts should she win the White House.
The coverage, while not revealing any evidence of impropriety, continued month after month. The Republican Party even created an attack ad based on the flood of media attention:
On August 18, 2016, Clinton announced that, if she won the presidency, the Clinton Foundation would stop taking money from corporations or foreign sources. But even that was not enough to put the issue to bed.
"The foundation’s ties to foreign governments and financiers have long been fodder for Mrs. Clinton’s critics — chief among them Donald J. Trump — who contend that foreigners used donations to the foundation to curry favor with the Clintons while Mrs. Clinton was the country’s top diplomat," the New York Times reported on October 15, 2016. That story was about a hacked email revealing that the Qatari government, who donated to the Clinton Foundation, requested to meet with Clinton. The email was treated as a potential scandal even though there was no evidence such a meeting ever occurred.
The New York Times' approach to foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation was not unique. A review of Washington Post coverage over the same time period reveals dozens of similar articles. The Washington Post, for example, highlighted the pledge to stop accepting foreign donations if Clinton won the election meant "donors could race to give money before the deadline — but in time to curry favor with a Democratic nominee who is leading in the polls."
The Washington Post finally filed a story on Sun's purchase of tokens on Tuesday afternoon. The New York Times and other outlets, however, still appear uninterested in a foreign donor personally enriching Trump after he won the presidency.
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pop info judd ymail 12 24
chinese Crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun paid $6.2 million for a banana — sold by Sotheby's as conceptual art — and then ate it last Friday.
The banana is not Sun's most notable recent purchase.
On November 25, Sun purchased $30 million in crypto tokens from World Liberty Financial, a new crypto venture backed by President-elect Donald Trump. Sun said his company, TRON, was committed to "making America great again."
[twt]
World Liberty Financial planned to sell $300 million worth of crypto tokens, known as WLF, which would value the new company at $1.5 billion. But, before Sun's $30 million purchase, it appeared to be a bust, with only $22 million in tokens sold. Sun now owns more than 55% of purchased tokens.
Sun's decision to buy $30 million in WLF tokens has direct and immediate financial benefits for Trump. A filing by the company in October revealed that "$30 million of initial net protocol revenues" will be "held in a reserve… to cover operating expenses, indemnities, and obligations." After the reserve is met, a company owned by Donald Trump, DT Marks DEFI LLC, will receive "75% of the net protocol revenues."
So before Sun's purchase, Trump was entitled to nothing because the reserve had not been met. But Sun's purchase covered the entire reserve, so now Trump is entitled to 75% of the revenues from all other tokens purchased. As of December 1, there have been $24 million WLF tokens sold, netting Trump $18 million.
Sun is also joining World Liberty Financial as an advisor, making Sun and the incoming president business partners.
While Trump has the cash, Sun's tokens are effectively worthless. To comply with U.S. securities law, WLF tokens are "non-transferable and locked indefinitely in a wallet or smart contract until such time, if ever, [WLF tokens] are unlocked through protocol governance procedures in a fashion that does not contravene applicable law." The only thing that Sun can do with his tokens is participate in the "governance" of World Liberty Financial. Right now, the only thing World Liberty Financial does is sell tokens.
Any foreign national paying an incoming president $18 million weeks before entering the White House should raise red flags. Sun's purchase is even more alarming because the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is currently prosecuting him for fraud.
The SEC's ongoing prosecution of Sun
On March 22, 2023, the SEC charged Sun and three companies he owns. The SEC accused Sun of marketing unregistered securities and "fraudulently manipulating the secondary market" for a crypto token "through extensive wash trading." Wash trading involves "the simultaneous or near-simultaneous purchase and sale of a security to make it appear actively traded without an actual change in beneficial ownership." In other words, according to the SEC, Sun made it seem like there was a lot of interest in crypto tokens he issued when much of the trading was fraudulent and manufactured by Sun.
The SEC also charged Sun with "orchestrating a scheme to pay celebrities to tout" his crypto tokens "without disclosing their compensation." Federal law requires people who endorse securities to "disclose whether they received compensation for the promotion, and to specify the amount." The celebrities involved included Lindsay Lohan, jake Paul, and Soulja Boy.
[twt]
Lohan paid $40,000, and Paul paid about $100,000 to settle the charges against them without admitting liability. Soulja Boy did not respond to the lawsuit, and a default judgment was issued against him.
Sun posted on X that he believes the SEC "complaint lacks merit" and complained that "the SEC's regulatory framework for digital assets is still in its infancy and is in need of further development."
The litigation against Sun is ongoing, with a federal judge considering a motion by Sun's attorneys to dismiss the charges. The current SEC Chairman, Gary Gensler, who announced the charges against Sun, will step down when Trump takes office in January. A new SEC commissioner appointed by Trump could settle or dismiss the charges against Sun.
How Trump can use the power of the presidency to unlock hundreds of millions in profits for himself
Through World Liberty Financial, Trump can reap massive personal profits from creating a more permissive regulatory environment for crypto ventures.
In addition to his 75% share of revenues over $30 million, Trump's company was also awarded 22.5 billion WLF tokens. At the current sale price, these tokens are worth more than $300 million. That is more than 20 billion tokens being offered for sale publicly. (This makes the "governance" value of WLF tokens, which was already questionable, effectively worthless. No matter how many tokens you own, Trump will always be able to outvote other token holders.)
Right now, Trump's tokens — like those purchased by Sun — are worthless because they cannot be transferred. But Trump could appoint a new SEC chairman who is friendly to the crypto industry and who would create new rules allowing the WLF tokens and similar crypto assets to be legally traded. If the price of the tokens increases when they hit the open market, which is a possibility for a crypto token backed by the President of the United States, the value of Trump's tokens could be in the billions.
That appears to be exactly the path Trump is taking. WIRED reports that Trump is "asking the crypto industry to weigh in on potential picks." Among the leading contenders is Paul Atkins, a former SEC Commissioner, who, since leaving the agency in 2008, has run a consulting firm that works with crypto companies. Atkins is also co-chair of the Token Alliance, an initiative of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, the lobbying group for the crypto industry. He is also a member of the Chamber of Digital Commerce's Board of Directors.
Another top contender, former SEC General Counsel Robert Stebbins, has said that the SEC should "pause most of its crypto lawsuits while clearing a path for the firms to do business without the overhang of litigation." But Stebbins' candidacy underscores the need for Sun to forge a favorable relationship with Trump. Stebbins acknowledged that, even if it takes a more permissive view toward the crypto industry, it may want to consider continuing to pursue litigation involving fraud.
Major media outlets obsessed with banana, ignore Sun's payment to Trump
A foreign national under federal fraud prosecution making a purchase that results in $18 million cash payment to the president-elect has all the makings of a major scandal. But it has been virtually ignored by several major media outlets.
The New York Times, for example, has published five articles about Sun's purchase of the banana but none about Sun's $30 million purchase of WLF tokens and his business partnership with Trump. The Washington Post has published three articles about the banana, but its coverage of Sun's purchase of WLF tokens was limited to one short paragraph in a larger editorial about the crypto industry. (The paragraph does not explain how Trump personally profits from Sun's token purchase.) The Wall Street Journal did publish a short piece about Sun's token purchase on its "Live Update" blog, but the piece was not viewed as significant enough to be included in the print edition. The paper published two articles, plus a video, focused on the banana. One of the Wall Street Journal articles about the banana was published on the front page of the paper.
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jan 2024
alternet-no lnx
'Gives the game away': Dem says Eric Trump admitted to taking money from foreign countries
Rep. Jamie Raskin in 2022 (Creative Commons)
Alex HendersonJanuary 05, 2024
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have released a report showing that during Donald Trump's four years as president, his businesses received at least $7.8 million in payments from foreign governments and officials from 20 different countries — among them, China, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Democrats, in the report, argue that the payments were a violation of the U.S. Constitution's emoluments clause, which forbids federal government officials from accepting money or gifts from foreign governments without Congress' permission.
On X, formerly Twitter, the former president's son Eric Trump said of the report, "What a joke! All foreign government profits, for stays at our hotels and other properties while my father was in office, were voluntaraly[sic] donated to the United States Treasury."
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) was vehemently critical of Eric Trump's response to the House Oversight report during a Friday morning, January 5 appearance on CNN.
Raskin told CNN's John Berman, "I love that excuse because what he's saying is: Trust us, we'll go through all the numbers. And they put in, I think, a half a million dollars — which kind of gives the game away. They know they're taking millions of dollars in unlawful, unconstitutional foreign government payments. But he says: Trust us, we'll do our own accounting. We're not going to show it to you, but we'll give some money back."
The Maryland Democrat continued, "The Constitution doesn't say that you can't keep profits from foreign governments; the Constitution says you can't keep any payments at all without going to Congress to have it accepted. We're talking about an unbroken line of presidents accepting that and always coming to Congress to say: We received some trinkets, we received a statue, we received a painting — whatever it is. And then, it's up to Congress to decide what to do with it."
READ MORE: NY appeals court upholds Judge Engoron’s ruling that Trump committed 'widespread fraud'
Watch the full video below or at this link.
'Gives the game away': Dem says Eric Trump admitted to taking money from foreign countries
www.youtube.com
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6 24 reintro raskin kickass
We’ve witnessed money from corporations with significant foreign ownership flowing into our elections, circumventing direct bans on foreign influence enshrined in federal law. Citizens United created a massive loophole for foreign interests to acquire stakes in U.S. corporations and then use that leverage to influence or control the corporation’s political activity, including campaign contributions, contributions to super PACs, and independent expenditures. Across the country, companies like Amazon and Airbnb, which have partial foreign ownership, have used their money to influence the outcome of elections and to advance political agendas in their favor.
Their new bill would bar corporations with significant foreign ownership from contributing to candidates, parties, or committees (including super PACs) or from engaging in their direct election spending. Free Speech For People was instrumental in drafting and helping to pass this model legislation in Minnesota, San Jose, California, and Seattle, Washington.
Now more than ever, we must do all we can to restore faith and confidence in our democracy. By banning multinational corporations from pouring unlimited sums of money into our elections, we are upholding the letter of the law and getting us one step closer to a democracy that is truly by and for the people.
Sign if you agree: It’s time to end foreign-influenced corporate spending in U.S. elections.
Thank you!
– Free Speech For People
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an 1 24
accusations are confession/ projection:
an 1 24
badash
while serving as President of the United States, Donald Trump’s businesses accepted millions of dollars from numerous foreign governments, including China and Saudi Arabia – the very acts House Republicans have baselessly alleged Joe Biden performed as Vice President and as a private citizen before being elected President, despite having provided no actual proof.
“Donald J. Trump’s businesses received at least $7.8 million from 20 foreign governments during his presidency, according to new documents released by House Democrats on Thursday that show how much he received from overseas transactions while he was in the White House, most of it from China,” The New York Times reported Thursday. The paper calls it “concrete evidence that the former president engaged in the kind of conduct that House Republicans have labored, so far unsuccessfully, to prove that President Biden did as they work to build an impeachment case against him.”
The Wall Street Journal adds that the “report, underpinned by documents provided to House investigators by the accounting firm Mazars USA, offers a fuller picture of how Trump’s businesses benefited during his presidency as foreign officials may have tried to curry favor with Trump.”
In a break with tradition, as President, Donald Trump’s first foreign trip was to Saudi Arabia (video below), in May of 2017. One month earlier, Trump met with China’s President Xi at Mar-a-Lago. Ivanka Trump received patents from China that same day.
READ MORE: CNN Host Debunks Mike Johnson’s False Hundreds of ‘Known Terrorists’ Claim in Real Time
The 156-page report, “White House for Sale: How Princes, Prime Ministers, and Premiers Paid Off President Trump,” was produced by the House Democrats on the Oversight Committee under Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a former constitutional law professor. He calls the findings and conclusions in the report “astounding,” and says “they demand urgent action by the Congress and by the American people.”
The Journal offers staggering details from the report.
“Hundreds of pages of expenses seen by the Journal include at least $210,000 in real estate and lodging fees by Saudi Arabia in 2018, the same year Trump publicly doubted U.S. intelligence assessments that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi,” the WSJ writes. “And a few months earlier, a Saudi delegation paid $2,000 for coffee table flowers and towers of cookies at the same hotel.”
“Newly disclosed receipts also show that Hainan Airlines Holding, which then had connections to China’s leadership, incurred $195,662 in charges at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas during a 14-month period beginning days before Trump was elected in 2016,” the Journal adds. “Malaysia paid for a $10,000-per-night suite in Trump’s Washington hotel in September 2017 for then-Prime Minister Najib Razak while he was under a U.S. investigation for his role in a multibillion-dollar corruption scandal that ultimately helped topple his government. Malaysia’s spending caused a 70% jump in average nightly room revenue at Trump’s Washington hotel compared with other nights that month, the report said.”
READ MORE: ‘Outlandish and Feral’: Trump Plans to Turn DC Trial Into Conspiracy-Fueled Reality TV Show
Ranking Member Raskin writes in the report: “By elevating his personal financial interests and the policy priorities of corrupt foreign powers over the American public interest, former President Trump violated both the clear commands of the Constitution and the careful precedent set and observed by every previous Commander-in-Chief.”
“Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution forbids the President to accept money payments or gifts ‘of any kind whatever’ from foreign governments and monarchs unless he obtains ‘the Consent of the Congress’ to do so,” he observes. “Yet Donald Trump, while holding the office of president, used his business entities to pocket millions of dollars from foreign states and royalty and never once went to Congress to seek its consent. This report sets forth the records showing foreign government money—and all the spoils from royals we can find—pouring into hotels and buildings that the President continued to own during his presidency, all in direct violation of the Constitutional prohibition.”
Watch video of Trump being honored by Saudi Arabia during his first foreign trip below or at this link.
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AN 7 23
A government watchdog group Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington (CREW) published a bombshell report on Thursday that former President Donald Trump raked in millions of dollars from five Middle East nations while he was in the White House.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Kuwaitwere all identified as having deep monied ties to Trumpworld, which CREW uncovered from the indicted ex-commander-in-chief's income disclosures.
CREW's discovery comes amid investigations into allegations made by Trump and congressional Republicans that President Joe Biden and his family engaged in corruption in Ukraine and China.
READ MORE: Next stop for Jack Smith is Trump's financial ties to the Saudis: columnist
"Trump made at least $9.6 million from countries in the Middle East during his presidency, according to years of reporting and a CREW analysis of his tax returns," CREW found. "That means Trump pulled in at least six times his official presidential salary in side income from the Middle East alone during his time in office. The total is likely much higher, but public reporting only sheds light on the most high-profile instances of profiteering, and he is only required to report certain types of income on his tax returns."
Trump's refusal to divest, or separate, himself from his family's financial entanglements sparked "an endless number of c**onflicts of interest by blurring the lines between the government and his businesses," CREW explained. "The profiteering paid off, and Trump raked in tens of millions from international business interests during his time in office."
Trump and his friends on Capitol Hill "frequently visited and held events at his clubs, hotels and golf courses, advertising to those looking to influence the government that Trump properties were open for business. Foreign governments and officials in particular took advantage of the open opportunity to ingratiate themselves with the president," CREW revealed.
"The $9.6 million that we know Trump made from Middle Eastern countries during his presidency is likely just the tip of the iceberg. CREW tracked conflicts of interest involving multiple countries that are not even present on his tax returns.For example, officials from Iraq, Oman and Yemen made visits to Trump properties while he was president. Because we don't know the total cost for these visits, we did not include them in the tally," wrote Crew. "What we do know is that becoming president was Trump's best business decision, and his tax returns show how great the office was for his bottom line. As the 2024 election creeps closer, foreign interests including those in the Middle East are already buying access to Trump and pouring money into his pockets."
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dunno if cda cts
no lnx
FEC complaint alleges DeSantis campaigns got illegal donations from Canadian firm
Jake JohnsonandCommon DreamsJune 27, 2023
The Canadian financial services company ECN Capital was hit with a Federal Election Commission complaint on Monday for allegedly donating to the state political committees of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in violation of U.S. campaign finance laws.
The complaint filed by the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) is the second in recent weeks involving DeSantis, who CLC says violated federal law by transferring more than $80 million from a state political action committee to a super PAC backing his 2024 presidential campaign.
The new complaint against ECN Capital states that between October 2018 and August 2022, the company breached the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) by donating to DeSantis' last two gubernatorial campaigns and a state PAC formerly known as Friends of Ron DeSantis.
That state PAC, which is now controlled by DeSantis allies, is the same entity that funneled $82.5 million to a pro-DeSantis super PAC earlier this month, a move that is the subject of a separate FEC complaint filed against DeSantis last month.
The CLC's complaint against Toronto-based ECN Capital also alleges that the corporation's U.S.-registered subsidiaries "made contributions totaling over $122,000 in connection with federal and state elections" between 2018 and 2022, "and there is reason to believe that ECN Capital's officers or directors may have participated in the decision-making process regarding these contributions—such that these contributions may also have violated FECA's foreign national contribution ban."
"FECA unequivocally prohibits foreign nationals, including foreign corporations, from making a contribution or donation of money or any other thing of value, in connection with any federal, state, or local election, and federal regulations further prohibit foreign nationals from participating in any decision-making process with regard to making a political contribution," the complaint notes.
Saurav Ghosh, CLC's director of federal campaign finance reform, said in a statement that "the recent, unprecedented rise of ' soft money' in federal elections undermines the crucial campaign finance laws that exist to uphold transparency, combat corruption, and safeguard the electoral process."
"As this complaint shows," Ghosh added, "foreign money may already be influencing the 2024 presidential election, which obviously undermines voters' ability to trust that the electoral process and their government are truly serving their interests."
The complaint urges the FEC, which is evenly divided between three Democrats and three Republicans, to investigate ECN Capital's donations to DeSantis' committees and "seek appropriate sanctions for any and all violations, including civil penalties sufficient to deter future violations, injunctive relief to remedy these violations and prohibit any and all future violations, and such additional remedies as are necessary and appropriate to ensure compliance with FECA."
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4 23 y mail
BREAKING: Minnesota has just become the first state in the nation to pass legislation prohibiting foreign-influenced corporations from spending money in elections. The bill now moves to the Governor’s desk who has pledged to sign it into law.
The Democracy for the People Act includes a provision that prohibits multinational corporations from spending money directly or giving it to a super PAC or other entity to spend in Minnesota state or local elections.
We know this is just the beginning. This legislation, based on the model we successfully passed in Seattle, is already under consideration in Hawaii, California, Washington, New York, and Massachusetts, as well as the U.S. House of Representatives.
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CA 4 23
Across the country, companies with significant foreign ownership, like Amazon, Uber, DoorDash, and Airbnb, have used their money to influence the outcome of elections and to advance political agendas in their favor.
We deserve a democracy by and for the people of California, not multinational corporations. I urge you to vote AB 83 out of the suspense file.
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biz insider 1 23 also $ to cawthorne?
gOP Rep. George Santos appears to have closer ties to Russian oligarchs than previously reported, according to an exclusive report from The Washington Post published Monday.
Russian businessman Andrew Intrater and his wife donated $5,800 to a campaign committee for Santos and gave thousands more in campaign contributions since 2020, the paper reported, citing federal election data —signaling a closer financial relationship to Russian money than he previously described when he ran for office.
Intrater is the cousin of businessman Viktor Vekselberg — one of the Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the US after the country's invasion of Ukraine last February — and Intrater's investment firm, Columbus Nova, also has ties to the billionaire.
The embattled New York congressman, who has come under scrutiny for reportedly lying about his multiple parts of biography, has said he "embellished" some of his background and signaled he will not step down. Still, there are growing calls from Democrats for him to resign and the lawmaker is facing a House ethics process. thePost also reported that Intrater also gave "hundreds of thousands" of dollars to Harbor City Capitol, an investment firm Santos worked for before running for Congress that was accused of running a Ponzi scheme, according to a filing from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Santos also claimed that Columbus Nova was his "client" while working for Harbor City Capitol to find new investors in 2020, the paper reported. However, in video footage obtained by The Post, Santos stated to potential investors who asked about other investors in a construction project, "You might know who they are," suggesting Columbus Nova.
Intrater is also a known associate of former-Trump attorney Michael Cohenas well, Insider previously reported. Intrater, who was cited in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe, donated $250,000 to Trump's inaugural committee and Columbus Nova paid Cohen approximately $500,000 in consulting fees between January and August 2017.
Representatives for Santos, Intrater and Columbus Nova did not immediately return Insider's request for comment.
https://www.alternet.org/2022/12/donald-trump-**north-korea-debt/**
an raw 11 22
Federal prosecutors have obtained a conviction of a longtime GOP strategist who illegally helped a Russian businessman funnel money to Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.
"Jesse Benton, 44, was pardoned by Trump in 2020 for a different campaign finance crime, months before he was indicted again on six counts related to facilitating an illegal foreign campaign donation. He was found guilty Thursday on all six counts,"The Washington Postreported. "The evidence at trial showed Benton bought a $25,000 ticket to a September 2016 Republican National Committee (RNC) event on behalf of Roman Vasilenko, a Russian naval officer turned multilevel marketer."
Vasilenko received a photo with Trump at the time, while he was running for parliament in Russia.
"Benton began his career on the GOP’s libertarian fringe as an aide to former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), whose granddaughter is Benton’s wife. He gained mainstream credibility helping Paul’s son, Rand Paul (R-KS), win a Senate seat in 2010 and was hired by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s 2014 reelection campaign," The Post reported. "But Benton resigned before that election amid an investigation into whether an Iowa state senator was bribed to support Ron Paul in the 2012 presidential race."
Sen. Paul helped achieve a pardon for Benton two days before Christmas in 2020, when Trump was a lame duck after losing to Joe Biden, The Post reported at the time.
At the same time, Trump pardoned GOP operatives Paul Manafort and Roger Stone along with Charles Kushner, the father of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2022/08/26/former-texas-rep-steve-stockmans-arrest-surfaces-as-feds-build-case-against-trump-ally/
paywall
no lnx
Politics
Former Texas Rep. Steve Stockman’s arrest surfaces as feds build case against Trump ally
Attorneys building a case against Barrack argue Stockman’s arrest is relevant.
U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman (standing) of Friendswood and musician Ted Nugent, a National Rifle...
By Emily Caldwell
Aug 26, 2022
WASHINGTON — The arrest timeline of former Houston-area Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman, convicted in 2018 in a complex corruption scheme that involved misusing charitable funds, may be used as evidence by U.S. attorneys building a case against Trump allyTom Barrack.
Barrack, a private equity investor and close friend of former President Donald Trump, will go on trial with a business associate in September on charges ofillegally lobbying Trump on behalf of the United Arab Emirates.
In a brief submitted before Barrack’s trial, attorneys said they intend to introduce evidence showing that Barrack and his associate were directed, by the UAE, to meet with and advocate for the appointment of Stockman to the position of U.S. ambassador to the UAE, but were unable to because of Stockman’s arrest on March 16, 2017.
The attorneys argued that Stockman’s “arrest is relevant because it explains why the Defendants were not able to fulfill this request, despite agreeing to do so.”
“Without this information, the jury may mistakenly conclude that the Defendants willingly refused to follow through on the UAE’s direction, when, in fact, circumstances beyond their control deprived them of the opportunity to do so,” the attorneys wrote.
Though Stockman’s name has been redacted from the public brief, text describing him as a former congressman and his arrest date are clearly visible, and Stockman had, in the weeks before his arrest, indicated he was highly interested in securing the UAE ambassador position.
The 74-year-old Barrack, who was chairman of Trump’s 2017 inaugural fund, and his associate Matthew Grimes, 27, were arrested in July.
Both men have pleaded not guilty to charges of secretly advancing the UAE’s interests, at the direction of senior UAE officials, by influencing Trump’s 2016 campaign foreign policy positions and U.S. government stances during the first half of Trump’s presidency.
In 2018, Stockman was convicted in federal court of masterminding a wide-ranging fraud scheme, using significant charitable donations from big-shot conservative donors to cover campaign debts and personal expenses. He was found guilty of all but one of the 24 counts brought against him, including fraud, money laundering and violating federal election law.
In late 2020, Trump commuted the remainder of Stockman’s 10-year prison sentence, prompting his release from the Federal Correctional Institution, a low-security facility in Beaumont. His family had been worried about his health after he contracted COVID-19 while incarcerated.
Emily Caldwell
Emily Caldwell. Emily Caldwell is covering politics in Washington for The Dallas Morning News. She is from College Station, Texas, and graduated from The University of Texas at Austin in 2021 with degrees in journalism and Latin American studies. She spent a number of years at The Daily Texan, UT's student newspaper, and was the editor-in-chief her senior year.
emily.caldwell@dallasnews.com
Zach Everson
Forbes Staff
I took an unusual route to get here. In a past life, I worked as a travel and food writer, which is how I got the assignment in 2016 to cover the grand opening of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., just a couple miles from my home. When Trump won the election and refused to divest his business, I stayed on the story, starting a newsletter called 1100 Pennsylvania (named after the hotel’s address) and contributed to Vanity Fair, Politico and NBC News.I’m still interested in Trump, but I’ve broadened my focus to follow the money connected to other politicians as well—both Republicans and Democrats.
4,683 views | May 13, 2022
Checks & Imbalances: Pro-Choice Billionaires, Abortion-Themed Ads
We continue looking at abortion’s impact on the midterm elections, as well as the latest district attorney who wants a crack at Donald Trump.
3,674 views | May 10, 2022
Checks & Imbalances:Cawthorn’s Check, Vela’s Whirl, Trump’s Cell
We look at who just donated to Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), the philosophy of Gordon Sondland and Donald Trump's latest reason to not comply with a subpoena.
15,989 views | May 9, 2022
Madison Cawthorn’s Campaign Gets Donation From Associate Of Sanctioned Russian Billionaire
The cousin and one-time asset manager for billionaire Viktor Vekselberg made his first-ever contribution to the controversial North Carolina Republican on Friday.
5,424 views | May 6, 2022..
chalk up one more controversy for Rep. Madison Cawthorn, the North Carolina Republican who seems enveloped in it. Cawthorn’s cash-strapped campaign for re-election received a donation Friday from the cousin and business associate of a sanctioned Russian oligarch,according to a report filed Sunday night with the Federal Election Commission.
Andrew Intrater, a U.S. citizen who’s an asset manager for New York-based Sparrow Capital Holdings, contributed $1,000 to Cawthorn’s campaign.Intrater’s cousin and, at least at one time, biggest investor is billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, who has been under U.S. sanctions since April 2018. Last month, Spanish police, with assistance from U.S. law enforcement, seized Vekselberg’s superyacht on the resort island of Mallorca.
Friday made for interesting timing for Intrater, who has donated $250,000 to Republican campaigns since 2017.Cawthorn, 26, has been through a tumultuous few months. Since the beginning of March, Cawthorn has been charged with driving with a revoked license, called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “thug,” claimed he was invited to a “sexual get-together” with other politicians and witnessed some of them doing cocaine, been cited for having a loaded gun in his carry-on bag at the Charlotte airport and had a Republican Senator from his home state call on Congress to investigate him for insider stock trading.
Intrater’s check comes as Cawthorn’s campaign is underwater. Last week, it reported debts of $325,000 with $138,000 of cash on hand.
Polls have shown Cawthorn’s favorability rating and support declining among GOP primary voters in his district, but he still holds a double-digit lead over his closest rival. Voting ends May 17.
Intrater and a spokesperson for the Cawthorn campaign didn’t respond to inquiries.
[no doc]
5/22
**US Election law is clear**. There should be zero foreign money in our elections.
You can watch the hearing here: h**ttps://www.assembly.ca.gov/media/assembly-elections-committee-20220427/video** The AB 1819 portion begins at 1:11:54
One more thing, if you have not signed the **AB 1819 Petition**, it's open again and will be delivered to the Appropriations Committee in advance of that hearing. This is actually a pretty big list. We could get to 2000 today.
Thank you for everything you're continuing to do.
Michele, Holly, Jeff & Cyndy
The MOVI Team
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fortenberry busted
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1021 an
Although the MAGA movement has promoted intense hyper-nationalism and former President Donald Trump once chastised former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for speaking Spanish on the campaign trail, the pro-Trump Great America PAC was fined by the Federal Election Commission earlier this month for soliciting foreign contributions. And according to Talking Points Memo's Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, the U.S. Supreme Court "appears" to be on the side of those who want to keep foreign money out of U.S. politics.
"Massachusetts is trying to limit foreign corporate political spending in is its elections through new legislation, and the U.S. Supreme Court, it appears, is actually on their side," Torres-Spelliscy, a law professor at Stetson University, reports. "This may come as a surprise: The Roberts Court has repeatedly opened the doors to more money in politics. And Justice (Samuel) Alito famously disagreed with President (Barack) Obama who, during the 2010 state of the union, scolded the justices to their face about their ruling in Citizens United."
Obama, a major critic of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, said, "I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests —or worse, by foreign entities."
Torres-Spelliscy explains, "Foreign nationals, the human kind, have long been barred from spending in U.S. elections under 52 U.S.C. § 30121. That is why election law experts had their hair on fire about the question of Russian interference (in) the 2016 election. And even the Roberts Supreme Court, in a case called Bluman v. FEC, upheld the constitutionality of the ban on foreign nationals' spending money in American elections. But the law has been as clear as mud between 2010's Citizens United and 2020's Open Society II about whether that foreign ban naturally applied to foreign corporations as well as humans."
The reporter adds, "In two cases, the State of California and the FEC took the position that the foreign ban did apply to foreign corporations."
Torres-Spelliscy elaborates on why the U.S. Supreme Court's 2020 ruling in *Agency For International Development v. Alliance For Open Society International* is important.
According to Torres-Spelliscy, "These state and local efforts to keep foreign money out have generated criticism that they would violate the First Amendment rights of corporations under Citizens United to spend money in politics. That's why the Open Society II case is so important: it indicates that foreign corporations cannot raise First Amendment objections to U.S. laws or policies. Thus, a law that bans foreign corporations from spending in U.S. elections cannot be challenged by a foreign corporation as a violation of free speech. According to Open Society II, foreign corporations have no such rights to assert. This means reforms like those in St. Petersburg, Washington State and pending in Massachusetts are on firmer constitutional ground."
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10 21
an
Lev Parnas, a former henchman to Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, was found guilty on all six criminal counts leveled against him on Friday.
In a quickly rendered verdict, a jury found Parnas guilty of the most serious charge leveled against him, conspiracy to make foreign contributions to political campaigns.
Parnas was also found guilty of making false statements, falsifying records, and other crimes.
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Lev Parnas, a former business associate of Rudy Giuliani, made explosive allegations against outgoing Attorney General Bill Barr in a federal court filing on Tuesday. Parnas, who is under indictment for campaign finance violations and fraud charges, has accused Barr of timing his arrest last fall in order to prevent him from testifying at House impeachment hearings last fall.
The motion was filed in the Southern District of New York by attorneys for Parnas, a Ukrainian-born businessman who in 2018 and 2019 ran political errands in Ukraine on behalf of Giuliani and Trump. Parnas argues that his indictment last October was part of an intervention by Barr "to protect the President and thwart [Parnas'] potential testimony in the impeachment inquiry."
Parnas filed his complaint as reports broke that federal prosecutors in New York have discussed with Justice Department officials in Washington seeking a warrant for Giuliani's electronic communications, and, according to a person familiar with the case, at least one of the former New York mayor's cell phones. Approval from higher-ups at Justice is required before prosecutors may request a search warrant for any materials that may be protected by attorney-client privilege. It is unclear whether such approval has been granted in this case.
According to multiple reports and individuals familiar with the case, Giuliani's business dealings abroad have been part of a federal probe led by the FBI and the Southern District of New York — the very office Giuliani once led as U.S. attorney. Those investigations grew out of the arrest last October of Parnas and business partner Igor Fruman, who were detained at Dulles International Airport outside Washington as they waited to board an overseas flight. The two men were arrested just hours after meeting with Giuliani at the Trump International Hotel in Washington. According to the court filing, Giuliani was originally supposed to join Parnas and Fruman on their trip to Ukraine, but canceled earlier that day. Two other Giuliani associates also slated to make the trip had canceled a few days earlier, according to the document.
Prosecutors charged Parnas and Fruman, along with two other associates, with conspiring to make campaign donations on someone else's behalf and violating the federal prohibition on soliciting donations from foreign sources. A superseding indictment this September added fraud charges in connection with their company, Fraud Guarantee, which contracted with Giuliani to do promotional work. Giuliani has not been charged in connection with any aspect of the case. Parnas and Fruman have both pleaded not guilty.
In the new filing, Parnas lays out a series of events that he believes Barr helped engineer to secure his silence....
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Two longtime Republican operatives indicted — and there's a Russia connection: report
Sarah K. Burris and Raw Story September 21, 2021
Reuters legal reporter Jan Wolfe revealed Monday evening that two Republican Party operatives have been indicted after helping Russians donate to political campaigns in 2016.
The Justice Department revealed in a statement that Kentucky's Jesse Benton and Florida's Roy Douglas "Doug" Wead were "charged with one count of conspiracy to solicit and cause an illegal campaign contribution by a foreign national, effect a conduit contribution, and cause false records to be filed with the FEC, one count of contribution by a foreign national, one count of contribution in the name of another and three counts of making false entries in an official record."
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Benton was just pardoned by former President Donald Trump for a bribery scandal while working for Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) in Iowa in 2012. In that scheme, Benton and colleague John Tate bribed state officials to change their endorsements to Paul for the Iowa Caucus.
After being pardoned for that, Benton is now being indicted again along with Wead for arranging for a Russian National who wanted to donate to a 2016 presidential campaign to be able to meet with the candidate.
Developing: Two longtime GOP operatives have been indicted. They allegedly helped a Russian make a campaign contrib… https://t.co/pWOcezMw9U
— Jan Wolfe (@Jan Wolfe) 1632178809.0
"Benton reached out to individuals at Political Committee B, the national party committee for Political Candidate 1's political party," the indictment explains. "He then arranged for Foreign National 1 to attend a political fundraising event and get a photograph with Political Candidate 1, in exchange for a political contribution to Political Committee C, a joint fundraising committee comprised of the campaign committee for Political Candidate 1, Political Committee B, and related state committees. Foreign National 1 ultimately wired $100,000 to Company A, a political consulting firm owned by Benton."
He then tried to disguise the wire transfer by labeling it "consulting services" and crafted a "cover story."
Wead went to the fundraiser with the foreign national Sept. 22, 2016 with a translator (Foreign National 2). They all three had their photos taken with the candidate.
"Following the event, Benton repeatedly represented to a consultant working for Political Committee B and Political Committee C that he had already sent the promised contribution for the event, but in actuality he delayed sending the contribution," said the DOJ. "Benton ultimately filled out a contributor form, indicated that he was the contributor, and used a personal credit card to make a $25,000 contribution. Benton retained the remaining $75,000 of Foreign National 1's money. Because Benton falsely claimed to have given the contribution himself, three different political committees unwittingly filed reports with the FEC that inaccurately reported Benton, rather than Foreign National 1, as the source of the funds."
Read the full report at the DOJ.
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https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/this-guy-might-be-the-biggest-misinformation-peddler-in-trumpworld/
ME
During former President Donald Trump's time in office, he had a number of allies that contributed to the massive spread of disinformation that circulated on social media while cutting not-so-credible business deals behind closed doors. Now, a report highlighting the efforts of one man has been made public.
According to The Daily Beast, that man is Imaad Zuberi. The publication reports that the U.S. government believes Zuberi's unlawful foreign influence propoundment is considered to be "among the most wide-ranging ever prosecuted."Zuberi's unlawful foreign influence propoundment is considered to be "among the most wide-ranging ever prosecuted."
With Zuberi's attempts to become more involved with the Trump campaign along with his efforts to evade taxes, his situation is noted to have a number of instances similar to Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort's case.
The Beast notes that "much like Manafort, Zuberi also rubbed elbows with Dmytro Firtash, a Ukrainian gas baron now living in exile in Austria after federal prosecutors indicted him on corruption charges."
The mafia-affiliated gas magnate was noticed multiple times during Trump's presidency, including when the former president's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani contacted Firtash to locate incriminating information on President Joe Biden's family. However, there are distinct ways in which Zuberi's situation differs.
The publication outlines the difference.
The heart of the government's allegations against Zuberi is that he failed to register as a foreign agent when carrying out lobbying on behalf of his clients in Bahrain, Turkey, Libya, Ukraine, and Pakistan. Then he lied about the fortune it made him when it came time to pay his taxes.
Zuberi, who caught the attention of the publication with his seven-figure donation to Trump's inaugural committee and his questionable foreign ties, may have also had a substantial role in the inaugural committee's fundraisers.
On Thursday, Feb. 18, Zuberi was sentenced to 12 years behind bars by a federal judge. The prison sentence is due to his involvement in a "stunning campaign of illegal lobbying that included a quarter-million dollars worth of illegal campaign contributions, straw donations to American campaigns on behalf of foreign donors, and skipping out on the tax tab when it came time to account for the money it brought him."
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p.A6
Political influence
End campaign spending by foreign-influenced U.S. firms
By Michael Sozan
Although the aftermath of the presidential election has dominated headlines since Election Day, California saw a development that strikes at the heart of its own self-governance. Foreign-influenced U.S. corporations spent tens of millions of dollars to help pass Proposition 22, invalidating a California law and allowing the companies to classify their workers as contractors instead of employees.
One of these corporations - Uber - is partially owned and controlled by the government of Saudi Arabia. Another corporation - Lyft - is partially owned by a Chinese conglomerate. This means that Saudi Arabian and Chinese investors played a role - at least indirectly - in determining the fate of important California policy. The time has come for state and federal leaders to pass common-sense laws to stop foreign influence in our elections via American corporations.
Ten years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its disastrous ruling in Citizens United, giving corporations the right to unlimited political spending. Since then, independent groups unrelated to political parties have poured more than $7 billion into federal elections, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. This includes secret "dark money" that cannot be traced to its source and is often routed through so-called nonprofit organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or the NRA, which get large contributions from corporations. More than $750 million of dark money was spent in the 2020 election alone.
Foreign-influenced U.S. companies allow a pathway for foreign entities to achieve, either directly or indirectly, what they are barred from doing as governments or individuals: spend money in U.S. elections.
Setting their sights on California in 2020, Uber and Lyft joined forces with DoorDash, Instacart, Uber-owned Postmates and others to devote a staggering $203 million to support Prop. 22. This spending spree made Prop. 22 the most expensive ballot measure in California's history.
This is part of a larger trend that Californians have witnessed. First, the rise of super PACs and a deluge of corporate and secret political spending, which have made politicians less accountable to everyday voters. Second, a political system further warped by foreign interference in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, as well as President Donald Trump's unconstitutional solicitation of foreign assistance for his failed reelection.
Foreign investment in our economy is not always bad. In fact, approximately 35% of all U.S. stock is now owned by foreigners. Yet challenges arise because foreign investors' interests can diverge from Americans' interests.
Perhaps it's not surprising that ExxonMobil's CEO once remarked, "I'm not a U.S. company and I don't make decisions based on what's good for the U.S." If that is the case, ExxonMobil and foreign-influenced companies like it should not be permitted to spend political dollars to sway U.S. elections.
The good news is that a popular solution exists that is gaining momentum: a ban on election-related spending by foreigninfluenced U.S. corporations. For example, if a single foreign entity (government, company or person) owns more than 1% of a U.S. company, that company would be prohibited from spending money in elections. Often, investors who own at least 1% of a major corporation are among the largest shareholders, with at least tens of millions of dollars of stock. The prohibition would also apply if a group of foreign entities owns at least 5% of a U.S. company. Most of America's largest publicly traded corporations exceed the 5% threshold, although many smaller companies do not.
California should follow the lead of federal, state and local lawmakers to enact foreign ownership thresholds. Reps. Ja- mie Raskin, D-Md., and Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., filed federal legislation that would accomplish this.
Similar legislation is pending in several states, such as New York and Maryland.
And a commissioner on the Federal Election Commission, Ellen L. Weintraub, has led a sustained quest to update regulations to include this policy solution.
Californians - especially those in marginalized communities - know that their preferred candidates or policies cannot be accurately reflected when elections are heavily influenced by runaway corporate spending and foreign investors to whom CEOs owe a fiduciary duty.
In order to help strengthen our democracy and promote economic patriotism, it is time to prohibit political spending by foreign-influenced U.S. corporations. Michael Sozan is a senior fellow for the Center for American Progress.
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no proven connection, but presumably a foreign donor would want policy that made it easier to make (hide?) $ in or outside of US; they might also want to alter US firegn policy
OMG foreign policy?
sheldon adelson and ...
https://theintercept.com/2019/11/27/iran-environmentalists-panthera-thomas-kaplan/
in SEPTEMBER 2017, a group of Iranian environmentalists working on Asiatic cheetah preservation with the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation felt a pang of alarm. Thomas S. Kaplan, a billionaire precious metals investor then best known for his fine art collection, had just made a surprise public appearance in New York at the annual conference of United Against Nuclear Iran. The Iranian environmentalists were concerned because their group had gotten aid from one of Kaplan’s nonpolitical charities. Now, he was speaking before a group that was extremely hostile to their country.
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They were right to be alarmed. Within a few months, several of the group’s members would find themselves behind bars — hit with espionage charges by Iran’s notorious judiciary.
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lee f
https://theintercept.com/2020/02/15/dark-money-irs-reporting-501c
DARK MONEY GROUPS backed by foreign corporate donors are supporting the Trump administration’s decision to roll back one of the last remaining ways for authorities to monitor the flow of unlawful campaign cash in American elections.
In recent years, 501(c) nonprofits have become the entities of choice for secret campaign spending. These nonprofit groups, which do not have to report any donor information to the public, can receive unlimited contributions from any source and, thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, spend unlimited amounts on elections.
Foreign spending, whether by a foreign national or a foreign-owned corporation, is still illegal under federal law. But the law has been poorly enforced, and the few instances in which penalties have been applied in recent years have come in reaction to publicly reported foreign corporate spending to Super PACs, such as The Intercept’s reporting on Chinese corporate donations in 2016 and the recent federal indictment over a shell company owned by a Russian national that gave to President Donald Trump’s Super PAC in 2018.
The one check on foreign contributions to dark-money groups has been the Schedule B form, which reports 501(c) donor information confidentially to the Internal Revenue Service. Under a new rule proposed last September by the Treasury Department and the IRS, nonprofits will no longer be required to report donor information, even to the government, allowing an unprecedented level of secrecy.
Lobbyists for foreign-funded groups have pushed the administration to move forward with the rule, which is close to being finalized. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest business lobby organization in the world, spent over $10 million to influence the last 2018 midterm election cycle using its general fund. The group, which has foreign corporate donors, has lobbied in support of the IRS rule to repeal the Schedule B requirement, claiming in a letter to officials that the accidental leak of donors could reduce corporate free speech rights.
“Identifying, harassing, and intimidating the organization’s supporters is a chief means of silencing that organization’s speech,” wrote Caroline L. Harris, the Chambers’ chief tax policy counsel, and Ryan P. Meyers, the deputy general counsel of the group, in a regulatory letter to officials overseeing the rule change. “The Chamber applauds the work of Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in eliminating onerous reporting requirements.”
The National Association of Manufacturers, which counts several corporations based in foreign countries as members, in a letter to IRS officials, similarly called the Schedule B requirement an “unnecessary administrative filings that raise the potential for misuse in a way that chills protected speech.”
Both NAM and the Chamber of Commerce, which spends more than $160 million a year, are organized as 501(c)(6) trade associations and under no obligation to disclose donor money to the public — only to the government through the annual Schedule B form to its 990 annual filing. After the Citizens United decision, the two groups led an effort to defeat the DISCLOSE Act, legislation that would have forced groups engaged high-dollar election advocacy to reveal donor information. The Chamber also lobbied successfully to stop President Barack Obama from issuing an executive order to force government contractors to disclose grants to 501(c) groups.
Foreign-based firms such as Brazilian petrochemical firm Braskem, Al Zayani Investments in Bahrain, and Turkish conglomerate Tekfen are listed on the Chamber’s website as dues-paying members. Faced with criticism in the past that its foreign funding might bleed into the Chamber’s vast domestic lobbying and campaign spending budget, the group has claimed that any foreign donations are walled off from domestic funds, and that foreign donors make up a small percentage of its overall budget.
But the removal of the Schedule B requirement could make those claims impossible to verify. A large foreign national firm could provide multimillion-dollar donations for use in U.S. elections to the Chamber under the new rule and such giving would never be reported to government officials.
That’s precisely the danger of removing Schedule B forms, campaign finance experts warn. The Campaign Legal Center, a campaign finance watchdog that has filed the ethics complaints that led to enforcement action on foreign money in the past, cautioned the IRS that the rule would simply open the door to more foreign spending.
“Congress has failed to pass new transparency legislation, and the FEC has failed to enforce the transparency laws that are on the books,” said Brendan Fischer, director of Campaign Legal Center’s federal reform program. “As a result, the only donor disclosure reports that dark-money groups file with any federal agency are the confidential Schedule B reports filed with the IRS. These confidential donor reports are one of the few ways that federal agencies could detect and deter foreign money in U.S. elections.”
It’s not hard to comprehend the many ways in which completely secret legal entities could incentivize illegal election behavior. In 2016, reporters from the Telegraph conducted a sting operation on a Republican campaign operative working in support of Trump. The operative was offered a $2 million check from a Chinese businessman by the reporters. He responded by offering a plan for how to conceal the money, suggesting that it be routed through his consulting firm to a pair of 501(c)4 groups and then to a pro-Trump Ssuper PAC.
The FBI is also investigating the National Rifle Association over allegations that the group, which is organized as a 501(c)4, may have received financial support from Russian sources. McClatchy reported that counterintelligence officials believe that Russian interests may have contributed to the NRA’s $30 million election advertising campaign in 2016.
Foreign firms increasingly finance major American business associations. As The Intercept has previously reported, amajor Chinese chemical company joined the American Chemistry Council, a 501(c)6 that routinely lobbies lawmakers and spends money in elections.
The Trump administration had originally tried to remove the Schedule B form last summer in a surprise decision. A federal judge in Montana, however, ruled that the IRS had failed to follow proper regulatory procedure and ordered the agency to conduct a formal rule-making to allow the public and stakeholders to weigh in on the change.
“The rise of ‘dark money’ in U.S. elections has made it easy for foreign entities to contravene these laws by funneling money into U.S. elections through groups that that [sic] do not publicly disclose their donors, such as 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations and 501(c)(6) trade associations,” wrote the Campaign Legal Center in a letter to the IRS. “This change would further enable foreign entities to donate millions of dollars to such organizations for the purpose of influencing U.S. elections without any risk of scrutiny by federal regulators.”
Republican-aligned think tanks have joined the business-backed push to eliminate the Schedule B. Several nonprofits backed by billionaire Charles Koch, including his marquee group Americans for Prosperity, testified on February 7 in support of the rule change. FreedomWorks, a conservative grassroots group backed by business interests, has also mobilized hundreds of letters to the agency.
Hans von Spakovsky, a former Federal Election Commission member now with the Heritage Foundation, appeared at the hearing alongside other conservative activists in support of the rule change.
Von Spakosvsky, an avowed critic of campaign finance regulations and voting rights laws, testified that “their claim that this will somehow allow foreign money to suddenly flood into American elections is absurd,” according to a transcript of his remarks. Von Spakovsky said the FEC had plenty of authority and expertise in combating foreign money during his tenure, despite the fact that the agency has historically only intervened to investigate foreign money through disclosed political action committees on a few occasions in its 45-year history. He did not cite any examples of the FEC investigating 501(c) groups.
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CU 10 yr report:
Some of the biggest dark money players over the last decade are funded by major corporations. In some cases, they take cash from foreign companies, raising the question of whether the influx of dark money was at least partially backed by foreign money. Foreign nationals and foreign-owned corporations are barred from spending in U.S. elections.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for example, receives member dues from corporations it represents, including foreign-based companies. The conservative group says it does not use foreign money to fund election-related messages. The Chamber has spent $143 million on elections since the 2010 cycle, making it the top dark money spender post-Citizens United.
The National Rifle Association's 501(c)(4) arm, which has spent $59 million boosting Republicans since Citizens United, has taken big checks from affiliates of foreign-owned gun manufacturers such as Germany's SIG Sauer and Italy's Beretta. The American Chemistry Council, another politically active trade association, has several foreign companies among its members.
Even contributions from legally formed companies may not be what they seem. CEO Andy Khawaja was indicted in December 2019 for allegedly routing $3.5 million to political committees in the form of personal donations and contributions from his payment processing company, Allied Wallet, as a straw donor for United Arab Emirates adviser George Nader.
Shell companies also provide opportunities for foreign intervention. Jho Low, a Malaysian financier accused of stealing billions from his home country, allegedly funneled more than $1 million to a pro-Obama super PAC through a shell company in 2012. Low was indicted in 2019 on an array of charges including campaign finance violations.
It is impossible to say how much foreign money goes to politically active nonprofits and trade associations, as these groups do not disclose information about their funding sources. Reported contributions from shell companies with little paper trail or public image leave voters with useless information.
The jumbled mismatch of campaign finance laws in the post-Citizens United era allows for unlimited sums of money to flow into U.S. elections, some disclosed and some not. The FEC and Congress have not closed the loopholes created by the ruling that enable dark money to flood the airwaves. Amid deep partisan divisions in Congress and a paralyzed FEC that can't even conduct meetings without action from the president, it appears highly unlikely that will change before the 2020 election or beyond.
OpenSecrets.org is the nation's premier website tracking the influence of money on U.S. politics, and how that money affects policy and citizens' lives.
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/seattle-bans-foreign-influenced-corporations-from-spending-in-local-elections/
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Lobbyist Sam Patten Pleads Guilty to Steering Foreign Funds to Trump Inaugural
By Kenneth P. Vogel, Sharon LaFraniere and Adam Goldman
Aug. 31, 2018
WASHINGTON — An American lobbyist on Friday admitted brokering access to President Trump’s inauguration for a pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch in a scheme that highlighted the rush by foreign interests to influence the new administration.
As part of a plea agreement under which he pledged to cooperate with federal prosecutors, the lobbyist, Sam Patten, pleaded guilty to failing to register as a foreign agent for a Russia-aligned Ukrainian political party, and to helping the Ukrainian oligarch who had funded that party illegally purchase four tickets to Mr. Trump’s inauguration.
Although the charges were not brought by the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Robert S. Mueller III, they stem from his team’s work, and overlap substantially with its continuing investigation, suggesting that Mr. Patten could be a useful witness.
The case sketched out by prosecutors encompassed Mr. Patten, a respected Republican operative and consultant whose family was once part of Washington’s social elite; money transfers from a Cypriot bank; and a Russian national who had also worked for Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former campaign manager, and been accused of maintaining ties to Russian intelligence.
The charges against Mr. Patten also represented the first public acknowledgment that prosecutors are looking into efforts by foreign interests to funnel money into Mr. Trump’s political operation, including his inaugural committee.
Prosecutors did not present any evidence that the inaugural committee was aware of the scheme. Questions to representatives of the inaugural committee on Friday about the illegal purchase of tickets went unanswered.
Mr. Trump’s inauguration came at a moment when some international figures were paying large sums to Mr. Trump’s associates in an effort to curry favor with an administration that came into office with few ties to established players on the world stage, and with an uncertain foreign policy agenda. That was particularly true in matters related to Russia and its neighbors.
During his campaign, Mr. Trump flouted traditional foreign policy by praising President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and suggesting that if elected he might be willing to ease sanctions levied against Russia over its aggression against Ukraine.
That alarmed allies of Petro O. Poroshenko, the Ukrainian president, who is generally regarded as more pro-Western, and it emboldened his pro-Russian opponents, who had held power from 2010 to 2014 partly through the efforts of Mr. Manafort and his former right-hand man, Rick Gates.
Forced into the opposition, the oligarchs formed a political party called Opposition Bloc, which worked with Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates in 2014, before largely shifting its political consulting and lobbying business to a company started by Mr. Patten and Konstantin V. Kilimnik. He is a Russian national who had worked closely with Mr. Manafort in Ukraine and is suspected by the United States of having ties to Russian intelligence.
The company was paid more than $1 million through an offshore Cypriot bank account to advise the party and its members, including a “prominent Ukraine oligarch” between 2014 and this year, according to a court document filed on Friday.
Prosecutors contend that Mr. Patten should have disclosed the work, which included lobbying and public relations assistance intended to “influence United States policy,” with the Justice Department pursuant to the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Mr. Patten also attended an unspecified inaugural event with the oligarch, according to prosecutors. They contend that Mr. Patten arranged for the purchase of four tickets for $50,000 by funneling the oligarch’s money through an American “straw” purchaser in violation of rules barring the inaugural committee from accepting money from foreign nationals.
Mr. Patten intentionally withheld documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee that could have revealed that foreign money was used to purchase the tickets, according to court filings.
Mr. Patten’s lawyer declined to comment after a Friday court hearing in which Mr. Patten entered his guilty plea. He faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. He was released after the hearing and awaits sentencing.
Prosecutors did not identify the American who purchased the tickets, the oligarch or Mr. Patten’s Russian business partner by name.
But people familiar with the work said the Russian is Mr. Kilimnik, who formed a company calledBegemot Ventures International with Mr. Patten in February 2015, according to corporate records filed in Washington.
Roger Stone and Everyone Charged in the 2016 Election Investigations
Roger Stone is the sixth Trump adviser who has been found or pleaded guilty of crimes stemming from the Mueller investigation.
And the description of the oligarch matches that of Serhiy Lyovochkin,who serves in the Ukrainian parliament and is an official in the Opposition Bloc, according to interviews and documents. Prosecutors say that Mr. Patten arranged meetings with congressional officials for the oligarch, and one former congressional aide recalled being introduced to Mr. Lyovochkin by Mr. Patten.
Prosecutors also said that Mr. Patten helped the oligarch draft and place an op-ed in an American media outlet in February 2017 “to address concerns regarding Ukraine’s ability to work effectively with the new United States administration.”
An op-ed under Mr. Lyovochkin’s name appeared in U.S. News & World Report at that time arguing that Mr. Trump could be good for Ukraine, while accusing elements of Mr. Poroshenko’s government of trying to boost Hillary Clinton, including by “manufacturing” allegations against Mr. Manafort related to his work for the ousted pro-Russian president, Viktor F. Yanukovych.
A representative of U.S. News said editors had not been contacted by anyone in law enforcement about the op-ed.
Mr. Lyovochkin surfaced prominently in the financial fraud trial last month of Mr. Manafort. Mr. Gates, Mr. Trump’s former deputy campaign chairman and Mr. Manafort’s former right-hand man, testified that Mr. Lyovochkin was one of a clutch of oligarchs who paid Mr. Manafort more than $60 million to promote pro-Russian political forces in Ukraine.
With Mr. Manafort’s help, Mr. Yanukovych was elected president of Ukraine in 2010, a position he held for four years until he fled to Russia amid a popular uprising against his regime’s corruption.
Mr. Gates testified that Mr. Lyovochkin wired millions of dollars to Mr. Manafort’s secret bank accounts from bank accounts in Cyprus held in the names of two shell companies to Mr. Manafort’s secret bank accounts. Like the other Ukrainian oligarchs who financed Mr. Manafort’s work, Mr. Lyovochkin was one of the top officials in Mr. Yanukovych’s government.
After Mr. Yanukovych was forced out of office, the oligarchs regrouped into an opposition force, continuing to pay Mr. Manafort for a time to help promote their views in the West.
Mr. Manafort was convicted in August of financial fraud and is scheduled to go on trial in September on other charges, including violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act for failing to disclose his work on behalf of Mr. Yanukovych and the Opposition Bloc.
Mr. Patten traveled in the same lucrative foreign consulting circles as Mr. Manafort, but people who know them said their primary connection was through Mr. Kilimnik.
Mr. Patten was born into elite Washington, as a grandson of the Georgetown socialite Susan Mary Alsop.
He worked in Washington Republican politics, including for the State Department under President George W. Bush, and briefly for Senator Susan Collins of Maine.
But Mr. Patten really made his name in international political consulting, coming to specialize in representing clients in former Soviet states. He worked with Mr. Kilimnik in the Moscow office of the International Republican Institute in the early 2000s.
In Ukraine, Mr. Patten and Mr. Kilimnik worked on the 2014 campaign of the former boxer Vitali Klitschko for mayor of Kiev, which was also supported by Mr. Lyovochkin.
And Mr. Patten also worked extensively for interests in Kazakhstan.
Among his associates on work related to Kazakhstan was Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-born Washington lobbyist who attended the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting at which Kremlin-linked insiders had promised to provide the Trump campaign with damaging information about Mrs. Clinton.
Mr. Patten also had a yearslong business relationship with Cambridge Analytica, the political data firm that worked on Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign. Starting in 2014, the firm used Mr. Patten as a consultant for election campaigns and other projects in Africa, Europe and the United States, according to a person with direct knowledge of his activities.
During the same year, Cambridge Analytica sought to drum up business in Russia, approaching the Russian oil giant Lukoil.
In a Facebook post, Mr. Patten said he deeply regretted his failure to register as a foreign agent and was “ashamed” that he had undermined much of his life’s work, which he said had largely focused on promoting democracy abroad.
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FEC understaff deadlock, thus drop ball fail eg am 1st superpac ukraine
no lnx twt
Ellen Weintraub is the the FEC Chair. She lets us know that a Trump lackey, GOP FEC Commissioner Caroline Hunt, took the unprecedented step of suppressing the FEC’s weekly Digest because Weintraub most recently included a “Draft Interpretive Rule Concerning Prohibited Activities Involving Foreign Nationals".
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new 819
https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/trumps-biggest-facebook-supporter-is-a-chinese-cult-hoping-for-the-apocalypse/
no lnx
Trump’s biggest Facebook supporter is a Chinese cult hoping for the apocalypse
Written by Mark Sumner / Daily Kos August 20, 2019
This is not the death cult you expected. While Donald Trump may regularly count on the support of people who believe that supporting Israel means making sure that every Jewish citizen of that state is handy to be either converted or slaughtered in the any-day-now End Times, this is another group of religious fanatics counting on Trump to fulfill their world (and atheist) -destroying dreams. Until recently, the contents of website The Epoch Times have been so out there, so beyond the pizzagate conspiracy theories of Gateway Pundit and the black helicopter lizard men of Infowars, that it’s been regarded as too odd to be considered part of the right-wing “mainstream.” No more. Under Trump, all bets are off. And a group that’s willing to top the online spending of Democratic candidates to express its support for Trump is definitely welcome in the fold … even if they do want him for his finger on the nuclear trigger.
It’s easy to understand why any group looking for an apocalypse might look to Trump as just the man for the job. But not every cult manages to spend more on Facebook than presidential campaigns. The leaders of the group that is counting on Trump to begin the “Last Havoc” have now spent more than $1.5 million to buy 11,000 pro-Trump spots on social media. In April alone, those ads netted 3 billion views, making this foreign-backed group one of the top video creators on the Internet and a major player in American politics.
As NBC News reports, The Epoch Times may look like just another online conspiracy site belonging to another small cult of slavish Trump followers itchin’ for some good old-fashioned smiting from above. But this “small New York-based nonprofit” is actually controlled by Falun Gong, a Chinese religious group aiming to both bring down Beijing and democracy while cheering for the end of all things. If on the surface they look like another fundamentalist site attacking science, reason, and “humanists,” it’s because they are.
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CTT uae qater
brookings
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/us/politics/foreign-powers-buy-influence-at-think-tanks.html
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https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/former-lawmakers-using-campaign-donation-slush-funds-to-lobby-current-members/
no lnx
Former lawmakers using campaign donation ‘slush funds’ to lobby current members
Written by Igor Derysh / Salon July 29, 2019
Former members of Congress are using the leftover money in their old campaign committees to funnel campaign donations to lawmakers they lobby on behalf of foreignclients.
At least 17 former members of Congress who are registered as agents of foreign governments have kept their campaign committees active since leaving Capitol Hill. At least nine of them have used those committees to funnel their supporters’ contributions to lawmakers whom they have lobbied on behalf of foreign governments, according to an investigation by the Campaign Legal Center, the Center for Responsive Politics and The Daily Beast.
Jim Moran, a Virginia Democrat who served 12 terms in the House and is now a lobbyist on behalf the government of Qatar (along with other clients), spent much of last summer lobbying members of Congress to pressure Saudi Arabia to ease travel restrictions between Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Moran convinced Rep. Charlie Crist, D-Fla., to send a letter to the Saudi ambassador about the issue. Crist obliged, including portions of Moran’s suggested text verbatim, and Moran then used his still-active campaign committee to donate $1,000 to Crist’s campaign.
Moran similarly donated $500 from his campaign committee to Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., on the same day that he asked him to send the same type of letter. Ruppersberger obliged, also lifting portions of Moran’s suggested text verbatim.
Moran also donated $1,000 from his campaign committee to Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., while urging him to send a similar letter. Menendez does not appear to have done so. Moran pitched at least six members of Congress on the letter.
Moran had never previously donated to any of the members of Congress detailed in the report before lobbying them on behalf of Qatar.
“Examples like these,” the Campaign Legal Center said in its report, “add another dimension to the familiar but ever-expanding story of money, influence, and access in Washington.”
“The Congressional revolving door and cash-for-access systems become even more concerning when politicians-turned-lobbyists use leftover campaign funds to promote the interests of foreign governments — not to mention their own lobbying careers,” the report said.
Moran was joined at the firm McDermott Will & Emery by former Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., who also signed on to lobby for Qatar. Early last year, Miller made two $1,000 donations to Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., from Miller’s still-active campaign committee. This came after Miller had lobbied Wilson, who sits on a congressional subcommittee that deals with Qatar, to meet with Qatar’s finance minister.
As with Moran and his lobbying targets, Miller had never previously donated to Wilson’s campaigns.
Former Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., used a similar tactic to lobby on behalf of Saudi Arabia. McKeon made four $1,000 donations from his still-active campaign committee to Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, while lobbying him on a Senate bill that would have rolled back support for the Saudi-led combat operation in Yemen.
McKeon also donated $1,000 to Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, just before Blunt’s committee killed an amendment to a defense appropriations bill that would have stopped U.S. support for the Saudi military campaign in Yemen.
McKeon similarly donated $2,000 from his campaign committee to Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., at that time chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, less than two weeks after introducing Royce to another of his foreign clients. (Royce himself did not run for re-election in 2018.)
McKeon had never donated to Inhofe, Blunt or Royce before lobbying them on behalf of foreign clients. McKeon, Moran and Miller, who make up just a third of former lawmakers engaged in the practice, denied any wrongdoing.
The Federal Election Commission does not have clear rules about how leftover campaign funds may be used after a lawmaker leaves office. The Campaign Legal Center urged the agency to crack down on the scourge of what it called “zombie-campaigns.”
“Many former members appear to have treated their old campaign accounts as slush funds,” the group said. “The examples in this report … underscore why the FEC should issue clear rules for so-called ‘zombie campaigns’ — both to lay out permissible uses for campaign funds once members leave office, and to prevent former officeholders from keeping their dormant campaign committees open indefinitely.”
The use of these “zombie campaigns” was also highlighted in a 2018 Tampa Bay Times investigation, which found that retired lawmakers were spending campaign funds “to finance their lifestyles, advance new careers and pay family members.”
“Their spending makes a mockery of one of the fundamental principles of America’s campaign finance laws: Donations must be spent only on politics, not politicians’ personal lives,” the report said.
The Campaign Legal Center warned that the lack of rules regarding leftover campaign funds means that the problem will only get worse if regulators or Congress do not act.
“As former members get farther and farther from their time in public office, the universe of plausible officeholder-related expenses shrinks ever smaller, so keeping campaigns open for years can invite abuse,” the group said. “Such steps could go a long way toward curbing the abuses documented in this report, and they could also help chip away at the broader systems of money, access, and influence that helps abuses like these thrive.”
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voodoo cut benefits foreigners, but prolly not quid pro quo?
https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/paul-krugman-pulls-back-the-curtain-on-trump-shipping-billions-of-taxpayer-dollars-to-foreign-investors/
As he explained, “Basically, shareholders, who have received increased dividends and seen a lot of capital gains as corporations use their windfall not to invest, but to buy back their own stocks. And a big share of these gains to shareholders has gone to foreigners.”
Pointing out the global economy that exists now “in which wealthy investors normally own assets in many countries,” Krugman pointed out that “Overall, foreigners own about 35 percent of the equity in corporations subject to U.S. taxes. And as a result, foreign investors have received around 35 percent of the benefits of the tax cut. As I said, that’s more than $40 billion a year.”
Then he cut to the chase.
“Trump’s giveaway to foreign investors isn’t going to make or break us, although it’s probably enough to ensure that the tax cut will be, overall, a net drain on economic growth,” he wrote. “Still, even in America, $40 billion here, $40 billion there, and eventually you’re talking about real money. Furthermore, it does seem worth pointing out that even as Trump boasts about taking money away from foreigners, his actual policies are doing exactly the opposite.”...
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https://www.alternet.org/2019/02/the-foreign-policy-money-trail-in-washington-how-middle-eastern-powers-fund-government-think-tanks-and-influence-us-legislation/
The 2016 elections awakened Americans to a startling reality: the country’s political system is ripe for foreign interference. The Russians took full advantage of social media with bot armies and through unregistered foreign agents. While their influence garnered considerable attention and has led to increased enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), one area has remained largely off the congressional and media radar screens. Yet it remains a vital part of the way other governments try to influence policy in this country: the foreign funding of think tanks.
This story originally appeared at Tom Dispatch.
Most Americans undoubtedly have little idea what a think tank actually does. Having worked at two of them myself, it’s fair to say that even those of us who have labored inside these basic building blocks for policymaking in Washington are often still trying to figure out just what many of them do. Still, whether you know it or not, you’ve certainly seen think-tank employees on cable news, heard them on the radio, or read their op-ed pieces.
After all, think tanks are homes for so many of the “experts” who are the go-to sources for media coverage of foreign and domestic policy topics on just about any day — and are often key go-to sources for those making policy in Washington, too). You know, the former Department of Defense official you caught on NBC News discussing Iran or the Middle Eastern expert you saw quoted in Newsweek critiquing the Trump administration’s policies there. Outside the public eye, members of Congress and executive branch officials rely heavily on think tanks for expertise on a wide range of issues, for key congressional testimony, and even for quite literally helping craft public policy.
Those who run Washington generally trust the inhabitants of think tanks of their political bent to provide the intellectual foundations upon which much of public policy is built. At least in some cases, however, that trust couldn’t be more deeply misplaced, since cornerstones of the ever-expanding think-tank universe turn out to be for sale.
Every year foreign governments pour tens of millions of dollars into those very institutions and, though many think tanks are tax-exempt non-profits, such donations often turn out to be anything but charitable gifts. Foreign contributions generally come with critically important strings attached — usually a favorable stance toward that country in whatever influential work the think tanks are doing. In other words, those experts you regularly read or see on screen, whose scholarship and advice Washington’s politicians and other officials often use, are in some cases being paid, directly or indirectly, by the very countries on which they are offering advice and analysis. And here’s the catch: they can do so without ever having to tell you about it.
The Money Trail From Foreign Governments to Think Tanks
“I’ve never had to worry in my years at CAP about an analyst or me saying X, Y, and Z and worry about a funding source. Never thought about it. Never,” explained Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress (CAP). He was speaking at a Middle East Institute (MEI) event in January entitled “The Role of Think Tanks in Shaping Middle East Policy.” MEI President Paul Salem echoed this sentiment, noting that funding, particularly foreign government funding, shouldn’t ever shape a think tank’s work. “Independence,” he proclaimed, “is sacred.”
Such comments, like the events themselves, are just the norm in Washington think-tank life — unless, that is, you follow the money, in which case they seem both striking and supremely ironic. On any given day, Washington is, in fact, awash in foreign-policy events at think tanks. There, experts convene to publicly discuss just about every topic you’d want to hear about — except one, of course: their funding. And that is what made the Katulis-Salem exchange particularly interesting. What they and their follow panelists never mentioned at an event extolling the importance of think tanks in helping craft political Washington’s Middle East policies was this: both CAP and MEI have received millions of dollars from authoritarian governments in the Middle East.
MEI has publicly reported receiving millions from Saudi Arabia and lesser amounts from the Persian Gulf states of Oman and Qatar. By far its largest donor, however, seems to have been the United Arab Emirates (UAE), reportedly making a “secret” $20 million contribution to that think tank, earmarked to “hire experts in order to counter the more egregious misperceptions about the region” and “to inform U.S. government policymakers.” In other words, in the spirit of that MEI panel title, the UAE’s funding was explicitly designed to shape that think tank’s — and so U.S. — policy considerations.
While hardly in that $20 million range, CAP has also publicly reported receiving at least $1.5 million from the UAE.
And keep in mind that those two think tanks are hardly the only ones receiving donations from countries in the Middle East. The Center for a New American Security, for instance, received $250,000 from the United Arab Emirates to produce a study on the need for the U.S. to export military-grade drones to countries like… the UAE. That think tank’s subsequent report on the topic notes that the U.S. doesn’t export drones to the UAE and other countries, but should because “this reluctance to transfer U.S. drones harms U.S. interests in tangible ways.” Never mind that a third of those killed in drone strikes in the devastating war in Yemen are civilians.
The Brookings Institution received a $14.8 million donation from Qatar. In fact, according to a New York Times analysis, nearly all of the most prominent foreign-policy think tanks in Washington have accepted money from authoritarian regimes in the Middle East or elsewhere. And that, in turn, is just the tip of the iceberg, since think tanks are not legally required to publicly disclose their funding.
Charity or Influence Buying?
If think tanks are to be believed, the money they receive from such funders changes little. Recent events at a number of think tanks, including the Center for American Progress and the Middle East Institute, should, however, give pause to anyone who assumes that such institutions are by their nature insulated from the influence of foreign funders.
Recently, serious questions have been raised about whether CAP’s ties to the UAE, itself a close ally of the Saudi royals, contributed to its awkward response to the brutal murder of Washington Post journalist and Saudi citizen Jamal Khashoggi in that Kingdom’s embassy in Istanbul, Turkey. Following that killing, CAP released a response condemning the Saudis for their involvement in Khashoggi’s murder, but not calling for specific consequences to punish the Kingdom.
According to reporting by the Intercept’s Ryan Grim, such consequences were stripped from the statement by a CAP staffer who just happened to be Brian Katulis. Then, in December, CAP largely sat on the sidelines as the Senate passed a historic resolution to end U.S. involvement in the devastating Saudi-UAE war in Yemen. At the MEI event in January, Katulis dismissed those giving “energy and dynamism” to “the Yemen debate” for ignoring “the full complexity of the challenges.” Jamal Khashoggi’s name wasn’t even mentioned.
Despite MEI head Salem’s claim that “independence is sacred,” there’s reason to question how independent scholars can be when their work is, at least in part, dependent on foreign funding. In at least one case, for instance, Salem’s institute published the work of Fahad Nazer, who was directly on the Saudi payroll. While earning $7,000 a month as a foreign agent for Saudi Arabia, Nazer wrote several pro-Saudi articles for both think tanks and mainstream media outlets, including one for MEI that made no mention of his financial ties to the Saudis. That March 2018 article did, however, encourage yet more U.S. support for the country’s ruling crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who, Nazer wrote, would “be good for Saudi Arabia, the United States, and the world.”
Just seven months later, bin Salman would reportedly authorize the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi and, in January 2019, Nazer himself would become the official spokesperson for the Saudi Embassy in Washington.
Blurred Lines and Lack of Transparency
Nazer’s case also illustrates a growing pattern of interactions between think tanks that receive foreign funding and the registered foreign agents of those countries. In fact, Emirati foreign agents last year reported contacting think tanks at least 85 times, according to an analysis of Foreign Agents Registration Act filings for a forthcoming report on the Emirati lobby in the U.S. by the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy, which I direct.
Perhaps not surprisingly, CAP’s Katulis and MEI were among the top think-tank contacts for UAE’s foreign agents. According to 2018 filings, Katulis was contacted at least 12 times by the Harbour Group, which the UAE paid more than $5 million in 2018 to “influence U.S. policy,” according to the firm’s FARA filings. Katulis was a particular focus for them because he was helping to organize a “study tour” in which think-tank experts would take a luxurious trip to both the UAE and Saudi Arabia. That group also contacted MEI at least 14 times on behalf of the UAE, directing most of its efforts towards a “speaking engagement at MEI” for the Emirati ambassador to the U.S., the same man who had directed that “secret” $20 million contribution to the institute.
Under current law, it is perfectly legal for think tanks that receive funding from foreign governments to also work with foreign agents registered to represent those very governments. FARA includes an exemption for those engaged in “bona fide… scholastic, academic, or scientific pursuits.” Like many parts of the FARA statute, it’s not at all clear what “bona fide” means, but think tanks are presumably exempt from registration if they meet this threshold.
While the work done by both think tanks and registered foreign agents can sometimes overlap, the two are worlds apart on one critical score: transparency. Under FARA, registered foreign agents are required to disclose a considerable amount of what they do, including whom they’re working for, how much they’re being paid, and whom they’re contacting, as well as when and where they do it, on behalf of foreign principals like the United Arab Emirates. And most of that information is available online. Anything they distribute on behalf of a foreign backer must also include a “conspicuous statement” to let anyone know that what they’re reading is being distributed on behalf of a foreign principal.
Think tanks receiving funding from foreign sources are, however, not required to do any of the above.
As is appropriate during tax season, most of this should, in the end, be blamed on the Internal Revenue Service. Think tanks usually operate as tax-exempt organizations and, according to the IRS, “a tax-exempt organization is generally not required to disclose publicly the names or addresses of its contributors set forth on its annual return.”
While MEI and CAP do both disclose their funding sources on their websites — for which they should be commended — many think tanks do not. And few, even among those that do, mention any potential conflicts of interest that might be reflected in their published reports or the speeches and media appearances of their members. Even more worrisome, a Project On Government Oversight investigation by Lydia Dennett found numerous examples of think-tank experts not reporting or mentioning financial ties to foreign governments when testifying before Congress. Hiding such potential conflicts of interest is likely to leave the public and policymakers with the impression that they’re hearing truly objective experts, when they may, in fact, be taking testimony from someone who is functionally or literally on the payroll of a country with a deep stake in what they’re telling Congress.
If think tanks are to remain credible sources of foreign-policy expertise, such ties must, at the very least, be laid bare.
A first step would simply be to require think tanks to publicly disclose any foreign funding they receive, something easily done by amending the IRS code. In addition, just as registered foreign agents are required to include a “conspicuous statement” letting readers know they’re working on behalf of a foreign power, think tanks should have to fully disclose their funding sources and any potential conflicts of interest in all their written products, as well as at speaking engagements, especially testimony before Congress. It should also be incumbent upon the media to do a better job of vetting sources. Sure, journalists are extraordinarily busy, but if a simple Google search can reveal that the Middle East “expert” you’re quoting is being paid by a country in the Middle East, it behooves you to tell your readers that.
Finally, transparency is essential, but it’s well past time for think tanks themselves to focus on the track records of the countries they’re getting money from. The Brookings Institution did just that by cutting ties with the Saudis shortly after the murder of Khashoggi and, soon after, MEI, too, announced that it would decline any further funding from the Saudi government. More recently, and following the questions raised about CAP’s involvement with the United Arab Emirates, that think tank announced that it would no longer accept UAE money. As a CAP spokesperson said, “It’s just the right thing to do.”
CAP, MEI, and Brookings are, however, the exceptions. Most think tanks haven’t done “the right thing” and dropped funding from autocratic regimes. Nor are they likely to voluntarily increase transparency about that funding. The burden then falls on Congress to enact reforms ensuring that senators and representatives will know when the expert they’re hearing discuss a specific country or the region it’s in is being paid by that very same country. Failure to act could leave Americans asking a simple and uncomfortable question: Which country is buying U.S. foreign policy today?
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tool:
https://www.opensecrets.org/fara
Foreign Lobby Watch uses the semi-annual reports foreign agents are required to file with the Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) to calculate the countries with the highest spending, learn more about different registrants acting on behalf of foreign interests, and more!
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$534,833,230
Total Spending since 2017
349
Number of Foreign Principals since 2017
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| Foreign Principal | Total Spent |
|---|---|
| Government of South Korea | $54,175,266 |
| Japan External Trade Organization | $29,139,138 |
| Tourism Ireland | $23,365,016 |
| Government of the Cayman Islands | $18,976,480 |
| Government of the Marshall Islands | $16,343,893 |
| China Daily of Beijing, China | $15,740,000 |
| Government of Qatar | $15,623,633 |
| Deutsche Telekom | $15,037,191 |
| Government of Abu Dhabi | $14,816,257 |
| Government of Saudi Arabia | $14,166,926 |
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https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/08/foreign-interests-fara-lobby-watch-exclusive/
Foreign interests have spent over $530 million influencing US policy, public opinion since 2017
maps and charts]
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 time, a searchable database of foreign interests spending on lobbying and influence in the United States.
Foreign lobbyists and other operatives acting on behalf of foreign interests wield a significant amount of power, impacting economic and diplomatic policies as well as public opinion.
The law that governs most foreign influence disclosure requirements, the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA), requires any foreign agent or lobbyist representing a foreign principal to register with the U.S. Department of Justice and file detailed public disclosures.
These reports may include details that are not found in the more familiar lobbying reports submitted to Congress under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, including names of U.S. officials with whom the lobbyist had contact and copies of materials disseminated, such as ads, press releases, or flyers.
While FARA reports are publicly available through the Justice Department, following the money can be difficult, requiring laborious research and records sleuthing. With Foreign Lobby Watch, anyone can quickly learn what foreign interests are spending on lobbying or to influence policy in the United States and how much they are spending.
Since the Center for Responsive Politics inherited this project from the Sunlight Foundation, we’ve added a number of features to make the records easier to access. In addition to a full-text search feature, Foreign Lobby Watch data is now searchable by lobbyist or political operative name, registrant, country, and foreign principal. For example, you can find every mention of “tariff” in all of the FARA filings or choose to filter result by firm, lobbyist, country, date, or any combination of the filters.
Here’s what we found: At least $534.7 million has been spent by foreign governments, political parties and other foreign interests to influence U.S. policy or public opinion.
An examination of the records since 2017 shows more than 300 lobbying firms and other registrantsrepresenting more than 350 foreign clients, including governments, political parties, nonprofits, businesses, and individuals.
Countries, Regions
Since 2017, no country has spent more money on U.S. influence efforts than South Korea. Governmental and non-governmental entities have spent about $70.5 million in the U.S. Japanranks second with $51.4 million.
The majority of the spending came from a single organization: the Korea Trade Promotion Center(KTPC), a state-funded nonprofit promoting foreign investment and partnerships, which accounts for $45.9 million of the spending. KTPC also ranks first among registrants.
About $3 out of every $10 spent on foreign lobbying in the U.S. since last year originated from East Asian countries, specifically South Korea, Japan, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The five countries have spent a combined $158.2 million since January 2017 — or nearly half of the $374.5 million spent on behalf of the remaining 128 countries in our data.
Foreign Principals
The South Korean government has spent $54.2 million since last year on U.S. lobbying, ranking first among foreign principals.
Overall, 10 of the top 20 foreign principals are governments, including Japan and China. But four of the top-spending governments are from the Middle East.
Facing a diplomatic crisis with neighboring countries, Qatar turned to Washington for help. Since 2017, the Qatari government has spent $15.7 million on U.S. influence campaigns.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is feuding with Qatar, spent a combined $26.1 million and rank tenth and eleventh overall among top-spending foreign principals. UAE’s capital city of Abu Dhabi added $14.8 million in spending.
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vox
United States government is making it easier for “dark money” donors to keep their contributions, well, in the dark. The Treasury Department on Monday said it planned to end requirements that certain tax-exempt organizations identify their financial contributors on their tax returns.
The decision means groups such as the National Rifle Association, Planned Parenthood, and the AARP will no longer have to tell the IRS who’s giving them money.
The decision landed the same day as the Justice Department announced the arrest of Maria Butina, a Russian national with NRA ties who is accused of trying to influence US politics. Ethics experts say Treasury’s maneuver will make identifying activities like those Butina has been accused of even harder to track.
Labor unions, volunteer fire departments, issue advocacy groups, local chambers of commerce, veterans groups, community service clubs, and other so-called social welfare 501(c)(4) groups or those that don’t generally get tax-deductible contributions will be freed of requirements that they list the names or addresses of their donors on their annual returns with the IRS.
Since the *Citizens United* Supreme Court decision in 2010 that held political spending is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, the IRS has been flooded with applications from groups seeking 501(c)(4) status. A number of well-known organizations have it, including the Democratic Socialists of America, Americans for Prosperity, and the NRA.
Before this change, such groups had to report to the government the names of donors who gave them more than $5,000 a year. The names of donors weren’t revealed to the public, but the amounts were, and government officials were able to see where money was coming from. After the new reporting requirements kick in, even the IRS won’t know.
“It is quite clear that what they want is to not enable enforcement that is actually part of the law by the IRS on issues of whether or not some of these groups are actually political committees,” Ann Ravel, a former Democratic commissioner on the Federal Election Commission (FEC), told me. “That’s the whole purpose of this.”
Dark money is about to get a little darker
Dark money is political spending meant to influence voter decisions and politics where the source of funds is undisclosed. Donors can give thousands or millions of dollars to push issues and wield influence through groups like 501(c)(4)s without ever having their identities revealed — although 501(c)(4) groups can only take in “dark money” as long as political activities aren’t their primary purpose. The Center for Responsive Politics notes that political organizations spent more than $15 million in 2015 to influence the 2016 elections outside of party or official campaign structures; only $5 million of that was reported to the FEC.
The revised requirements will go into effect for taxable years ending on or after December 31, 2018, meaning the reporting requirements will kick in for returns due after May 15, 2019. Tax-exempt charitable organizations, those listed under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS code, will still have to say who’s giving them money.
Paul S. Ryan, vice president at the watchdog group Common Cause, said Americans for Prosperity, the advocacy group founded by the Koch brothers, has been fighting for the IRS change for years and has actively opposed state efforts to expand donor disclosure requirements for political spending. “AFP has been the most active, open, and visible advocate for reducing and preventing disclosure of donors to 501(c)(4) organizations,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell applauded the IRS’s decision and said it was “a move in the right direction to end activist regulators’ culture of intimidation to silence political speech.”
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement announcing the decision that Americans “shouldn’t be required to send the IRS information that it doesn’t need to effectively enforce our tax laws,” adding that the IRS “simply does not need tax returns with donor names and addresses” to do its job.
Mnuchin also said that the decision will not limit transparency. That’s true in the case of tax-exempt charitable organizations, which will still have to disclose donors. But other groups will be able to keep even more information from the public and from the government. They can still engage in politics, and as long as they don’t spend more than half of their money on campaign ads or election-influencing activities, the organizations don’t have to say who’s funding them, even just to the IRS.
“They say if they need it, they can request it. But there’s no way that they would have any reason to request it if they don’t have the information to begin with,” Ravel, the former FEC commissioner, said.
The timing of the rule change and the Maria Butina charges is ... not ideal
The Justice Department on Monday charged Maria Butina, a Russian national, with conspiring against the US as a foreign agent. One of the elements under scrutiny is Butina’s ties to the NRA, which she courted in her attempt to establish a “back channel” of communications between the US and Russia. There have also been reports that the FBI is investigating whether Russian money went to the NRA during the 2016 election to help Donald Trump.
Ethics experts say the Treasury Department’s announcement on Monday regarding donor disclosures will make deciphering the murkiness surrounding the NRA more difficult because it undermines the federal government’s ability to detect illegal activities by nonprofit groups.
It’s still illegal for groups such as the NRA to spend contributions from foreign nationals to influence US elections, said Ryan, but because donations don’t have to be listed, it will be harder for the authorities to identify malicious activity.
“Large amounts of foreign national donations to a politically active nonprofit could be a red flag to IRS staff that could trigger greater scrutiny,” Ryan said. “But such red flags will no longer be visible to IRS staff.President Trump’s Treasury Department has struck a blow to US democracy with this rule change.”
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, sounded the alarm bells in a statement on Monday. “Trump’s Treasury Department made it easier for anonymous foreign donors to funnel dark money into nonprofits the same day a Russian national linked to the NRA was arrested for attempting to influence our elections,” he said.
The Campaign Legal Center, an election spending watchdog, estimates the NRA’s 501(c)(4) arm spent $35 million in dark money in the 2016 election.
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Goldstone, a spokesperson for CLC, called the Treasury Department’s Monday decision “shocking” in an email.
“The requirement that 501(c)(4)s report their top donors to the IRS was one of the few ways that the government could identify illegal foreign money in elections,” he said. “Now that this requirement has been tossed aside, dark money will be much harder to trace.”
The Treasury Department’s announcement also came the same day of President Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, during which both leaders refused to acknowledge Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The timing is “perfectly fitting,” said Kathleen Clark, a law professor and ethics expert at Washington University.
“This change will make it easier for 501(c)(4) groups to hide their use of money from foreign donors in order to influence US elections,” she said. “Putin would approve of this change.”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/17/17581384/irs-dark-money-nra-maria-butina-donors
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Qatar Spent Nearly $5 Million on U.S. Influence Campaigns Following its Isolation by Saudi Coalition
October 13, 2017 | Qatar has hired seven American lobbying firms and spent nearly $5 million on U.S. lobbying and media campaigns in an effort to fight its isolation by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, and others in June. The Saudi-led coalition began its economic and diplomatic boycott of Qatar on June 5 after the country’s…
FEC rejects proposal to consider new rules on foreign spending in US elections
May 25, 2018 | The FEC has considered similar proposals before, but none have passed. Vice Chair Ellen Weintraub, who proposed the motion, expressed concern about the possibility of foreign groups using dark money to influence the 2018 midterms.
Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Thursday rejected a rulemaking to address foreign influence in United States election spending, the third time the commission has shot down similar proposals since reports of Russian interference in the 2016 election began emerging about two years ago.
The motion, which was proposed by Vice Chair Ellen Weintraub, would have begun the process of potentially implementing new FEC rules intended to discourage foreign spending in U.S. elections. Among those possible new rules was a requirement that super PACs and other groups state they did not use money from foreign sources in U.S. elections.
The FEC’s two Republican commissioners voted against the proposal, citing a reluctance to move forward with the motion until more information about foreign election interference is released.
Foreign spending in elections is illegal, but Weintraub expressed concern about the possibility of foreign groups using dark money to tip the scales in the 2018 midterms. She urged the commission to vote for the rulemaking before the November elections.
“We are receiving information from a variety of public and private sources that indicate that we should be seriously concerned about people trying to influence the elections in 2018, and spending serious money to do it,” Weintraub said.
Thursday’s FEC vote came about a week after leaders of the bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which is investigating international meddling in the 2016 elections, released a statement acknowledging Russian efforts to help then-candidate Donald Trump. Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who chairs the committee, said he had “no doubt” Russia tried to influence the 2016 races.
Weintraub said she wanted to propose the rulemaking again because of the Senate committee’s bipartisan agreement that Russia meddled in the 2016 election.
Commissioners deadlocked on the proposal across party lines. Weintraub and Commissioner Steven Walther, both Democrats, voted in favor of the rulemaking, while FEC Chair Caroline Hunter and Commissioner Matthew Petersen, the two Republicans, voted against the motion.
Hunter and Petersen both said they wanted to wait until additional information about foreign election influence is revealed before voting on the proposal. Petersen said he could support the rulemaking in the future, but he would not vote for the proposal before the intelligence committee and other groups finish their investigations.
“There are going to be findings that are going to be issued by the (intelligence committee), and I think that I look forward to seeing what those findings are to see to what extent the efforts to interfere involve matters within our jurisdiction,” Petersen said.
The FEC has already taken some bipartisan steps to curb foreign influence in U.S. elections, Petersen said. He cited a plan passed by the FEC in March to implement stricter disclosure requirements for political ads on internet platforms like Facebook.
The federal government has also indicted foreign individuals and companies alleged to have violated laws prohibiting foreign interference in elections, he added.
After the commission rejected Weintraub’s initial rulemaking, she proposed a narrower motion which was also voted down.
In a statement Thursday afternoon, Weintraub chided the Republican commissioners who rejected the motions, saying the “time for excuses and delays is over.”
“The Director of National Intelligence (Dan Coats) is satisfied that the Russians are targeting the 2018 midterm elections, but my colleagues on the Commission are not? At this point, I frankly don’t think they would be satisfied by anything short of an FEC expenditure report personally signed by Vladimir Putin,” Weintraub said in the statement.
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We know Russia spent millions to influence the 2016 elections and is targeting this year’s. We know @FEC can do something about it.
But when I proposed today that we launch an expedited rulemaking to harden our defenses against foreign influence, my GOP colleagues said “No.”
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Most FEC rulemakings that included proposals to address concerns about foreign nationals have been rejected since 2011. The commission moved forward with revised campaign finance rules in 2014, but Weintraub objected to that motion, saying at the time it failed to sufficiently address dark money.
The FEC has rejected three proposed rulemakings on foreign interference in U.S. elections since 2016.
Only four of the six FEC commissioner positions are currently filled, and all four are serving expired terms. The commissioners serve six-year terms, but they can remain in their positions until the president and Senate replaces them.
RELATED TOPICS
- Caroline HUnter
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