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Failing to moderate “Stop the Steal” content, even after January 6, when the platform announced it would remove content with the phrase. Between Election Day and January 13, “Sedition Caucus” members -- the 147 Republican members of Congress who voted against certifying the election results after pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol -- mentioned keywords related to “Stop the Steal” a total of 193 times on Facebook.

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after a violent mob stormed the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, hundreds of corporations took action to communicate to the public that democracy itself was more important than maximizing their political influence. These corporations pledged to stop donating to the 147 members of Congress who voted to overturn the election that day — or stop all political donations — in the wake of the attack. In both cases, the message was the same: standing up for democracy is more important than transactional politics.

Four years later, there has been no meaningful change in position among the 147 members who voted to undermine the democratic process. Except for former Congressman Tom Rice (R-SC), who retired in 2023, none of the members have expressed any regret about their vote. During the 2024 campaign, President-elect Donald Trump repeatedly called January 6, 2021, a "day of love" and pledged to pardon members of the mob who were convicted of crimes. Trump's candidacy was enthusiastically embraced by the same members of Congress who voted against certifying Biden's victory.

And yet, almost all corporations who pledged to stop supporting the politicians who voted to undermine democracy after January 6, 2021, have resumed their contributions.

On January 11, 2021, for example, Amazon released the following statement:

Given the unacceptable attempt to undermine a legitimate democratic process, the Amazon PAC has suspended contributions to any Member of Congress who voted to override the results of the US Presidential election. We intend to discuss our concerns directly with those Members we have previously supported and will evaluate their responses as we consider future PAC contributions.

Beginning in September 2022, however, Amazon quietly resumed donating to members who participated in an "unacceptable attempt to undermine a legitimate democratic process." In October 2022, Amazon told Popular Information that its policy was "not intended to be permanent." Amazon justified his reversal by noting that "[i]t’s been more than 21 months."

As of today, Amazon has donated to dozens of election deniers, tens of thousands more to committees dedicated to putting those members in power, and recently contributed $1 million to Trump's second inauguration.

Similarly, on January 11, 2021, AT&T released a statement saying its federal PAC had decided to "suspend contributions to members of Congress who voted to object to the certification of Electoral College votes."

Thirty-five days later, on February 22, 2021, AT&T donated to the House Conservatives Fund, the Leadership PAC of Congressman Mike Johnson (R-LA). Johnson, who is now the House Speaker, voted against certifying the election. Today, AT&T has donated over $1 million to over 100 members who voted to overturn the election. It also is a major donor to Trump's second inauguration.

The promise keepers

While most companies took the path of Amazon and AT&T, there are a few companies that have stood by their principles. Popular Information has identified 10 companies that pledged to stop donating to members of Congress that voted to overturn the election and, over the last four years, have not broken that promise.

Farmers Insurance

Following the Capitol insurrection, former Farmers Group CEO Jeff Dailey released a statement promising to suspend political donations. “Like many Americans, we were horrified by the acts of violence that took place in our nation’s capital. While we recognize and support all Americans’ right to peacefully protest and exercise free speech, we strongly condemn acts of violence and hateful rhetoric,” Dailey said in the statement, according to CNN. Since January 6, 2021, the insurance company has kept its promise and has not donated to any members of Congress who voted to overturn the election.

Unlike Farmers Group, several other insurance companies — including Cigna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Allstate — broke their promises to withhold their money from those who voted against certifying the 2020 election results.

Airbnb

After January 6, 2021, Airbnb released a statement promising to withhold donations from those who voted against certifying the election. “Airbnb strongly condemns last week’s attack on the US Capitol and the efforts to undermine our democratic process,” the company said. The company also released a safety plan for the inauguration, including canceling Airbnb reservations in Washington, D.C., made by those associated with a hate group and banning individuals involved in the Capitol insurrection from the platform. Since January 6, 2021, Airbnb has kept its promise and has not donated to any members of Congress who voted to overturn the election.

Expedia Group

While Expedia Group and Airbnb have not given any money to election deniers since 2021, other travel and hospitality companies have reneged on their vows to do the same. Marriott International and Hilton Worldwide, for example, have both donated to former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Nike

In January 2021, Nike released a statement promising to halt donations to members of Congress who voted to overturn the election. “Nike’s Political Action Committee (PAC) helps our employees support elected officials who understand our business and whose values align with our mission of serving athletes. These nonpartisan values rely upon upholding the principles of democracy,” the statement said. “Nike’s PAC will not support any member of Congress who ignores these principles, including those who voted to decertify the Electoral College results.” Since the Capitol insurrection, Nike has kept its promise and has not donated to any members of Congress who voted to overturn the election.

Clorox

Since 2021, Clorox has not donated any money to election deniers’ campaigns. Ecolab, a company selling similar products to Clorox’s, promised to stop donating to congressional candidates who previously voted against certifying the 2020 election, according to CNN. But during the 2024 election cycle, Ecolab donated thousands of dollars to Steve Scalise (R-LA), Kevin Hern (R-OK), and other members of Congress who tried to overturn the 2020 election.

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General Mills

While General Mills upheld its pledge after January 6, 2021, Kraft Heinz has put tens of thousands of dollars into the hands of election deniers after making a similar vow not to do so.

Holland & Hart LLP

Holland & Hart, among the top 200 earning law firms in the world, has not donated to anyone who voted to overturn the 2020 elections. In contrast, Cozen O’Connor, an even bigger firm, reneged on its promise.

Qurate Retail

Unlike other retail brands like Amazon and Walmart that have not followed through on their vows not to give money to election deniers, Qurate Retail has kept its promise.

Whirlpool

Whirlpool, which terminated its political action committee in early 2023, did not give any money to people who voted to overturn the 2020 election. While Whirlpool kept its promise, competitor General Electric did not.

Lyft

Lyft has kept its promise to withhold donations to election deniers after January 6. While Uber never made such a promise, the company and its CEO recently donated $2 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.

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Democratic Senate candidate Colin Allred faced off with incumbent, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) Tuesday night, and things got heated when Allred slammed the Republican senator's blatant hypocrisy.

You can't be for the mob on January 6 and for the officers. You can't. And it's not funny. Because you're a threat to democracy. I was on the House floor when we went through the votes. I remember when you objected to the results in Arizona.

A poll released by last month by the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation(TxHPF) showed Allred trailing Cruz by only 3 percent.

Regina Montoya, a member of the TxHPF Board of Directors, told WFAA that "the dynamism of the Harris campaign has had an obvious down ballot impact in the Allred vs. Cruz race, where Colin is now effectively tied with Cruz going into the final days of the campaign."

In August, "Allred recalled the day the Capitol was attacked — noting that he played in the National Football League before serving in Congress," during an interview with Baptist News.

"When you're a former professional football player in a situation like that," Allred said, "people will unsurprisingly look to you for protection. So I took my suit jacket off and got ready to take on whatever came through that door."

The Democratic hopeful continued, "That day, we came closer to losing our democracy than a lot of people realize, and Ted Cruz is responsible for that. He spread the lie that the election was stolen and was the senator who objected to the certification of the results in an attempt to overturn the will of the American people. But when the mob stormed the Capitol, he hid in a supply closet."

READ MORE:[Ted Cruz dodges key issue that’s become major 'political liability' for GOP

Watch the video below or at this link.

Colin Allred says Ted Cruz 'hid in a supply closet' while Jan. 6 rioters stormed the Capitol

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How each Speaker candidate voted in overturning 2020 election results

by Lauren Sforza - 10/22/23

With nine candidates in the running for Speaker, some Republicans are raising questions over whether their votes on overturning the 2020 election results should be a factor in electing the next leader.

The House has been in turmoil since eight Republicans joined forces with Democrats earlier this month to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from his position. Since then, the House GOP has struggled to unite behind one candidate for the Speakership.

The GOP conference voted in a secret-ballot election Friday to boot Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) as the Republican nominee after he failed three times to secure the 217 votes needed for the Speakership. Jordan was Republicans’ second nominee, following Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s (R-La.) decision to back out one day after the conference narrowly voted to nominate him.

Some Republicans, such as Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), are saying that the candidates’ stances on who won the 2020 election will factor into their votes. Buck, one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy, told reporters Friday that declaring President Biden as the lawful winner of the 2020 election will be one of his criteria when choosing a new candidate.

McCarthy, Jordan and Scalise were among Republicans who voted in favor of overturning those election results.

Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that any candidate who voted to reject the results of the 2020 election should be disqualified from running for the Speakership.

Hours after a mob of rioters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, 139 House Republicans voted to object to the election results in either Arizona, Pennsylvania or both. The vote to overturn Arizona’s election results failed 303-121 and the vote to overturn Pennsylvania’s results failed 282-138.

Here is how each Speaker candidate voted on the objections:

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.)

Emmer opposed the objections to both Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s election results, making him one of two Speaker candidates who did not vote to overturn either of the state’s results.

Buck has voted for Emmer in each of the three ballots cast for the Speakership this month. The majority whip has also secured McCarthy’s endorsement, though the former Speaker voted in favor of objecting to Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s 2020 presidential election results.

Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.)

Hern voted to object to both the Arizona and Pennsylvania election results.

He is a staunch supporter of former President Trump and has backed the former president’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

House Republican Conference Vice Chair Mike Johnson (R-La.)

Johnson also voted to object to the election results in both Arizona and Pennsylvania.

He officially announced he is in the race for Speaker via a “Dear Colleague” letter to members Saturday morning. He serves on the House Judiciary Committee.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.)

Donalds is another Republican who voted to object to both Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s election results.

Donalds officially announced his run Friday night via a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

He had received votes for the Speakership from GOP holdouts during McCarthy’s 15-ballot Speaker race in January, and he also garnered a few during Jordan’s three ballots last week.

Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.)

Bergman voted yes on objecting to Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s election results.

In a surprise move, he announced he would be running for the Speakership over the weekend, vowing in a statement that he would “end the deadlock, and win the vote.”

Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.)

Scott is the second of only two candidates to not object to either Arizona’s or Pennsylvania’s results.

Scott, a seventh-term congressman, shocked many when he pulled a significant show of support in his bid against Jordan last week, when he lost the secret ballot against Jordan in a 124-81 vote.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas)

Sessions voted in favor of objecting to Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s 2020 presidential results.

He served as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee from January 2009 until January 2013. He revealed Friday that he would run for Speaker of the House, signaling that he is ready to jump pack into GOP leadership.

Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.)

Meuser split his votes on whether to overturn the two states’ election results. He voted to sustain an objection to his home state of Pennsylvania’s election results but did not object to Arizona’s election results.

He officially filed to run for Speaker, according to the list of declared candidates House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) announced Sunday.

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.)

Palmer, a five-term congressman, is the sixth Speaker candidate to have objected to both Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s election results.

He was a surprise name when Stefanik announced the candidates.

Tags 2020 presidential election Austin Scott Byron Donalds Dan Meuser Gary Palmer Jack Bergman Jan. 6 attack Jim Jordan Ken Buck Kevin Hern Kevin McCarthy Mike Johnson Pete Sessions Steve Scalise Tom Emmer

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four years after the United States' 2020 presidential race, former President Donald Trump and many of allies continue to make the false, repeatedly debunked claim that the election was stolen from him. And prominent GOP members of Congress, including Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York), will not commit to accepting the 2024 election results if President Joe Biden is reelected in November.

Since 2021, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has maintained a "sedition tracker" that monitors corporations and political figures who promote the Big Lie and election denialism in some way. And according to an announcement published on June 4, CREW is modifying its system for exposing Big Lie supporters in either government or business.

"In order to more precisely track companies' political giving to members of Congress who are undermining democracy," CREW explains, "we have created a new system for scoring companies' support for democracy based on how much they are giving to members who have done the most to undermine it. Only companies that donated to the 168 members who ran on the Big Lie or voted to overturn the 2020 election are included, but the gifts are weighted to differentiate between those who have gone even further to advance the Big Lie and undermine democracy, both in the leadup to January 6th and since."

READ MORE: ['All she has to do is shut up': Ex-GOP rep skewers RNC chair for risking Senate over Trump 'vanities'

According to CREW, the criteria includes: (1) "voted against certification of the 2020 election results or ran on the Big Lie," (2) "voted against establishing the January 6th Committee," (3) "supported" Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's lawsuit to overturn the 2020 election results in four states that Biden won, (4) "supported absolute immunity for presidents," and (5) "voted against second Trump impeachment."

"The data on this page will be updated as new filings come in and are processed," CREW notes. "To create our company scores, we use these criteria to weight each member's relative anti-democracy rating, and then use that coefficient to calculate each donor company's score."

CREW lists some of the companies that have the "worst scores" when it comes to democracy.

The top five companies CREW names are Koch Industries, AT&T, American Crystal Sugar, Lockheed Martin and United Parcel Service (UPS).

*Read CREW's full announcement at this link.

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in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, numerous Republican lawmakers publicly denounced the insurrection and its participants. But now, four members of the House of Representatives and US Senate have done a complete 180 and endorsed former President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign despite his role in the attack.

CBS News first reported on the lawmakers' about-face on the capitol siege and their support of the man at the forefront of it, and compared their past remarks to their 2024 endorsements. Two members of Congress listed below are running for reelection this November, and two are up for reelection in 2026.

1. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia)

After the deadly attack on the capitol, Capito said "I think the president does own this" in an interview with WV Metro News. However, she has since endorsed Trump's bid for a second term in the White House, and said "history will make that judgment" on whether Trump does, in fact, own what happened three years ago.

2. Sen. Steve Daines (R-Montana)

Daines, who is now the chair of Senate Republicans' campaign arm, was unequivocal in his condemnation of the January 6 attack. He stated "the focus must be to arrest and prosecute the domestic terrorists who broke into our Capitol, attacked law enforcement officers, sought to cause harm, and tried to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power," and called for rioters to be "prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

However, Daines has since walked back those comments, saying that the people who stormed the halls of Congress on January 6 "were not domestic terrorists." He gave a full-throated defense of the former president, saying he accomplished more "than any president I've seen in my lifetime," and that he "can't wait to see President Trump back in the Oval Office."

3. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pennsylvania)

Smucker (who served as president of the Smucker Company for 25 years before his election to Congress) initially published a statement in the days following the January 6 attack that condemned rioters and praised law enforcement, saying it was "simply unacceptable" and "not who we are as a nation." He added that he "support[s] the prosecution of the insurrectionists to the fullest extent of the law" and that Trump was "wrong" for Trump to give "false hope" to his supporters about overturning the election.

But now, Smucker has flipped, telling CBS he would be "happy to have Trump as president again." And in regard to the rioters who ransacked the capitol, he falsely asserted that "never called them insurrectionists" despite his 2021 statement.

4. Rep. William Timmons (R-South Carolina)

Like Smucker, Timmons loudly condemned the January 6 insurrection, calling it "mob violence" in a statement posted to his congressional website two days after the attack.

"The actions yesterday by those who breached the U.S. Capitol are the very definition of domestic terrorism. There are no excuses for attacking law enforcement, breaking barricades, shattering windows, and busting down doors to gain entry," he stated. "Anyone who was complicit in these acts of domestic terrorism should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This act of insurrection cannot go unpunished."

But the congressman has made efforts to separate Trump from the violence carried out by his supporters, while also standing alongside the former president with other South Carolina Republicans at a campaign event in New Hampshire. He told CBS that "President Trump bears no responsibility for the small number of individuals who broke laws on Jan. 6," even though Trump told supporters during his January 6 speech that they should "fight like hell or you're not gonna have a country anymore."

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IN a Sunday, January 21 op-ed, MSNBC Daily writer and editor Hayes Brown points to "an amicus (or friend of the court) brief filed on behalf of nearly 200 Republican members of Congress," which urges the US Supreme Court to determine whether Donald Trump can remain on the ballot in Colorado. Brown emphasizes "that there's a deeply self-serving element to their arguments."

He adds, "Under the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling," several GOP lawmakers "could also credibly be described as having 'engaged in insurrection' — and thus theoretically be disqualified from holding office," just as Donald Trump could.

Brown writes, "Dozens of other signatories voted against certifying Biden’s win even after the rioters had stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The goal of their brief isn’t just to keep their party’s standard-bearer on the ballot, but it’s also to absolve themselves of their own sins and to inoculate themselves from calls that they, too, face accountability for supporting Trump’s attempt to steal the election."

The MSNBC Daily writer notes:

*Section 3 states, in part, that if somebody has 'previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States … to support the Constitution of the United States' but then has 'engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,' that person can’t be allowed to 'be a Senator or Representative in Congress.'Section 3 also gives Congress the power to, 'by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.'

*The self-interested lawmakers give up the game with this line from the brief: 'Although not directly relevant to President Trump, the Colorado Supreme Court would give itself the power to judge the qualifications of those who would be elected to the House or Senate.' That would be especially troubling for Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs of Arizona. The three of them were knee-deep in plotting to overturn the election, and, in a more just world, they would have faced expulsion for violating Section 3. It’s their inclusion as signatories on the amicus brief that makes this filing particularly odious.

*Read Brown's full op-ed here.

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gop # get worse with time?!

46 GOP senators sign SCOTUS brief downplaying Trump’s role in January 6 insurrection

President Donald J. Trump, joined by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Roy Blunt, R-MO., speaks with reporters prior to attending a Senate Republican lunch Tuesday, March 26, 2019, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

Carl Gibson

January 18, 2024

All but three members of the Senate Republican Caucus have signed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) urging the Court to strike down the Colorado Supreme Court's disqualification of former President Donald Trump from the state's GOP primary ballot.

The brief — which was also signed by 130 House Republicans — argued that Trump's disqualification "tramples the prerogatives of members of Congress," which they say include "the enforcement and (if necessary) removal of Section 3 [of the 14th Amendment]’s 'disability' on holding office."

"Congress—not any state court—plays a vital role in regard to [the insurrection clause]," the brief read. "It is Congress that must pass implementing legislation authorizing enforcement of Section 3."

"[T]his Court should conclude that Section 3 determinations fall within the 'political question' doctrine because they are so clearly committed by constitutional text to another political branch, i.e., Congress," the amicus brief continued. "Under current law, Congress has implemented Section 3 only in the narrow context of requiring a criminal conviction for 'rebellion or insurrection,' and provided that those found guilty 'shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.'"

While the question of whether a presidential candidate can only be disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment will ultimately be decided by SCOTUS, the actual text of the insurrection clause doesn't explicitly say enforcement only comes after Congress votes. Rather, the clause — which prevents anyone who has "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the US or who has "given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof" from holding any "civilian or military" office — only states that disqualification can be reversed by a two-thirds vote from both the House and Senate. Even if all signees of the brief voted to exempt Trump from the insurrection clause, it would still fall well short of the two-thirds threshold laid out in the US Constitution.

Notably, the brief also minimizes the former president's role in the January 6, 2021 US Capitol riot, with the brief falsely asserting that Trump "quickly" asked for peace and encouraged "disbandment" of the riot even though he watched events unfold over the course of several hours before telling his supporters to go home. The brief even quoted George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 to describe the actions of "enterprising state officials" trying to disqualify Trump as an example of the statement "peace means war."

The only GOP senators to not co-sign the brief were Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski. Notably, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) co-signed the brief despite condemning Trump's actions on January 6.

READ MORE: SCOTUS keeping 'insurrectionist' Trump on ballot is a 'suicide pact' for democracy: column

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in the wake of the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in which a mob of far-right rioters attempted to violently disrupt Congress' certification of the 2020 Electoral College count, numerous corporations vowed publicly to stop donating to Republicans who supported the rioters' cause.

However, a new report from nonpartisan campaign finance research group Open Secrets shows that corporations have been flooding the campaign war chests of Republican election deniers in Congress, with more than $108 million donated since the insurrection.

"Companies pledged to pull back, but we have not seen that play out," Open Secrets investigations manager Anna Massoglia recently told the New York Times.

To come to that amount, Open Secrets tracked donations to the campaigns of the 147 House and Senate Republicans (also known as the "Sedition Caucus") who voted to overturn the 2020 election the same day supporters of former President Donald Trump ransacked the US Capitol, killing five police officers and injuring hundreds more in the process. Researchers then zeroed in on donations that came from approximately 1,400 business political action committees and trade associations.

According to Open Secrets, PACs and trade groups donated roughly $91.4 million to the Sedition Caucus in the three years since the insurrection, and funded leadership PACs affiliated with Sedition Caucus members to the tune of $16.7 million more. Some of the biggest donors include the National Association of Realtors — a trade group for the real estate industry — the American Bankers Association and United Parcel Service. Other major corporate donors to election deniers include military contractors like Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and General Atomics.

Notably, many of these donations came from the very same companies that pledged to stop supporting the Sedition Caucus. As journalist Judd Legum reported in his newsletter Popular Information, household name brands like Airbnb, Amazon, AT&T, Boeing and Pfizer publicly vowed to cut off donations to election deniers in 2021. However, Open Secrets found that all of those companies quietly resumed donations, in addition to other companies that pledged to stop supporting 2020 election conspiracy theorists like Comcast, Deloitte, General Motors, Home Depot, Marathon Petroleum, Raytheon and SpaceX, among others.

"Support for these organizations does not represent an endorsement for all issues that the organization supports," General Motors said of a 2021 donation to the Republican State Leadership Committee, which signed a statement in support of election denialism.

Click here to read Open Secrets' full report.

corporate-pacs-and-industry-trade-groups-steered-over-108-million-to-election-objectors-since-jan-6

Corporate PACs and industry trade have given more than $108 million to election objectors in Congress who voted against certifying the 2020 election results, according to a new OpenSecrets analysis of campaign finance reports.

Many corporations that vowed to suspend or reevaluate PAC giving to election objectors resumed making PAC donations to the so-called Sedition Caucus” within weeks or months of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to the new analysis, which was first reported by the New York Times.

Over 1,400 business PACs, which include corporate PACs and industry trade groups, poured more than $91.4 million of that into political contributions directly to the campaigns of election objectors. Corporate PACs and industry trade groups added about $16.7 million more to the coffers of leadership PACs affiliated with those same members of Congress.

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Major corporations that have since resumed corporate PAC giving to election objectors include: AT&T, Boeing, Comcast, Home Depot, Lockheed Martin, Marathon Petroleum, Pfizer, Raytheon, SpaceX, Union Pacific, UPS, Verizonand Walmart.

The American Bankers Association, which paused contributions after the Jan. 6 attack, was the top contributor to election objectors in the first three quarters of 2023, followed by the National Association of Realtors and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

These PACs are not necessarily donating funds exclusively to election objectors. Instead, most of the corporate PACs spread money around with little discrimination. Many of the top corporate contributors to election objectors give to Democrats as well as Republicans. As companies often strive to appear politically impartial, several of the top contributors to election objectors have given about evenly to politicians on both sides of the aisle.

About 70% of contributions from the American Bankers Association’s PAC, which gave election objectors over $430,000 in the first three quarters of 2023, have benefited Republicans in recent cycles.

The National Auto Dealers Association, which gave over $203,000 to election objectors in the first three quarters of 2023, similarly gives around 70% of its PAC contributions to Republicans.

UPS, which gave about 60% of its PAC contributions to Republicans in recent years, gave $164,500 to election objectors in the same period.

The PAC of the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers, which gave $194,000 to election objectors in the first three quarters of 2023, also leans slightly right with their PAC contributions but have histories of giving to Democrat and Republican politicians.

The National Association of Realtors, the second highest overall contributor to election objectors during the first three quarters of 2023, has given about evenly to Democrats and Republicans in recent election cycles — meaning the election objectors were just a few names on a long list of the trade association’s beneficiaries. In some prior cycles the real estate trade group’s PAC has given more to Democrats while in other cycles it has given more to Republicans.

Boeing’s corporate PAC steered over $345,000 to election objectors in the first three quarters of 2023, more than any other company. But the aerospace giant has supported both Democrats and Republicans in recent years. While its PAC has given more to Republicans most recent cycles, it has also given more to Democrats in some prior cycles.

Following a similar trend, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association — which ranked third in giving to election objectors during the same period with $272,000 in PAC contributions has given slightly more to Republicans in recent years but gave more to Democrats in some prior cycles. Lockheed Martin’s PAC also generally gives slightly more to Republicans but sometimes gives more to Democrats.

AT&T’s PAC has also given about evenly to Democrats and Republicans in recent election cycles but leans slightly Republican.

Comcast, which made $192,000 in PAC contributions to election objectors since Jan. 6, has given about evenly to politicians of both parties in recent cycles. SpaceX and Honeywell International have also given roughly the same amounts to politicians of both parties in recent cycles.

American Crystal Sugar’s PAC giving leaned slightly Democratic while the National Cattlemen's Beef Association has predominantly given to Republicans.

Marathon Petroleum’s PAC, which gave $133,500 to election objectors during that period, has also given more than 90% of its contributions to Republicans – similar to many other oil and gas companies.

Koch Industries is another major contributor to election objectors that has also predominantly given to Republicans, but the Koch brothers’ energy company has a more complicated relationship with former President Donald Trump. The Kochs saw some key policy wins under the Trump administration but also clashed with the former president on several issues during his time in the White House and announced in 2023 that stopping Trump would be a key goal of their 2024 political strategy.

But that tension did not stop Koch Industries from continuing to give to members of Congress who voted against certifying 2020 election results after the Jan. 6 attack, with the company contributing $166,000 to election objectors in the first three quarters of 2023 alone. AFP Action, a super PAC affiliated with Americans for Prosperity that is predominantly funded by the Koch’s political network and Koch Industries, spent millions more to support election objectors during the same period.

Election objectors continue to rake in corporate PAC cash in 2023

Members of Congress who opposed certification of 2020 presidential election results received over $35 million in campaign and leadership PAC contributions from PACs affiliated with corporations and industry trade groups representing business interests in the first three quarters of 2023.

Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) received more campaign and leadership PAC money from PACs affiliated with corporations and business trade groups than any other election denier’s campaign during the first three quarters of 2023.

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Business PACs collectively steered over $2 million to Smith during that period with about $1.5 million to his campaign and nearly $470,000 to his leadership PAC.

Smith served as the top Republican on the House Budget Committee in the 117th Congress and now chairs the House Ways and Means Committee.

Smith has already received $10,000 from more than a dozen companies during the 2024 election cycle. Corporate PAC contributors that have maxed out to Smith this cycle include American Crystal Sugar, Cigna, CVS Health, Deere & Co., Qualcomm and Toyota.

Trade associations whose PACs maxed out to Smith include the National Structured Settlements Trade Association, the National Council of Farmer Co-Ops, the National Association of Truck Stop Operators, the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trustsand the National Association of Enrolled Agents.

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who left Congress at the end of 2023, are also top recipients of corporate PAC funds.

Several other election objectors supported by the business PACs have also announced their retirement or were voted out of office in the 2022 midterms, but many are also running for reelection in 2024.

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AN 1 24 CARL GIBSON?

A new report shows that former President Donald Trump is far from the only Republican decision-maker who could significantly harm democracy this year.

While the ex-president has openly suggested that he would terminate parts of the US Constitution, rule as a dictator "on day one" and staff government agencies with tens of thousands of political loyalists, he is still currently just a private citizen. Rather, a report from the nonpartisan organization States United suggests another major looming threat to democracy comes from current Republican members of the US House of Representatives and the US Senate.

"[T]he most misunderstood threat comes from Congress," wrote States United CEO Joanna Lydgate in an MSNBC op-ed with former House Judiciary Committee impeachment counsel Norman Eisen. "Inside the very building where our democracy came under attack three years ago, scores of election deniers still hold power."

According to States United, 171 current members of the House and Senate — approximately a full third of Congress — has trafficked in election denial conspiracy theories, with 152 election deniers in the House and 19 in the Senate. 128 sitting members of Congress voted to overturn the 2020 election on January 6, 2021. These members represent 36 states, and more than 100 of them signed now-Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-Louisiana) amicus brief seeking to throw out election results in four swing states President Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020.

Both Lydgate and Eisen noted that in the wake of the deadly January 6 insurrection, Congress passed a law raising the threshold to challenging a state's electoral votes to one-fifth of both the House and Senate. However, they noted that depending on how various Congressional elections turn out in November, that higher threshold may still be within reach. And they both warned that election deniers in Congress have plenty of other tools at their disposal to "cause trouble in many other ways."

"They could use budget powers to defund Jan. 6 prosecutions. Congress, which has a history of erratic election funding, could starve federal agencies that help protect elections. Election deniers could gin up baseless investigations and haul election administrators to Capitol Hill to berate them for doing their jobs in 2024," they wrote. "The Senate could refuse to confirm judges or executive branch officials who don’t give lip service to the 'big lie.' And election deniers with a congressional platform could further poison public trust in elections with more lies."

"Elections are administered by state and local officials, but Americans understand that Congress has substantial influence," they added. "In new polling from States United, 59% of people said Congress has a significant amount of power when it comes to elections. What they say — and do — about our elections really matters."

Click here to read Lydgate and Eisen's op-ed in full.

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an 12 23

just weeks after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals unsealed documents revealing U.S. Congressman Scott Perry's (R-PA) conversations in his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, a federal judge on Tuesday gave the Department of Justice permission to access almost "1,700 records recovered" from the Pennsylvania lawmaker's cell phone, The Washington Post reports.

Politico reported a few of Perry's interactions, including:

{A Dec. 12, 2020, text exchange with Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel discussing efforts to challenge Joe Biden’s victory in the election.}:

{A series of exchanges between Perry and a former DOJ colleague, Robert Gasaway, between Dec. 30, 2020, and Jan. 5, 2021, in which Perry embraced a plan to have then-Vice President Mike Pence 'admit testimony' prior to the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021. Perry agreed to 'sell[] the idea' with a call to Trump, Pence and Trump adviser John Eastman, but Perry later alerted Gasaway that Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, 'will not allow access.'}:

The "most revealing" interaction, Politico noted, was a conversation the GOP leader had with ex-U.S. Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark — and Donald Trump Georgia co-defendant — in which Perry told Clark that Trump was upset with Clark for using the Justice Department to defend Pence against a lawsuit brought by another House member, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)."

Per the Post, on Tuesday, "Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg of Washington, D.C., gave investigators access to 1,659 records and withheld 396 others after a federal appeals court directed him to individually review 2,055 communications from Perry's phone to decide which were protected by the Constitution’s 'speech or debate' clause, which grants members of Congress immunity from criminal investigation when acting in their official capacities."

According to the report, "Tuesday's order will determine which messages investigators with special counsel Jack Smith can actually use as potential evidence in any case, pending an expected renewed appeal by Perry, part of legal fight that has tied up the records for more than a year."

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random

| May 30, 2023

Haley Orion @ Talking Points Memo: How Paul Gosar Became An Icon To Those In The Modern Fascist Movement.
David Edwards @ Raw Story: Trump vows to unilaterally end natural-born citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants.
Alex Griffing @ Mediaite: Ron DeSantis Declares He’s Running For President to ‘Destroy Leftism.’
David Gilbert @ Vice News: The QAnon Shaman Is Out of Prison and Selling Yoga Leggings Now.
Linda K. Wertheimer @ The New Republic: Inside the Christian Legal Crusade to Revive School Prayer.
Charles Homans and Ken Bensinger @ The New York Times: A Small Town’s Tragedy, Distorted by Trump’s Megaphone.
Media Matters: Candace Owens: “Do not shop at Target or else you’re gay and you’re a pervert.”
Hemant Mehta @ Friendly Atheist: Pastor charged with four counts of child cruelty announces bid for Louisiana House.
David Badash @ The New Civil Rights Movement: House Republicans Tied to J6 Admit Goals: Defeat Debt Ceiling Agreement, Kill Economy, Help Trump Win in 2024.

Tags: Candace Owens Dan Bishop Donald Trump Jacob Chansley John Raymond Paul Gosar Ron DeSantis Round-Up

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an ah 1 23

Friday, January 6, 2023 marks the second anniversary of what historian Michael Beschloss has described as one of the darkest days in United States history: the January 6, 2021 insurrection. That day, a violent mob of MAGA Republicans and Donald Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol Building in the hope of preventing the certification of now-President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.

As violent as that attack was, Beschloss has emphasized that it could have been much worse and escalated into “assassinations and/or hostage-taking” if the insurrectionists had been able to get to either members of Congress or then-Vice President Mike Pence. Some of the insurrectionists were calling for Pence’s murder that day, chanting, “Hang Mike Pence, hang Mike Pence.” And a hangman’s gallows was set up outside the Capitol.

Two years ago, Corporate America was quick to condemn the Capitol insurrection. But in an in-depth report published by Mother Jones on January 5, journalist Tim Murphy laments that some companies have since made campaign contributions to “Stop the Steal” Republicans who tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

“Two years after President Donald Trump incited a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol and halt the certification of the Electoral College results, the January 6 insurrection is still a live wire in American politics,” Murphy explains. “Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy last month for his role in the riot. Advocates of Trump’s election lies received such an intense electoral rebuke in the midterm election that Democrats actually expanded their majority in the Senate…. But many of America’s largest companies have long since moved on.”

Murphy adds, “In the first national election since a sitting president tried to overturn the popular will, some of the country’s biggest brands showered election deniers with millions of dollars in donations via their political action committees.”

The Mother Jones reporter goes on to cite specific examples of companies that condemned “Stop the Steal” Republicans and election denialists two years ago but have since given them donations.

“In the days after the insurrection,” Murphy recalls, “dozens of companies told Popular Information and other outlets that they were pausing or reconsidering their political donations.Hallmark, which had donated to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) in the past, singled him out by name in its statement condemning the attack. Big-pocketed corporations such as Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Comcast, PricewaterhouseCoopers and AT&T promised to suspend all contributions to members of Congress who voted against certifying the results either temporarily or for the entire 2022 cycle.”

Murphy continues, “But not only did each of those six companies eventually turn the spigot back on, they all ended up writing checks to help reelectRep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) —a leading opponent of certification whose own chief of staff attempted to distribute a fake slate of electors on the day of the insurrection, according to the January 6 Committee. Kelly, a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee from a heavily Republican district, was a major recipient of corporate cash. Other contributors included PACs belonging toIntel and Verizon, both of which had told Popular Information they were suspending donations to the election-rejecters; Aflac, which had said it would be pausing all its political donations for an unspecified amount of time;Johnson & Johnson; FedEx; and the spirits-producing Sazerac Company.”

The Mother Jones reporter points out that during the “2022 cycle,” Anheuser-Busch “gave $139,500 to election-denying members of Congress” in addition to giving a “maximum contribution” to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).

“Among the dozens of recipients: Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.), who tweeted that the election was ‘RIGGED’ for Biden in the run-up to January 6 and afterwards shared misinformation alleging that ‘Antifa thugs’ were responsible for the riot,” Murphy reports. “Airlines were major supporters of Stop the Steal candidates. Delta Airlines gave $225,000 to election-denying members of Congress, according to ProPublica‘s searchable database. Southwest Airlines’ ‘Freedom Fund’ gave $39,500 to election-rejecting candidates, including Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), who tweeted on January 3, 2021 that he’d just met ‘with folks from Stop the Steal’ at our nation’s Capitol’ and ‘encouraged them to keep fighting.’”

Murphy adds, “American Airlines, which told Popular Information that it was pausing all political contributions for three months, eventually funneled $165,000 to dozens of Republicans who voted not to certify the election results, including Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), who asked Trump for a pardon after helping to organize congressional opposition to certification.”

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an 922

...On Monday, September 19, Cheney attended an event at the American Enterprise Institute where she recalled a day in the House cloakroom. During that time, she noted a stack of papers that lawmakers were required to sign if they intended to oppose the Electoral College vote.

She also noted how one Republican lawmaker actually did sign the papers but mumbled a complaint under his breath.

“And as I was sitting there, a member came in and he signed his name on each one of the states’ sheets,” Cheney recalled. “And then he said under his breath,‘The things we do for the Orange Jesus.’”

While some attendees found Cheney's remarks comical, Cheney expressed concern about the lawmaker's lack of regard for the constitutional oath he'd taken. “I thought, you know, you’re taking an act that is unconstitutional,” she said.

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edit bd

...

Last night’s hearing, however, suggested one more layer.

A cover-up of the congressional coup.

By the Congress.

Hinting hard

The goal appears to have been getting enough members of the US Congress to vote to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The GOP had a Senate majority at the time. They could have, in theory, overruled the will of the people, at least temporarily. Ultimately, however, just 147 Republicans, including eight senators, objected.

I don’t know, had they amassed enough votes in the Senate, where things would have gone after that. Perhaps it would have triggered the 12th Amendment. Perhaps it would have thrown the process back to red states that Joe Biden had won, where friendly Republican legislators would have fixed things so Trump could stay in office.

In any case, the former president spent a lot of time talking about congressional Republicans and talking directly to congressional Republicans to such a degree as to suggest there was another layer of his grand seditious conspiracy that’s only now coming into light. That’s certainly what the J6 committee has been hinting hard at.

Co-conspirators?

Last week, the panel’s Stephanie Murphy said Trump met in late December with US Reps. Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Brian Babin, Jody Hice, Louie Gohmert, Andy Harris, Mo Brooks, Paul Gosar, Scott Perry and Jim Jordan. Margaret Taylor Greene was there. So were Mike Pence, Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani. (Seven of these members asked for pardons. Ditto Meadows, Giuliani and Greene.)

They tried getting the former vice president to go along with the conspiracy. It called for him to reject the count all by himself or send it back to the states where state GOP legislators were waiting.

Pence had refused before. I’m guessing those at the meeting expected him to again. He did. The next step was finalizing a scheme to bring tens of thousands of Trump loyalists to the capital, including armed paramilitaries (eg, Proud Boys and Oath Keepers), in order to terrify not only Pence but GOP senators into reinstalling Trump.

Terrifying GOP senators

According to the J6 committee’s Elaine Luria, Trump was told 15 minutes after returning to the White House after his speech on the Ellipse that the US Capitol was under siege by an armed mob. After the briefing, Luria said, Trump began calling GOP senators for the purpose of persuading them to overrule the results of the election.

On the one hand, the former president had insurgents sacking and looting the seat of government, threatening lawmakers with death – in Mike Pence’s case, with hanging from a makeshift gallows. (It was revealed last night that Pence’s Secret Service detail believed they were going to die. They sent messages of love to their families.) On the other, Trump pushed GOP senators by phone to get on board.

During that time, White House staffers tried and failed to persuade Trump to respond to the assault. (He did not issue orders to anyone, not the secretary of defense, the secretary of homeland security, the attorney general, no one.) Instead of telling them to go home, as staffers had hoped, he posted a tweet accusing Pence of betrayal.

After “pouring gasoline on the fire,” as witness Sarah Matthews said, the former president made more phone calls to Republican senators. Later that evening, after Trump had called for the insurgents to go home, Rudy Giuliani made even more calls to Republican senators.

Indeed, the J6 committee’s Adam Kinzinger named them. They were: Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn, Bill Hagerty, Tommy Tuberville and Lindsey Graham. Of that number, only three voted to overturn the results of the election: Cruz, Tuberville and Hawley.

The cover-up

Giuliani also called US Rep. Jim Jordan.

Jordan, as I wrote last week, was nominated to serve on the initial select committee to investigate J6. Speaker Nancy Pelosi vetoed his nomination, though. Good thing she did. The current committee would have been compromised by the presence of a congressman who was a serial witness to the serial crimes under investigation.

Jordan was nominated by Kevin McCarthy. As the J6 committee reminded us last night, the House minority leader talked to Trump after the attack. He said Trump said he had “some responsibility” for J6. McCarthy said he told Trump that the House Democrats were likely to pass an impeachment resolution and that he should resign.

Trump didn’t resign, of course.

Perhaps the fix was in.

Implication by omission

Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the J6 committee, reminded us that the committee’s work goes on. Hearings will resume in September, she said. Then the Wyoming congresswoman used some curious math:

Today, we know far more about the president’s plans and actions to overturn the election than almost all members of Congress did when President Trump was impeached on January 13, 2021, or when he was tried by the Senate in February of that year.

Fifty-seven of 100 senators voted to convict President Trump at that time, and more than 20 others said they were voting against conviction, because the president's term had already expired.

Cheney said “almost all,” I think, because a dozen GOP members had been deeply involved in or material witnesses to Trump’s conspiracy.

She said “57 of 100,” I think, because it takes 67 senators to remove and convict a president. She said “more than 20 others,” because she’s apparently giving these GOP senators the benefit of the doubt.

But that still leaves around 20 unaccounted for. Why?

Perhaps because some, or all, of these 20 or so Republican senators had been in contact with the former president as the insurrection was unfolding and therefore potential co-conspirators in the crime.

Perhaps because some, or all, of these 20 or so Republican senators voted against conviction, thus taking steps to cover up the crime.

In any case, it was implication by omission.

The appearance of a conspiracy

We know at least six of them were evidently in both camps. On the evening of J6, Rudy Giuliani called Blackburn, Hawley, Cruz, Hagarty, Tuberville and Graham hoping they would object to the vote count. (Three did.) This same group voted to acquit Trump of treason.

If that’s not a rigged outcome, it sure looks like one.

Liz Cheney seemed to be inviting us to put the former president’s second impeachment trial in light of what we know now.

She seemed to be asking us to consider what it means when at least a dozen sitting members of the House were material witnesses as well as grand jury members deciding on an indictment (impeachment).

She seemed to be asking us to see that at least six of those Senators were materially involved in a crime of which they sat in judgment.

If that’s not a conspiracy, it sure as hell looks like one.

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an 7 22

On Wednesday, The Detroit News reported that Democratic state lawmakers in Michigan have introduced a resolution calling on the Justice Department to investigate 11 of their GOP counterparts for "seditious conspiracy."

"Sponsored by state Rep. Joe Tate, D-Detroit, the proposal is extremely unlikely to gain traction in the GOP-controlled House but underscores Democrats' beliefs that federal authorities should probe the actions that high-ranking Michigan Republicans took in the wake of Donald Trump's loss to Joe Biden," said the report. "Biden won Michigan by 154,000 votes or 3 percentage points, a result that's been upheld by a series of court rulings, more than 200 audits and an investigation by the Republican-run Michigan Senate's oversight committee. But some of the former president's supporters have maintained unproven claims that widespread fraud swung the race."

"An essential element of being a legislator is accepting the peaceful transition of power when the people choose different leaders, and these members failed to faithfully discharge the duties of their office by acting to undermine this basic tenet of democracy," stated the resolution. "Michigan residents deserve better leaders than people who would subvert their own government to remain in power."

Michigan was one of several states targeted by former President Donald Trump and his allies as part of a plot to throw out election results. Like many other states Biden narrowly won, several Republican operatives declared themselves to be "alternate" electors for Trump, with the idea being either the legislature could submit them instead of the lawfully certified electors won by Joe Biden, or that former Vice President Mike Pence could use them as pretext to throw out the votes of Michigan altogether. The DOJ is investigating this plot.

"Five of the Republican lawmakers — state Reps. Julie Alexander of Hanover, Beth Griffin of Mattawan, Matt Maddock of Milford, John Reilly of Oakland Township and Daire Rendon of Lake City — were entangled in a plot to advance a false slate of Republican presidential electors, claiming Trump won Michigan, according to the resolution," noted the report. The lawmakers themselves didn't sign the false electors certificate, contending Trump got Michigan's 16 electoral votes, but were involved in the effort, including the GOP electors' unsuccessful attempts to gain access on Dec. 14, 2020, to the Michigan Capitol.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has also come under scrutiny after his office forwarded lists of fake electors from Michigan, as well as his home state of Wisconsin, to Pence's office.

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https://news.yahoo.com/11-house-republicans-attended-white-194109173.html

White House held a December 21, 2020, meeting to discuss a fringe theory to overturn the election.
The January 6, 2021, committee shared the names of 11 House Republicans who went to that meeting.
They included Reps. Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan, as well as Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, offered new details on Tuesday about a meeting at the White House that involved several Republican members of Congress ahead of the meeting of the joint session of Congress to certify the 2020 presidential election.

Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida, a member of the committee, said the December 21 meeting was part of an effort to "disseminate his false claims and to encourage members of the public to fight the outcome on January 6."

Vice President Mike Pence, Rudy Giuliani, and Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff at the time, attended the meeting, along with President Donald Trump, Murphy said.

at the meeting, Murphy said the members discussed election theories pushed by Trump's personal lawyer John Eastman, who said he believed that Pence was able to single-handedly reject slates of electors in his role presiding over the joint session.

In reality, Pence's role was simply to count the votes. On Tuesday, the committee aired footage of Pat Cipollone, Trump's White House counsel. He was asked to address a comment attributed to him by another Trump advisor, Jason Miller, who quoted him as saying that Eastman's theory was "nutty." Cipollone declined to contradict that.

Cipollone said he tried to attend the meeting himself but was apparently turned away.

Here are the 11 House Republicans who were at the meeting, according to the White House visitor logs obtained by the January 6 panel:

Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama
Rep. Brian Babin of Texas
Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona
Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida
Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas
Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona
Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland
Rep. Jody Hice of Georgia
Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio
Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania
Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia

The committee previously shared a number of Republicans who sought pardons from Trump in the final days of his administration. Six of the attendees of the December 21, 2020, meeting — Biggs, Brooks, Gaetz, Gohmert, Greene, and Perry — sought pardons.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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jan 6 hearing #7:

gop official (woman) explained before the vote that all legit and thus wrong to vote ~? ie no basis?

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Opinion | Meet the Real Dark Money GOP Donors Who Funded Those Who Voted to Overturn the Election | Alex Kotch (commondreams.org)

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meet the Real Dark Money GOP Donors Who Funded Those Who Voted to Overturn the Election

ALEX KOTCH

January 28, 2021 by Exposed (Center by Media & Democracy)

In the days following the deadly Capitol insurrection by white supremacists, QAnon adherents, and other Donald Trump supporters, media outlets including the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) have reported on the corporate PACs behind campaign donations that helped elect the scores of Republican House and Senate members who, just hours after the insurrection, voted to reject President Joe Biden’s victories in multiple states. In response, many of these companies have pledged to halt donations to the election deniers or pause campaign donations altogether.

But wealthy conservatives and corporations spent far more money on independent groups that paid for ads and other election expenditures to help 106 out of the 147 members of Congress take office. These Republican politicians would go on to use the “Big Lie” of alleged voter fraud as an excuse to overturn a valid, democratic election that didn’t go their way.

Major companies and executives of Wall Street firms, fossil fuel businesses, a casino empire, and a shipping giant supplied super PACs and other outside spending groups with hundreds of millions of dollars to elect the Republican election deniers in just their most recent elections alone. Among the top donors were Miriam Adelson and her recently deceased husband, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin, Mellon steel fortune heir Timothy Mellon, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, and Uline owner Richard Uihlein.

Some of these top donors run companies that have halted their campaign donations to the election objectors, yet the donors themselves have not promised to change their contribution habits.

Donations to politicians’ campaigns and traditional PACs have strict limits, but contributions to super PACs, 501(c)(4) social welfare nonprofits, and trade associations have no restrictions. Thus, conservative oligarchs and their companies have been able to flood elections with enormous amounts of money that helped elect senators such as Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ted Cruz (TX), who led the push to invalidate the election results in their chamber, and representatives including extremist freshmen Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), and QAnon adherent Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

Using Federal Election Commission (FEC) data, some of it compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics,CMD has identified 40 political super PACs, trade associations, or other committees that spent over $100,000 to help elect at least one of the 147 Republicans in their most recent elections, as well as the top donors to these spending groups.For House members, this includes 2020 only; for senators, who have six-year terms, their most recent elections were either in 2016, 2018, or 2020.

The 40 spending groups pumped at least $272 million into election ads and other expenditures to seat 106 of the Republican election objectors.

The top-spending groups include the Congressional Leadership Fund ($67.9 million in the 2020 elections), the Senate Leadership Fund ($40.3 million over the 2018 and 2020 elections), the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC; $39.1 million in 2020), the New Republican PAC ($29.5 million 2018 backing Sen. Rick Scott of Florida), and Club for Growth Action ($19.4 million, mostly in 2020).

The Club for Growth PAC, which is subject to $5,000 individual donation limits, spent $315,000 to boost the campaigns of more than 20 election deniers in 2018 and 2020. But its affiliated super PACs, Club for Growth Action and CFGA Missouri, spent a combined $22.7 million to elect election deniers, making it the fifth-highest outside spending group. It also donated to additional spending groups the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), Protect Freedom PAC, and Texans Are.

The biggest beneficiary of this outside spending isHawley,who at times appears to be a self-styled right-wing populist, yet got $41.2 million of assistance from mostly billionaire- and multi-millionaire-funded super PACs in his 2018 Senate victory.

Scott had the second-highest total, benefiting from $35.1 million of outside spending, followed by Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall ($29.8 million), New Mexico Rep. Yvette Herrell ($12.3 million), and California Rep. Mike Garcia ($11.5 million).

Top Donors

CMD identified thousands of donors to the outside groups that spent to help seat one or more of the Republican election deniers in their most recent elections, accounting for nearly $1.7 billion in contributions.

The top ten individuals or families combined to donate nearly $500 million to outside groups that helped seat the election deniers. Some were also among the biggest direct donors to the campaigns of the members of Congress who voted against the valid election, according to research by OpenSecrets.org.

...

no lnx

#1 Miriam and Sheldon Adelson: $191.4 million

via U.S. Air Force

Atop the list of megadonors are billionaires Miriam Adelson and her recently deceased husband, Sheldon Adelson, who ran the Sands casino empire and strongly supported Trump. Together they gave over $191 million to six super PACs and two party-aligned groups, the NRCC and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), helping to seat dozens of politicians who denied the results of the election.

2. Ken Griffin: $59.8 million

via David Rubenstein/YouTube

The CEO of hedge fund Citadel gave to five super PACs, the NRCC, and the NRSC. Griffin had an alleged dispute with Trump in 2018, but that didn’t stop him from bankrolling the party of Trump in the 2020 elections. In 2018, he gave $10 million to the pro-Rick Scott super PAC, New Republican PAC.

3. Timothy Mellon: $50 million

via BMRR/Wikimedia

An heir to his family’s steel fortune and majority owner of Pan Am Systems, Mellon gave huge donations to two super PACs and a smaller contribution to NRCC in 2020. Mellon, who used racist stereotypes in his autobiography, has emerged only recently as one of Trump and the Republican Party’s biggest donors.

4. Stephen and Christine Schwarzman: $46 million

via World Economic Forum/Flickr

The CEO of Blackstone and his wife, Christine, are near the top of the right-wing donor list, having given the bulk of their donations to the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), a super PAC tied to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Blackstone, a private equity firm, is the world’s biggest landlord. Stephen Schwarzman has been one of Trump’s most generous and most faithful supporters. Even after Trump lost the election in November he told business leaders that Trump had the right to challenge the results and “took issue with suggestions made during the meeting that the U.S. could be on the verge of a coup,” according to the Financial Times.

OpenSecrets Election Denier Campaign Donation rank: #3 ($326,000)

5. Liz and Richard Uihlein: $43.4 million

via Uline/YouTube

The Illinois-based Uihleins, who own and operate the Uline shipping supply company, gave tens of millions to an array of spending groups, including $35.7 million to Club for Growth Action and its state affiliate CFG Action Missouri.

Richard Uihlein was recently exposed as a major funder of the Tea Party Patriots, a group that helped organize a rally on Jan. 6 that led to the march and insurrection at the Capitol. CMD broke the news that Uihlein was one of the first two proven donors to far-right media outlet The Federalist.

OpenSecrets Election Denier Campaign Donation rank: #8 ($242,000)

6. Jeff Yass: $33.3 million

via Marshall Segal/Flickr

The managing director of investment firm Susquehanna International Group and a board member of the libertarian Cato Institute, Yass was also a top donor to Club for Growth Action, giving the group $24.5 million from 2018 to 2020. He also gave $8.6 million to Protect Freedom PAC, which spent in favor of extremists such as Boebert and Cawthorn in the 2020 cycle.

Reyes Family: $21.5 million

The West Palm Beach, Florida-based Reyes family, which amassed its wealth from a food and beverage distribution business, spent tens of millions of dollars to help elect election objectors. J. Christopher, M. Jude, and David K. Reyes put the bulk of their money into SLF but also funded the New Republican PAC, among other committees.

8. Ricketts Family: $18.1 million

Joe and Pete Ricketts (credit: Cornstalker/Wikimedia and Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

The GOP megadonors in the Ricketts family did their part to help elect the objectors, donating over $18 million to super PACs, including the Ending Spending Action Fund and Citizens for Free Enterprise. Patriarch Joe Ricketts, the founder of TD Ameritrade, his wife, Marlene, and their son, Pete, the governor of Nebraska, all donated. The family owns the Chicago Cubs baseball team, and Joe and Marlene’s son, Todd, took over from disgraced right-wing bankroller Steve Wynn as finance chair of the Republican National Committee. In October 2020, the company of fellow right-wing billionaire Charles Schwab acquired TD Ameritrade.

9. Charles and Helen Schwab: $17.2 million

Schwab Bank shut down its PAC entirely after bad press surrounding the insurrection, but its founder and chairman, Charles Schwab, and his wife, Helen, have remained silent about their future plans. The company did not respond to The Daily Poster’s questions about the Schwabs’ massive donations to outside spending groups, which included $11.1 million to SLF and $2.5 million to CLF.

10. Bernard and Billi Marcus: $14.7 million

Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus and his wife, Billi, gave their biggest contributions to CLF and SLF.

OpenSecrets Election Denier Campaign Donation rank: #2 ($331,000)

Other top donors include hedge fund manager Paul Singer ($13.9 million) and chicken farming tycoon Ronald Cameron ($13.4 million), who ranks at No. 11 on OpenSecrets’ list of campaign donors to the election deniers ($208,000). Cameron’s Mountaire Corporation added $500,000 each to CLF and SLF.

Despite numerous sexual misconduct allegations that led to his resignation from his own resort company, Steve Wynn’s money is still welcome in Republican political circles. The Republican National Committee, of which Wynn was previously finance chairman, never returned his donations, and in 2020 committees such as the Senate Leadership Fund ($9 million), the Congressional Leadership Fund ($1 million), and the NRSC ($177,500) enjoyed his largesse. He gave a total of $12.6 million to outside groups that backed election deniers in their most recent elections.

Additional megadonors include Ronald Lauder, chair ofEstee Lauder ($5.2 million), the family of Trump’s Education Sec.Betsy DeVos ($4.4 million), members of the Walton family and Walmart fortune ($2 million), Fox Corporation’s Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch ($2 million), and Federalist Society board member C. Boyden Gray ($1.8 million).

CNBC reports that with fewer PAC donations, Republicans are worried about 2022 fundraising and plan to appeal to their biggest individual financiers for even more cash. Fundraisers will attempt to keep the money flowing from bigwigs including Schwarzman, Griffin, and Singer.

:{:{}:

Koch is Key Coup Attempt Funder

Koch Industries, the fossil fuel conglomerate led by billionaire libertarian Charles Koch, was the biggest corporate donor to these spending groups at $13.75 million. The company gave $10 million to Americans for Prosperity Action (AFPA), the super PAC affiliated with Koch’s premier political advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), and doled out additional money to three other super PACs. AFPA, for its part, spent over $9.5 million backing the electoral objectors, and AFP spent close to $4 million in 2018 mostly opposing then-Sen. Claire McCaskill in order to elect Hawley.

Freedom Partners Action Fund, another super PAC in the Koch political network, gave AFPA $11.5 million in 2018 and 2019.

Koch Industries’ PAC is also in the mix, giving $210,000 to the NRCC in the 2020 election cycle and $600,000 to the NRSC from 2016 to 2020. Koch PAC is also the biggest donor to the campaigns of the election-denying members of Congress, having contributed over $930,000 to their campaigns, according to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis.

Charles Koch and his wife, Elizabeth, each gave $471,000 to the NRSC, and their son, Chase, added $369,000. Chase’s wife, Anna, Koch’s late brother, David, and his David’s wife, Julia, all gave donations to the NRSC well into the six figures.

Much of AFP’s funding comes from other Koch-run groups. In 2019, for example, Koch’s Stand Together Chamber of Commerce provided $40.5 million out of AFP’s $54.5 million in total revenue. Many of the individual donors to AFP and other Koch groups, such as Cameron, Griffin, Singer, Schwab, and Schwarzman, are among the biggest contributors to outside groups that helped elect the election deniers.

Corporate Complicity

A number of other corporations, including many fossil fuel companies, and their PACs gave significant amounts to spending groups that helped elect the Republican objectors.

In addition, the watchdog group Public Citizen reports that fossil fuel companies’ PACs and executives gave $8.8 million to the campaigns of the election deniers and GOP party committees that helped elect them and Trump.

Despite numerous companies limiting or ending their political donations, many major oil and gas firms such as Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon, and Phillips 66 had not done so at the time of this reporting.

Top corporate donors to outside groups include:

Chevron (oil and gas): $7.3 million to CLF and SLF.

Hillwood Development Company (real estate): $6.1 million to CLF and SLF. Its chairman, Ross Perot, Jr.,gave $648,000 to the NRCC and NRSC and, with his wife, Sarah Fullinwider, gave over $190,000 to the election deniers’ campaigns.

RAI Services Company (tobacco): $3.1 million. The PAC of its parent company, Reynolds American, added $115,000 to the NRCC and NRSC.

Pilot Corporation (oil and gas): $2.6 million to SLC and New Republican PAC. The company is owned by the family of former Tennessee governor Bill Haslam, and family members contributed a total of over $1.2 million to the NRCC, NRSC, and CLF.

TRT Holdings (hospitality): $2 million. This Dallas-based holding company, which owns the Omni Hotels chain, is owned and led by Robert Rowling, who, with his wife, Terry, donated $2.3 million to three super PACs and the NRCC and NRSC.

Valero (oil and gas): $3.7 million. Valero and Valero Services gave $3.15 million to three super PACs, including the pro-Cruz Texans Are PAC, and the company’s PAC added $558,000 to the NRCC and NRSC. Valero announced after the insurrection that it would halt all federal contributions indefinitely.

Marathon Petroleum (oil and gas): $2.4 million. The company gave $2 million to CLF and SLF, and two company PACs added a total of $390,000 to the NRCC and NRSC.

ConocoPhillips (oil and gas): $2.25 million to CLF and SLF.

Wheatland Tube (steel manufacturing): $1.75 million to America First Action.

Boeing (aerospace): $1.4 million. Boeing’s PAC contributed $1 million to SLC and $375,000 to the NRCC and NRSC, as well as $567,000 to the election objectors’ campaigns, according to OpenSecrets.

GEO Group (private prisons): $1.3 million. Three subsidiaries of the private prison giant combined to give large donations to CLF, SLF, and the New Republican PAC.

Murray Energy (coal): $1.2 million, including $1 million to America First Action, with the company PAC adding $10,000 to the NRSC.

Other companies that contributed at least $1 million to relevant outside groups include OTA Holdings, NextEra Energy,CL Machinery Company, Don McGill Toyota of Katy (Texas), Global Fibers Investments, Tanglewood Property Management, and Tesoro Companies.

Dark Money

Multiple nonprofits and trade associations, which are not required to disclose their donors, served as major funding vehicles for GOP outside spending to boost the election-denying members of Congress. Trade groups are largely funded by their corporate members. Dark money groups also made election expenditures themselves.

One Nation, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that’s affiliated with the Senate Leadership Fund, gave the latter group $62.6 million in the 2020 cycle and $18.6 million in 2018, for a total of $81.2 million, making it the second-biggest funder of the outside spending groups that backed the 106 Republican election deniers.

The American Action Network, also a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, gave $29.4 million to CLF in 2020.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent $1.9 million on independent expenditures backing Sens. Scott, Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS), and Marshall as well as Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI).

The anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony Listgave close to $1.8 million to Women Speak Out PAC, which made elections expenditures benefiting five GOP House election deniers.

Celebrate Life Trust, which is connected to Cancer Treatment Centers of America founder and chairman Richard Stephenson’s family foundation, donated $3.2 million total to SLC and FreedomWorks for America. The trust’s donation of $550,000 to FreedomWorks for America indicates that Stephenson provided the funds, and he personally donated $200,000 to New Republican PAC. Stephenson is on the board of the affiliated FreedomWorks 501(c)(4)nonprofit.

:{:{}:

Traditional PACs affiliated with dark money groups also make independent expenditures backing the election deniers.

:{:{}:

The trade group the National Association of Realtors donated nearly $6.6 million to SLF. The group’s PAC spent $142,000 on independent expenditures backing three election deniers, including Kansas Sen. Marshall, and the group itself spent another $43,000 in favor of five election deniers.

The National Rifle Association’s Political Victory Fund, a PAC that is subject to donation limits, made $2.6 million worth of independent expenditures to boost the campaigns of dozens of election deniers, including GOP House members Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, whom “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander claimed helped him plan the January 6 rally. The NRA’s biggest expenditures aided Hawley in 2018 ($1.4 million), and it spent in favor of extremists Boebert and Greene, among others. The PAC donated $120,000 to the NRSC.

Democratic Donors

Michael Bloomberg, a former Republican who ran in the Democratic presidential primary in 2020, gave $500,000 to theWith Honor Fund, a super PAC that spends money to elect military veterans fromboth parties,in October 2020. In that cycle, the With Honor Fund spent $453,000 on independent expenditures boosting five House Republicans who attempted to overturn the election results.

In 2020, Jacklyn and Miguel Bezos, the parents of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, each gave over $1 million to the With Honor Fund. In the 2018 cycle, Jeff Bezos was the super PAC’s biggest donor.

The super PAC affiliated with the Environmental Defense Fund, EDF Action Votes, mostly supports Democrats, but in 2020 it backed three Republicans. The PAC spent $100,000 to boost Florida Repubican Rep. Brian Mast, who went on to vote against the election results.The majority of EDF Action Votes’ funding comes from its dark money affiliate, the Environmental Defense Action Fund, but Environmental Defense Fund trustee Susan Mandel, whose husband runs a hedge fund, is the biggest individual donor of 2020 ($6 million).

:{:{}:

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:{:{}:

table 1

Outside Groups Helped Seat Election Deniers

106 Republican senators and representatives benefited from spending by outside groups

identified by CMD that spent at least $100,000 to help one or more of them win office.

Josh Hawley MOS2 Senate $41,169,601

Rick Scott FLS1 Senate $35,142,565

Roger Marshall KSS1 Senate $29,758,263

Yvette Herrell NM02 House $12,254,552

Mike Garcia CA25 House $11,478,494

Carlos Gimenez FL26 House $9,000,755

Ted Cruz TXS2 Senate $8,462,169

Beth Van Duyne TX24 House $8,408,488

Matt Rosendale MT01 House $8,139,859

Stephanie Bice OK05 House $8,098,654

Michelle Fischbach MN07 House $7,928,459

Dan Bishop NC09 House $7,216,969

Nicole Malliotakis NY11 House $6,873,112

Troy Nehls TX22 House $6,803,378

Burgess Owens UT04 House $6,752,572

Scott Perry PA10 House $5,381,625

Jeff Van Drew NJ02 House $5,074,715

Lauren Boebert CO03 House $4,917,827

Cindy Hyde-Smith MSS1 Senate $4,889,860

Steve Chabot OH01 House $4,647,357

p 1 of 6

table 2

Top 10 Donors to Outside Spending Groups Backing Election Deniers

miriam and Sheldon Adelson TOTAL $191,453,200

America First Action $10,000,000

Congressional Leadership Fund $50,000,000

Ending Spending Action Fund $2,000,000

National Republican Congressional Committee $532,500

National Republican Senatorial Committee $1,420,700

New Republican PAC $5,000,000

Republican Jewish Committee Victory Fund $2,500,000

Senate Leadership Fund $120,000,000

Ken Griffin ...

Congressional Leadership Fund $10,000,000

Ending Spending Action Fund $900,000

Missouri Rising Action $250,000

National Republican Congressional Committee $497,000

National Republican Senatorial Committee $1,168,500

TOTAL $59,815,500?

top Donors to Outside Spending Groups Backing Election Deniers

Over 120 donors or donor families gave $500,000 or more to outside political groups that made

independent expenditures supporting at least one of the 147 GOP members of Congress who voted against the 2020 presidential election results

or attacking their opponents in their most recent elections.

1 Miriam and Sheldon Adelson Adelson Drug Clinic/Las Vegas Sands $191,453,200

2 Ken Griffin Citadel $59,815,500

3 Timothy Mellon Pan Am Systems $50,035,500

4 Stephen and Christine Schwarzman Blackstone $45,774,600

5 Richard and Liz Uihlein Uline $43,422,148

6 Jeff Yass Susquehanna International Group $33,303,000

7 Reyes Family Reyes Holdings $21,491,600

8 Ricketts Family TD Ameritrade $18,106,700

9 Charles and Helen Schwab Charles Schwab & Company $17,235,000

10 Bernard and Billi Marcus Home Depot $14,674,100

11 Paul Singer Elliott Management $13,877,400

12 Ronald Cameron Mountaire Corporation $13,355,800

13 Warren Stephens (incl. trust) Stephens Inc. $13,172,700

14 Patrick G. and Shirley Ryan Ryan Specialty Group $12,700,000

15 Steve Wynn Valmore Management $12,634,700

16 Craig J. and Janet J. Duchossois The Duchossois Group $7,544,200

17 Geoffrey H. Palmer G.H. Palmer Associates $7,066,400

18 Fertitta Family Zuffa/Red Rock Resorts $6,876,600

19 Walter W. Buckley, Jr. Actua $5,325,500

20 Virginia James The Hickory Foundation $5,250,30o

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https://www.citywatchla.com/index.php/cw/guest-words/24209-the-money-trail-ginni-thomas-emails-to-overturn-biden-s-election-leads-to-charles-koch

2020 ELECTION CONSPIRACY - The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Bob Costa of CBS News have unleashed a fury of renewed interest in the work of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

Last Thursday, Woodward and Costa set off a political firestorm when they released the contents of emails that Ginni Thomas, wife of the sitting Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, had sent to President Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, in 2020, urging him to overturn the Biden election win and attempting to steer his efforts in that regard.

A total of 29 emails were obtained by Woodward and Costa, with the bulk of the emails occurring in just the month of November 2020, raising questions as to how many more emails are still out there from Thomas to the White House from December 1, 2020 through January 20, 2021 when Biden was sworn in.

Much of the current news debate around the emails is focusing on whether Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from cases involving groups with which his wife is involved and whether the Select Committee should subpoena Ginni Thomas to testify. While those are certainly important issues, what has thus far been ignored is the smoking gun trail that leads directly to the doorstep of billionaire and right-wing Republican political mastermind, Charles Koch, the Chairman, CEO (and majority owner with the heirs of his deceased brother David) of the fossil fuels conglomerate Koch Industries.

Wall Street On Parade has previously documented that at least three of the front groups that fomented the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from Trump and that actively solicited thousands of people to turn out for the January 6 event at the Capitol, were funded by Koch Industries or its front groups.

The smoking gun in the Ginni Thomas email thread occurs in an email dated November 10, 2020 when she tells Meadows to “Listen to Rush. Mark Steyn, Bongino, Cleta.” Thomas is clearly referring to conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh, Mark Steyn and Dan Bongino, and lawyer, Cleta Mitchell.

Cleta Mitchell is best known in the Trump election saga as the lawyer who was on the January 2, 2021 call with Donald Trump when he phoned the Secretary of State of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, and told him this: “I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.” That call took place two months after the presidential election. (Mitchell stepped down from her long-term employment at law firm Foley & Lardner after her presence on that call made the news cycle.)

But Cleta Mitchell’s relationship with Ginni Thomas dates back at least a decade earlier – and not in a good way.

Cleta Mitchell had filed an amicus briefin the Citizens Unitedcase before the Supreme Court that was decided on January 21, 2010. That case would be the tipping point to allow unlimited sums from corporations – like Koch Industries — in U.S. elections.

Just eight days after Justice Thomas voted in favor of that decision to open the floodgates to corporate money in campaigns, Cleta Mitchell made a move that looked very much like a quid pro quo to Ginni Thomas. Mitchell, then still a partner at Foley & Lardner, filed an application with the Internal Revenue Service to set up a nonprofit called Liberty Central, Inc.on behalf of Ginni Thomas. According to IRS tax filings, Liberty Central received a combined $1.478 million from dark money donors in 2009 and 2010.

On the IRS tax filings for Liberty Central for 2009 and 2010, Ginni (Virginia) Thomas is listed as President and CEO. The 2010 tax filing shows that Ginni Thomas received $120,511 in compensation from Liberty Central that year. She eventually stepped down from an official post at the nonprofit, stating she would serve as a consultant.

Liberty Central had the fingerprints of Charles Koch all over it. Acting as General Counsel in 2010 for Liberty Central was a former lawyer for the Charles G. Koch Foundation, Sarah Field. A former Koch lobbyist, Matt Schlapp, served on the Board of Liberty Central at inception.

Mitchell’s law firm, Foley & Lardner, employed three attorneys working as lobbyists for a Koch Industries affiliate, Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC in Madison, Wisconsin in 2011. The Koch-related lobbyists were Ray Carey, Jason Childress and Kathleen Walby.

Mitchell, herself, was a former lobbyist at the federal level in years 2005 through 2008 for the Alliance for Charitable Reform, a project of The Philanthropy Roundtable, another tax-exempt organization. Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, two dark money groups which also have Charles Koch’s fingerprints all over them, were spun off from the Philanthropy Roundtable in 1999. (See our report: Koch Footprints Lead to Secret Slush Fund to Keep Fear Alive.)

Mitchell is listed on the 2018 federal tax filing for SteveBannon’s charity, Citizens of the American Republic, as an officer of the organization, holding the position of Secretary. Bannon and others were charged in August of 2021 by the Department of Justice with bilking donors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars through that charity.

Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, was one of those pushing the narrative on television that the election had been stolen from Donald Trump. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, lawyers and staff of Foley & Lardner were the third largest donor to Johnson’s campaign committees since 2015. Employees and officials of Koch Industries ranked fifth.

There were only eight Republican Senators who refused to certify the votes for the challenged states of Arizona and/or Pennsylvania. Those Republican Senators were: Ted Cruz of Texas; Josh Hawley of Missouri; Rick Scott of Florida; Tommy Tuberville of Alabama; Roger Marshall of Kansas; Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi; John Kennedy of Louisiana; and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming. Every Republican Senator who refused to certify the election results on January 6 received funding from Koch Industries PAC.

Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, whom Ginni Thomas enlisted in the White House to help overturn Biden’s election win, was previously a member of the House of Representatives from North Carolina from 2013 to 2020. He also received campaign funding from the Koch Industries PAC throughout his time in Congress.

Charles Koch is usually very careful in keeping an arm’s length relationship between himself and his political operations. But on at least one occasion Koch conducted a dinner meeting directly with sitting Justice Clarence Thomas at a private club in California.

In January 2008, Justice Thomas attended an all-expenses-paid, four-day trip to the Koch brothers’ semi-annual political gathering in the Palm Springs area of California. (According to his 2008 disclosure form and the Supreme Court’s public information office, Thomas’ expenses for that trip were paid by the Federalist Society, a conservative nonprofit that Koch foundations have generously supported.)

Justice Thomas’ trip to the Koch event occurred in the same year that the Citizens United case was accepted by the Supreme Court. The Court accepts less than two percent of all cases appealed to it.

Wall Street On Parade was previously able to confirm with Scott Markley, Public Information Specialist at the Supreme Court, that during that January 2008 visit to the Koch political gathering, Justice Thomas was hosted by Charles Koch and his wife, Elizabeth, at the private Vintage Club where Charles Koch is a member.

The Citizens United decision did not pass the smell test when it was approved in a 5-4 vote by the Supreme Court. Four of the nine justices wrote a scathing dissent that raised the issue of unprincipled behavior, writing that the majority had ruled on issues that were not even legally before the court.

The money that the Koch political machine pumped into putting Trump in the Oval Office quickly paid big dividends in his first term (and made it clear as to why Charles Koch would have wanted to see a second Trump term).

Koch Industries’ law firm, Jones Day, sent 12 of its law partners to staff up key positions in the Trump administration on the very day Trump was inaugurated. Jones Day has since sacked the press release it issued at the time but you can read the reporting on it at the American Bar Association Journal.

Once Trump was settled in the Oval Office, a Koch front group, then known as Freedom Partners, mapped out the agenda it expected Trump to march to. In a document titled “Roadmap to Repeal: Removing Regulatory Barriers to Opportunity,” the group listed the laws and regulations it expected to be repealed in the first 100 days of Trump’s administration. The Trump administration dutifully marched to the beat. Repeal the Paris Climate Accord – done. Tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy – done. Gutting federal regulations and the Environmental Protection Agency – done.

By the spring of 2018, 12 people who previously worked at Freedom Partners were working in the Trump administration. Freedom Partners has since disbanded but when we last took a look at the nonprofit in July 2018, we found that all but one of Freedom Partners’ 9-member Board of Directors was a current or former Koch company employee. The Board Chair of Freedom Partners at that time was the same Mark Holden that was the General Counsel of Koch Industries.

It’s time for the House Select Committee to subpoena not just Ginni Thomas and Cleta Mitchell. It’s time to hear from Charles Koch directly on how so much money bearing his fingerprints ended up fomenting the attack on the Capitol on January 6.

There will never be a better time than now for the American people to finally get at the truth.

(Pam Martens & Russ Martens are authors at CounterPunch.org. This originally appeared on Wall Street on Parade.)

---

ref 1/20/21

Money Trail to the Siege at the Capitol Leads to Charles Koch and Koch Industries

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https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a36741995/tucker-carlson-january-6-fbi-republicans/

...Sedition Caucus within the Republican minority in the House of Representatives. Here is a good place to start if you’re formulating a roster.

Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Andy Harris (Md.),Lance Gooden (Tex.), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Louie Gohmert (Tex.), Michael Cloud (Tex.), Andrew S. Clyde (Ga.), Greg Steube (Fla.), Bob Good (Va.) and John Rose (Tenn.). Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Barry Moore (Ala.), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Matthew M. Rosendale (Mont.), Chip Roy (Tex.), Paul A. Gosar (Ariz.), Warren Davidson (Ohio), Scott Perry (Pa.), Jody Hice (Ga.) and Mary Miller (Ill.).

My favorites among the bunch are the 10 Republicans who previously voted for awarding the gold medal who flipped to vote "no" on Wednesday. What a noble clutch of primates they are. And while some of the names are those of familiar space aliens, there are some newbies in there with whom I was not familiar. For example, there's Mary Miller of Illinois, who wasn’t in office for a week before she started quoting Hitler....

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rep acct

grade F

VERY POOR

Signed Texas amicus brief

Objected to certification of electoral college votes in one or more states

Made false and/or irresponsible public statements against democratic system

Voted against impeachment or conviction of Donald Trump for inciting an insurrection

Voted against creating an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack

Voted against holding Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress

BIOGRAPHY

Rep. Lance Gooden represents Texas’s 5th congressional district.

Rep. Gooden made many claims that there was merit to election irregularity allegations. Rep. Gooden told his constituents that the election was being stolen, similar rhetoric used by President Trump that led to an insurrection on the Capitol. Rep. Gooden also signed onto the Texas amicus brief that attempted to overturn the election results in multiple states.

Rep. Gooden did not vote in support of the bipartisan commission proposal to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Rep. Gooden has earned an F for his failed attempt at overturning our democracy.

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corp $ post sedition CREW

https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/insurrectionist-members-have-received-2-6-million-from-corporate-interests-since-january-6th/

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an 4 22

Toyota Motor Corp. was targeted by the anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project with a digital ad campaign this week assailing the company for resuming its political donations to members of Congress who voted against certifying the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021.

A new report by the liberal group Accountable.US finds that the carmaker is just one of many Fortune 500 companies that have resumed giving money to election certification deniers.

Vice News indicates that the group says that "hardware giant Home Depot and agricultural equipment manufacturer Deere & Company, donated more than $800,000 last month to Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election results."

Just in March, the home improvement retailer gave $95,000 to 20 House Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election results last January. Deere tossed $75,000 to more than a dozen Republicans and aerospace giant Boeing - the second-largest federal contractor in the U.S. - donated $45,000 to 32 different Republicans who objected to the 2020 results, according to FEC records. Boeing has more than $23 billion in federal contracts in FY2021, including the construction of the new planes that will serve as Air Force One.

Also donating more than $20,000 each to multiple GOP members in March were General Dynamics, Motorola Solutions, FedEx and Tyson Foods,according to the data.

According to Accountable.US, House Republicans who voted against the certification of the 2020 election raked in more than $800,000 from corporate and trade group PACs last month. Those groups have donated more than $12 million to Jan. 6 objectors since the insurrection.

“Corporations that have failed to align their political spending with their stated values supporting democracy should stop misleading the public about what they value far more - amassing political influence,” Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, said in a statement to VICE News.

“It’s short-sighted for any corporation to marginalize concerns from its customers and shareholders when it comes to democracy, because a healthy democracy will always be what’s best for business.”

By far, Home Depot has been the biggest corporate donor to Republicans who voted to overturn the election. Its top recipients include House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy ($456,000), House Minority Whip Steve Scalise ($353,000), and Missouri Rep. Sam Graves ($290,000).

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https://www.citizen.org/article/big-tech-bankrolls-the-sedition-caucus/

no lnx grfx

Big Tech Bankrolls the Sedition Caucus

Since 2016, Big Tech PACs and Employees Have Given Nearly $2 Million to Lawmakers Who Voted to Challenge the Presidential Election

By Jane Chung and Mike Tanglis

Download PDF

Big Tech companies rushed to distance themselves from this month’s attempted coup by “deplatforming” then-President Donald Trump and accounts and services, such as Parler, associated with the insurrection. Also in response to the insurrection, all of the Big Tech companies with corporate PACs (Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft) have announced a halt in their direct campaign contributions to Members of Congress. While Amazon committed to freezing spending on the Republican election objectors, the three other corporations have announced blanket bans: Facebook has paused PAC spending for at least this quarter, while Google and Microsoft announced indefinite pauses while they review their policies.

Political action committees and employees of Big Tech companies have contributed nearly $2 million to the 147 members of Congress who voted to challenge the electoral college results.

Additionally, CEOs of the five Big Tech companies (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft) made both public and private statements addressing the insurrection. Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, tweeted, “Today marks a sad and shameful chapter in our nation’s history. Those responsible for this insurrection should be held to account.” Mark Zuckerberg reportedly sent an email to Facebook employees, writing, “The peaceful transition of power is critical to the functioning of democracy, and we need our political leaders to lead by example and put the nation first.” Also in an internal staff email, Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote, “The lawlessness and violence occurring on Capitol Hill today is the antithesis of democracy and we strongly condemn it.” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella failed to provide original commentary, instead retweeting a statement from the Business Roundtable, an association of American CEOs.

Three of the companies have bankrolled an average of 73, or about 50%, of these Members of Congress. Meanwhile, Amazon funded 89 of the 147, or 61%, of the disenfranchisers.

Yet for all their new-found eagerness to denounce the seditionists, Big Tech companies have in fact poured millions into their campaign coffers in recent years.

Public Citizen analyzed contribution data from the Center for Responsive Politics and found that political action committees and employees of Big Tech companies have contributed nearly $2 million since the 2016 election cycle to the 147 members of Congress who voted this month to challenge the electoral college slates of at least one state. Amazon and Google were the most generous givers, contributing $565,000 and $595,000 to the election objectors, respectively.

Table I: Contributions by Big Tech Political Action Committees and employees to Members of Congress who voted to challenge the Electoral College vote, by corporation

bot 6 not shown]

CORPORATION FROM PAC FROM EMPLOYEES TOTAL

Amazon $461,000 $103,536 $564,536

Apple N/A $77,292 $77,292

Facebook $136,000 $67,241 $203,241

Google $502,000 $92,721 $594,721

Microsoft $381,568 $123,786 $505,354

Grand Total $1,480,568 $464,576 $1,945,144

Showing 1 to 6 of 6 entries PreviousNext

In addition, our analysis reveals that three of the companies have bankrolled an average of 73, or about 50% of these Members of Congress. Amazon tops the list, having supported 89 of the 147, 61%, of the disenfranchisers.

Table II: Total contributions and number of representatives funded by Big Tech Political Action Committees and employees to Members of Congress who voted to challenge the Electoral College vote, by corporation

Show

entries

Search:

COMPANY TOTAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO REPRESENTATIVES NUMBER OF REPRESENTATIVES FUNDED

Facebook 136000 24

Google 502000 61

Microsoft 381568 69

Amazon 461000 89

Showing 1 to 4 of 4 entries Previous Next [buttons do not work?]

Key leaders of the “sedition caucus” that led the GOP charge to challenge election results are flush with cash from Big Tech. Senator Ted Cruz received funds from three out of the four corporate PACs[1]. Representative Andy Biggs, who reportedly helped organize the rally that occurred moments before insurrectionists stormed the Capitol, has received support from all four Big Tech corporations’ PACs.

Big Tech’s pause in political spending is a nice start, but it’s not nearly enough. It’s time for Big Tech to shut down, once and for all, its political spending – to shut down its PACs permanently, to commit not to fund super PACs or Dark Money groups, and to disclose money it gives to trade associations that also fund these candidates.

[1] Apple is not included in this list because it does not have a PAC.

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an 2 22

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) recently expressed concern about a new lawsuit referencing his "Stop the Steal" rhetoric which could subsequently impact his chances of re-election in the 2022 midterm elections. After fighting to push Trump's self-serving agenda, now, according to The Daily Beast, the Republican senator claims he's focused on the will of the American people.

On Monday, February 21, Cawthorn appeared on "The Tucker Carlson Tonight" where he shared his disdain of the critics calling him out in his own state.

“I’m sure that you were as puzzled as I was following Jan. 6 when they started saying that we were insurrectionists, seditionists, traitors. I thought they were just trying to get a flashy headline,” Cawthorn said.

However, the lawmaker also explained how this was part of a so-called “plan.”

Per The Daily Beast, the lawsuit focuses on the 14th Amendment, which includes a clause designed to prohibit former Confederates from holding public office. It states that no individual “having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress... to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.”

“What is going on here is that they are actually very close to being able to subvert the will of over 700,000 Americans,” Cawthorn claimed.

However, Cawthorn appears to believe every constituent in his district is rallying behind him.

“And make no mistake, Tucker: This is not just about a 26-year-old from western North Carolina in a wheelchair," Cawthorn said. "This is about the future of our very nation. If they’re able to set this precedent in North Carolina, they will be able to keep anybody who had valid and legitimate concerns about what happened in the 2020 election from being able to ever hold office.”

Unsurprisingly, Carlson backed Cawthorn's assessment as he attempted to distort Democratic lawmakers' motives.

“I think your analysis is so smart. You’re exactly right,” the Fox News host gushed. “That’s why they called the rioters ‘insurrectionists.’ And so many conservative officeholders and news organizations have ignored it. They’re so embarrassed. They don’t see what this is really about, which is ending democracy.”

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Indiana Rep. Banks facing 'insurrection' ballot challenge

By TOM DAVIES, Associated Press - 5h ago

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indiana congressman who was rejected by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as the top Republican for the committee investigating last year’s U.S. Capitol insurrection is fending off an effort to remove his name from this year's election ballot.

The challenge to Rep. Jim Banks’ candidacy is at least the second across the country against a Republican House member citing a portion of a post-Civil War amendment to the U.S. Constitution pertaining to insurrections against the United States.

Banks, an outspoken supporter of former President Donald Trump and leader of the influential Republican Study Committee, has denounced the ballot challenge as frivolous.

It was filed by a long-shot Democratic candidate for Banks’ congressional seat and likely has little chance of success when it goes before the state election commission on Friday, a former longtime commission member said.

A similar challenge is pending against North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who spoke at the rally supporting Trump before the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot that interrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.

The Indiana challenge petition filed by Democrat Aaron Calkins claims Banks is ineligible to be a candidate because of a “violation of the 14th Amendment supporting an insurrection.” The filing with the state election commission didn’t include additional information supporting the claim against Banks and Calkins didn’t return a telephone message from The Associated Press seeking comment.

The 14th Amendment says no one can serve in Congress “who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress ... to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.”

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saw art'l that corps not funding, indiv are? hmmn 2 22

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/corporate-seditionists-are-no-better-than-the-seditionists-who-attacked-the-capitol/

Capitalism and democracy are compatible only if democracy is in the driver’s seat.

That’s why I took some comfort just after the attack on the Capitol when many big corporations solemnly pledged they’d no longer finance the campaigns of the147 lawmakers who voted to overturn election results.

Btw, if you’d like my daily analyses, commentary, and drawings, please subscribe to my free letter: robertreich.substack.com

Well, those days are over. Turns out they were over the moment the public stopped paying attention.

A report published last week by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington shows that over the past year, 717 companies and industry groups have donated more than $18m to 143 of those seditious lawmakers. Businesses that pledged to stop or pause their donations have given nearly $2.4m directly to their campaigns or political action committees.

But there’s a deeper issue here. The whole question of whether corporations do or don’t bankroll the seditionist caucus is a distraction from a more basic problem.

The tsunami of money now flowing from corporations into the swamp of American politics is larger than ever. And this money – bankrolling almost all politicians and financing attacks on their opponents – is undermining American democracy as much as did the 147 seditionist members of Congress. Maybe more.

The Democratic senator KyrstenSinema – whose vocal opposition to any change in the filibuster is on the verge of dooming voting rights – received almost $2m in campaign donations in 2021 even though she is not up for re-election until 2024. Most of it came from corporate donors outside Arizona, some of which have a history of donating largely to Republicans.

Has the money influenced Sinema? You decide.Besides sandbagging voting rights, she voted down the $15 minimum wage increase, opposed tax increases on corporations and the wealthy and stalled on drug price reform– policies supported by a majority of Democratic senators as well as a majority of Arizonans.

Over the last four decades, corporate PAC spending on congressional elections has more than quadrupled, even adjusting for inflation.

Labor unions no longer provide a counterweight. Forty years ago, union PACs contributed about as much as corporate PACs. Now, corporations are outspending labor by more than three to one.

According to a landmark study published in 2014 by the Princeton professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern professor Benjamin Page, the preferences of the typical American have no influence at all on legislation emerging from Congress.

Gilens and Page analyzed 1,799 policy issues in detail, determining the relative influence of economic elites, business groups, mass-based interest groups and average citizens. Their conclusion: “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” Lawmakers mainly listen to the policy demands of big business and wealthy individuals – those with the most lobbying prowess and deepest pockets to bankroll campaigns and promote their views.

It’s probably far worse now. Gilens and Page’s data came from the period 1981 to 2002: before the supreme court opened the floodgates to big money in the Citizens United case, before Super Pacs, before “dark money” and before the Wall Street bailout.

The corporate return on this mountain of money has been significant. Over the last 40 years, corporate tax rates have plunged. Regulatory protections for consumers, workers and the environment have been defanged. Antitrust has become so ineffectual that many big corporations face little or no competition.

Corporations have fought off safety nets and public investments that are common in other advanced nations (most recently, Build Back Better). They’ve attacked labor laws, reducing the portion of private-sector workers belonging to a union from a third 40 years ago to just over 6% now.

They’ve collected hundreds of billions in federal subsidies, bailouts, loan guarantees and sole-source contracts. Corporate welfare for big pharma, big oil, big tech, big ag, the largest military contractors and biggest banks now dwarfs the amount of welfare for people.

The profits of big corporations just reached a 70-year high, even during a pandemic. The ratio of CEO pay in large companies to average workers has ballooned from 20-to-1 in the 1960s, to 320-to-1 now.

Meanwhile, most Americans are going nowhere. The typical worker’s wage is only a bit higher today than it was 40 years ago, when adjusted for inflation.

But the biggest casualty is public trust in democracy.

In 1964, just 29% of voters believed government was “run by a few big interests looking out for themselves”. By 2013, 79% of Americans believed it.

Corporate donations to seditious lawmakers are nothing compared with this 40-year record of corporate sedition.

A large portion of the American public has become so frustrated and cynical about democracy they are willing to believe blatant lies of a self-described strongman, and willing to support a political party that no longer believes in democracy.

As I said at the outset, capitalism is compatible with democracy only if democracy is in the driver’s seat. But the absence of democracy doesn’t strengthen capitalism. It fuels despotism.

Despotism is bad for capitalism. Despots don’t respect property rights. They don’t honor the rule of law. They are arbitrary and unpredictable. All of this harms the owners of capital. Despotism also invites civil strife and conflict, which destabilize a society and an economy.

My message to every CEO in America: you need democracy, but you’re actively undermining it.

It’s time for you to join the pro-democracy movement. Get solidly behind voting rights. Actively lobby for the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

Use your lopsidedly large power in American democracy to protect American democracy – and do it soon. Otherwise, we may lose what’s left of it.

***

Btw, if you’d like my daily analyses, commentary, and drawings, please subscribe to my free letter: robertreich.substack.com

Robert B. Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, and writes at robertreich.substack.com. Reich served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written fifteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock", "The Work of Nations," and "Beyond Outrage," and, his most recent, "The Common Good," which is available in bookstores now. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, "Inequality For All." He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.

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ref

https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/the-corporate-insurrection-how-companies-have-broken-promises-and-funded-seditionists/

since the insurrection, 717 corporations and industry groups have funneled over $18 million to the re-election of members of Congress who objected to the 2020 presidential election results. As calls for insurrection accountability reach the one year mark, one thing is for certain: our democracy cannot recover from the insurrection while Corporate America continues to spend millions of dollars bankrolling seditionist members of Congress.

On January 6, an armed and violent mob stormed the Capitol. It was the first time the building had been breached since the War of 1812. At the end of the day, the death toll stood at five. The attackers assaulted nearly 140 police officers. Four more officers would die by suicide in the following months. Lawmakers came within seconds of tragedy at the hands of the rioters. The crowd constructed a gallows on the Capitol steps to chants of “Hang Mike Pence!”

The insurrection put a capstone on months of work by President Trump and his allies to overturn the results of a free and fair election. These efforts included dozens of frivolous lawsuits, baseless conspiracies about polling machines and uncounted ballots and the attempted weaponization of the Department of Justice. Riled by Trump’s rhetoric, his supporters flocked to “Stop the Steal” rallies around the country. At the White House Ellipse on January 6, Trump and his allies urged the crowd to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell.”

The campaign to subvert democracy also included congressional votes. Republicans in Congress pledged to object during the certification process, fanning the flames that drove Trump supporters to attack the Capitol. Even after the violent attack forced lawmakers to evacuate for fear of their lives, 147 Republican members of Congress still voted against certifying the election results.

The January 6 attack shocked the nation. Even Corporate America appeared to register that democracy faced one of its most precarious moments in our country’s history. They promised to hold members of Congress who sought to undermine democracy accountable. But it wouldn’t be long before business interests lured these companies back into the giving game.

Many companies that cut off donations to Republicans in Congress after January 6 have since abandoned those commitments, reportedly driven by concerns about losing influence with Republican lawmakers. This has been amplified by members of the Sedition Caucus threatening companies that cut them off.

CREW has persistently called out the companies that have caved to this pressure for putting political access over the urgent need to take a stand for democracy. Instead of filling the campaign coffers of members who voted not to certify the election and continue to spread the Big Lie, corporations and industry groups should demand that these members renounce their votes and stop undermining our democracy.

Since January 2021, CREW has tracked the promises companies made — and broke — about giving to members of Congress who voted against the election results. In addition to donations to the 147 members of the Sedition Caucus and the GOP’s party committees, corporations have resumed giving to the state attorneys general challenging the election results in four battleground states. Many companies made anti-racist commitments following the summer 2020 racial justice protests and publicly denounced new discriminatory voting legislation. These same companies lined the pockets of lawmakers who tried to invalidate millions of votes cast by people of color. Here are the most important findings from one year of tracking corporate support for the Sedition Caucus:

Since the insurrection, 717 corporations and industry groups have donated over $18 million to 143 of the 147 members of Congress who objected to the results of the 2020 presidential election, as well as theNational Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Companies that pledged to stop or pause their political giving to these members have contributed a total of $4,785,000 to insurrectionist political groups, including $2,381,250 directly to members of the Sedition Caucus’s campaigns and leadership PACs.
Boeing ($346,500), Koch Industries ($308,000), American Crystal Sugar ($285,000), General Dynamics ($233,500) and Valero Energy ($207,500) are the top corporate donors to those who objected to the election and their party committees.
Some companies resumed giving almost immediately. Toyota, which called the January 6 attack “horrific” and promised to reevaluate its giving criteria, poured $9,000 into the pockets of 9 Sedition Caucus members within a month of the riot.Cigna and AT&T also resumed giving to seditionists within two months of the riot.
After the attack, corporations rushed to pay lip service to democracy. Companies including Aflac, Ford Motors, and Valero Energy pledged to pause donations and re-evaluate their giving criteria, but these performative statements would soon give way to business as usual. These three companies have contributed more than $300,000 to seditionists, including lawmakers who sit on committees with power over the companies’ business interests.
Home Depot, JP Morgan, Delta Airlines, UPS, and many others issued statements, speaking out against new voting laws in Georgia as racist, while hundreds of other companies — including American Airlines, Ford, General Motors, and Johnson & Johnson — signed a full page New York Times ad condemning discriminatory voting legislation being passed nationwide. Despite taking pro-democracy stances in public, many of these companies have continued to fund members of Congress who voted against a free and fair election.
Corporate and industry PACs have also continued to support the Republican state attorneys generalwho attempted to invalidate the election results in four battleground states by falsely claiming that election procedures in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin violated federal law. Twenty companies including Boeing, Walmart, and Home Depot have donated $60,200 through their federal PACs to 12 attorneys general involved in the lawsuit, which was led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall collected the most in donations, bringing in $14,500. He is the head of the Rule of Law Defense Fund, a dark money organization that paid for robocalls promoting the “Save America” rally held on January 6 before the insurrection.
Trade associations have also continued to support members of Congress who objected to the results of the election. PACs affiliated with these groups have contributed $7,678,598 to insurrectionist political groups, including $5,251,098 to campaigns and leadership PACs directly. These contributions undermine the commitments of the groups’ corporate members.
The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers ($342,000), National Association of Realtors ($303,000), Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America ($270,000), National Electrical Contractors Association ($222,000) and theCredit Union National Association ($217,500) have given the most to insurrectionist members of Congress.
Some members of the Sedition Caucus have continued to promote the Big Lie, including Madison Cawthorn, Louie Gohmert, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Complicit in these anti-democratic actions are the corporations and trade associations that have continued to bankroll them. McCarthy is the top fundraiser of the Sedition Caucus with $688,000 from 105 corporate and industry donors, including Chevron, Valero, UPS, Merck, Anheuser-Busch, and Ford.
Dozens of companies suspended donations in the aftermath of the Capitol violence. While many have failed to stick to their commitments to democracy, it isn’t all bad news. More than half of the nearly 250 companies that said they would evaluate their political giving in the wake of the attack have not made a donation to seditionists since. Toyotastopped giving to seditionist members as a result of public pressure and after receiving pushback from CREW. Hewlett Packard and Charles Schwab shut down their PACs entirely. Hallmark Cards went as far as requesting that Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Roger Marshall (R-KS) return its PAC’s donations. These examples show accountability is possible, and highlight the failures of companies who have continued to support the Sedition Caucus.

In the days that followed the insurrection, corporations began to take a stand against the anti-democratic violence, promising to reassess or cut off donations to Republican legislators who incited the insurrection or voted against certifying Joe Biden’s election victory. One year later, many of the same companies have resumed funneling money into the pockets of lawmakers who voted to undermine the election, putting access and influence ahead of the urgent need to stand up for democratic values.

These corporations that pledged to stop or pause donations to the 147 members who voted against certifying the election did not specifically pledge not to donate to the NRSC and NRCC. CREW has nonetheless determined that for corporations to live up to a commitment to preserve democracy, they must also avoid giving to these two committees.

The NRSC itself is currently headed by Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), who was one of eight senators who voted not to certify the results of the election—a decision he stuck with even after seeing the violence and destruction caused by believers of the Big Lie. In 2020, the NRSC supported Senators who would go on to vote against certifying the election — Roger Marshall and Cindy Hyde-Smith. And as of January 2022, the NRSC continues to use one of the most notorious members of the Sedition Caucus, Josh Hawley, to bring in donations.

On the House side, nearly 70% of Republican members voted not to certify the results of the election. It is relevant that the NRCC’s 2020 giving includes 39 members who went on to vote against certifying the election, among them prominent advocates of overturning the election Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Dan Bishop. While this giving came before their votes against certifying the election, it is indicative of the members the NRCC supports.

That said, anyone seeking an analysis of corporate giving that does not include the NRSC and NRCC can look at the column in our list of corporate donors here which displays donations only to individual members’ campaign and leadership committees.

Since the insurrection, 717 corporations and industry groups have donated over $18 million to 143 of the 147 members of Congress who objected to the results of the 2020 presidential election, as well as the Republican Party’s main political action committees supporting these members — the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee. Companies that pledged to stop or pause their political giving to these members have contributed a total of $4,785,000 to insurrectionist political groups, including $2,381,250 directly to members of the Sedition Caucus’s campaigns and leadership PACs.

Boeing ($346,500), Koch Industries ($308,000), American Crystal Sugar ($285,000), General Dynamics ($233,500) and Valero Energy ($207,500) are the top corporate donors to those who objected to the election and their party committees. Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Raytheon had all pledged to not donate to members who didn’t support democracy or publicly “paused” their giving — but together, their donations have exceeded half a million dollars, including donations to some of the most anti-democratic members.

Top Corporate Donors Total

$346,500

$308,000

$285,000

$233,500

$207,500

These donors have spread their influence far and wide. Lockheed Martin has contributed $145,000 to 72 members of the Sedition Caucus. General Dynamics has given $161,000 to 51 of these members, followed by Toyota, which has donated $89,500 to 51 of them. Boeing has given $136,500 to 47 members and Raytheon has donated $120,500 to 47 of them.

Commitment to democracy trumped by business interests

In the wake of the attack, corporations rushed to condemn the violence and affirm their commitment to democratic values. But many of those promises would soon prove to be nothing more than performative lip service.

Aflac, one of the country’s biggest insurance companies, “strongly condemn[ed] the disgraceful events that took place” and paused giving to “ensure [their] contributions remain consistent with [their] core values.” By July, however, Aflac had given $48,000 to the Sedition Caucus and the party committees. One recipient, Representative Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), sits on the House Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over insurance issues. Three other recipients, Representatives Tom Rice (R-SC), Adrian Smith (R-NE) and Ron Estes (R-KS) sit on the House Ways and Means Committee, which has power over tax and health care policy that impact the insurance industry.

Auto giant Ford, which also suspended donations, invoked lofty ideals of a peaceful transition of power and promised to reflect on the “relevant considerations” that guide its giving. Less than four months later, somber reflection gave way to business as usual. To date, Ford has given $44,500 to the Sedition Caucus and party committees, including the ranking member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Representative Sam Graves (R-MO).

Valero Energy called out the “tragic events that unfolded” on January 6 as their reason for having “no plans to resume [giving] over the next few months.” But it wouldn’t take long for the tragedy to fade from Valero’s memory. The fuel corporation has kept up a steady stream of donations to 17 seditionists and the two party committees since June, amounting to a staggering total of $207,500.Among the top recipients are Representatives Richard Hudson (R-NC) and Steve Scalise (R-LA), who both sit on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

The first companies to abandon their commitments

Some companies resumed giving almost immediately. Take Toyota for example. On January 10, the auto manufacturer reportedly called the attack “horrific” and promised to reevaluate its giving criteria. On February 4, it started giving to seditionists again. Within a month of the riot, Toyota poured $9,000 into the pockets of nine members.

Jan 10, 2021

Toyota calls the attack “horrific” and promised to reevaluate its giving criteria.

Feb 04, 2021

Toyota starts giving to seditionists again.

Mar 01, 2021

Within a month of the riot, Toyota has poured $9,000 into the pockets of nine members.

Jul 08, 2021

After immense public pressure and pushback from CREW, Toyota stops giving to seditionists. By then, they had given a total of $89,500 to 51 members of Congress.

Cigna was not far behind. On January 12, the insurance company announced it will “discontinue support of any elected official who encouraged or supported violence, or otherwise hindered a peaceful transition of power.” Barely two months after that, Cigna broke its promise. Since March 2021, the company has given $30,000 to 15 members who voted to overturn the election results. Publicly, the company proclaimed that its commitment to the democratic process is an issue “so foundational to [Cigna’s] core fiber that [it] transcend[s] all other matters of public policy.” But privately, Cigna has lavishly funded the members who sought to undermine the most fundamental element of American democracy.

Jan 12, 2021

Cigna says it will “discontinue support of any elected official who encouraged or supported violence, or otherwise hindered a peaceful transition of power.”

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Mar 05, 2021

Cigna starts giving to seditionists again.

Dec 01, 2021

Cigna has given $30,000 to 15 members who voted to overturn the election results since March.

On January 11,AT&T announced a plan to pause donations to the 147 Republican election objectors. But on February 15, the company made a $5,000 donation to the House Conservatives Fund, a leadership PAC chaired by seditionist Representative Jim Banks (R-IN). When asked about the donation, AT&T could only offer that “the House Conservative Fund [had] assured [them] that none of the [AT&T] PAC’s contribution[s] will go toward the re-election” of election objectors. But this explanation glossed over the fact that politicians often use their leadership PACs as slush funds, allowing Banks to enjoy expensive campaign fundraisers and lavish perks on AT&T’s dime. Even if that weren’t the case, AT&T is still supporting a political committee that has given $87,000 to other members of the Sedition Caucus.

Jan 11, 2021

AT&T announces a plan to pause donations to the 147 Republican election objectors.

:{:{}:

Feb 15, 2021

AT&T donates $5,000 to the House Conservatives Fund, a leadership PAC sponsored by seditionist Representative Jim Banks of Indiana.

:{:{}:

Dec 01, 2021

Since February, AT&T has supported a political committee that has given $87,000 to other members of the Sedition Caucus.

Companies overlooking racial justice commitments

Dozens of companies publicly opposed the restrictive voting bills passed in the wake of the election and released statements speaking out against “any discriminatory legislation.” Many others condemned systemic racism during the racial justice protests in the summer of 2020, which followed a series of murders of Black Americans by police and armed vigilantes. But these same companies have continued to fund officials who have questioned election integrity in order to limit voting rights and claimed that vote totals from cities with significant Black populations and turnout were fraudulent, in order to justify contesting the election results.

Home Depot, JP Morgan, Delta Airlines, UPS and many others spoke out against new voting laws in Georgia as racist, while hundreds of other companies — including American Airlines, Ford, General Motors and Johnson & Johnson — signed a full page New York Times ad condemning discriminatory voting legislation being passed nationwide. Despite taking these pro-democracy stances in public, many of these companies have continued to fund members of Congress who voted against a free and fair election. The pharmaceutical company Merck, whose CEO co-organized the Times ad, has given $68,000 to the Sedition Caucus and the party committees through its PAC.

New York Times ad via New York Times’ David Gelles/CREW illustration

Corporate and industry PACs have also contributed to the Republican state attorneys general who attempted to invalidate the election results by joining a lawsuit, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, against four battleground states won by Biden. Twenty industry donors including Boeing, Walmart and Home Depot have donated $60,200 through their federal PACs to Paxton and eleven other attorneys general who joined that lawsuit, attempting to decertify the results. The four states received historic turnout from voters of color.

Steve Marshall, attorney general of Alabama, has raised the most from these donors, taking in $14,500.He is the head of the Rule of Law Defense Fund, a dark money organization that paid for robocalls detailing when and where individuals should meet for the “Save America” rally held before the insurrection took place at the Capitol. His efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election perpetuated the myth that it was stolen, while robocalls by RLDF urged rallygoers to “march to the Capitol” and “call on Congress to stop the steal.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton pulled in $6,000 from the Texas Farm Bureau and Valero Energy since leading the charge to invalidate millions of people’s votes. Attorney General Sean Reyes of Utah backed the lawsuit, further eroding confidence in this country’s democratic system. He pulled in $7,500 from two donors, including Home Depot.

Companies that cut checks to these election objectors had also made commitments about confronting systemic racism in this country. Only their efforts to curb racism apparently don’t include their political giving. Cigna, which shared its “resolute belief in diversity [and] inclusion” and described intolerance “as not only unacceptable, but as the antithesis of everything [they] stand for,” offered contributions to Florida Attorney General and former RLDF board member Ashley Moody. Walmart, which committed $100 million over five years to build a “center on racial equity” to address systemic racism, contributed to Marshall. Home Depot gave $1 million to the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law “in support of its vital work to secure civil rights and equal justice for all,” then turned around and donated to Reyes.

These billion dollar corporations have contradicted their public commitments to racial justice by bankrolling attorneys general sowing doubt about a fair election in states like Georgia, which have historically suppressed Black voters. By funding these officials, the same companies claiming to support racial justice are giving political power to an anti-democratic and racist agenda.

Top trade associations bankrolling seditionists

Trade associations — a type of nonprofit organization that gets funding from companies from a particular industry to promote their interests — have also continued to support members of Congress who objected to the results of the election. PACs affiliated with these groups have contributed $7,678,598 to insurrectionist political groups, including $5,251,098 to campaigns and leadership PACs directly. The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers ($342,000), National Association of Realtors ($303,000), Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America ($270,000), National Electrical Contractors Association ($222,000) and the Credit Union National Association ($217,500) have given the most to insurrectionist members of Congress.

Trade groups’ political contributions show how porous many corporate promises about January 6 were. Even companies that have stuck to their commitments not to support seditionists may be backing them by paying dues to an industry group, which can use those funds to support an affiliated PAC that makes contributions to the likes of Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) or Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH). For example, companies like Bank of America, Capital One, Discover Financial Services, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan made commitments to pause and evaluate their political donating policies after the insurrection, while Mastercard and PNC suspended their contributions entirely. But as members of the American Bankers Association, these companies have continued to support election objectors. The trade group has donated $108,000 to 36 members of the Sedition Cacus and $30,000 to party committees. If these companies were serious about their promises, they would stop paying dues, or leverage their status as some of the country’s biggest banks to make the trade group stop donating, too.

Trade groups have also put January 6 in a memory hole, reversing course on commitments to uphold democracy, and returning to business as usual. Soon after the insurrection, the National Association of Realtors announced that they would “continue to closely monitor events in Washington” to ensure their donations aligned with the will of their members. Since then, the association contributed to the greatest number of individual Sedition Caucus members, giving $183,000 to 82 members as well as $120,000 to the NRSC and NRCC.

Their top recipient, Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO), who collected $16,000 in donations to his campaign and leadership PAC, supported Ted Cruz’s effort to represent President Trump in front of the Supreme Court in an effort to reverse the electoral results in Pennsylvania. On Jan. 6, he tweeted about objecting to the certification of electoral votes from states he claimed “clearly violated the Constitution.”

Members who continue to spread disinformation

Photo by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license/CREW illustration

As if voting to subvert democracy were not enough, some members of the Sedition Caucus have gone even further to promote the Big Lie. From downplaying the events of January 6 to creating false narratives out of whole cloth, these members have obstructed the search for truth and whitewashed history. Complicit in these anti-democratic actions are the corporations and trade associations that have continued to bankroll the most incendiary members.

Madison Cawthorn, who urged January 6 rioters to “fight in Washington” and falsely claimed the violence was instigated by those “paid by the Democratic machine,” has continued to peddle lies about the election and the insurrection. In August, he made headlines for calling January 6 defendants “political prisoners” and insinuating that “rigged” and “stolen” elections will inevitably lead to “bloodshed.” Cawthorn has received $2,000 in donations from the National Association of Insurance & Financial Advisors and the Farmers’ Rice Cooperative Fund.

Louie Gohmert, who suggested the FBI was involved in the attack and said “there’s no evidence this was an armed insurrection,” raised $1,000 from the National Association of Insurance & Financial Advisors. Scott Perry insisted that “no arms came into the Capitol with the people that did walk in.” Perry, who sits on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has raised $22,500 from corporate interests, including $5,500 from three automobile and transportation trade associations. He also received $2,000 from Raytheon, a defense contractor that pledged to “reflect on the current environment and determine appropriate next steps.”

Even House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the third-ranking House Republican Elise Stefanik have boosted conspiracy theories about the insurrection. Rather than condemning the members of their conference who riled the mob with inflammatory lies, they diverted the blame to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, falsely claiming that Pelosi oversees security for the Capitol and, in Stefanik’s words, “bears responsibility … for the tragedy that occurred.”

Representative Jim Banks (R-IN) also paints Pelosi as having sole and complete control over Capitol Police and “is ultimately responsible for the breakdown of security at the Capitol.” Banks, McCarthy, and Stefanik are some of the biggest beneficiaries of corporate donations. McCarthy is the top fundraiser of the Sedition Caucus with $688,000 from 105 corporate and industry donors, including Chevron, Valero, UPS, Merck, Anheuser-Busch, and Ford. Stefanik has raised $195,750 from 56 of these donors, and Banks, who pretended to be the ranking member of the January 6 committee, has taken in $141,500 from 59 of them.

Companies leading by example

Dozens of companies and trade groups said they would suspend donations in the aftermath of the Capitol violence. While many abandoned these commitments, most have kept their word. One hundred thirty-four out of 248 of these businesses and groups have still not contributed to seditionists.

Toyota stopped giving to seditionist members in July as a result of public pressure and after receiving pushback from CREW. Before making the change, the automaker led all corporations in terms of contributions — donating $89,500 to members and leadership PACs of election objectors this year.

Charles Schwab, one of the country’s biggest brokerage firms, took an even more significant step. A week after the riot, the company announced the dissolution of its PAC and said it would no longer accept contributions from employees or make financial contributions to lawmakers. The PAC’s remaining funds were donated to The Boys & Girls Club of America and historically Black colleges and universities.

Hewlett Packard also shut down its PAC soon after January 6. Hallmark Cards went as far as to request that Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Roger Marshall (R-KS) return its PAC donations. These examples show that corporate accountability is possible. The corporations continuing to fund lawmakers who voted against the results of a free and fair election are complicit in the Big Lie and should be held to account.

Even though Trump is no longer in office, his allies have continued to spread the Big Lie. Their attempts to invalidate the results of an election pose a real danger to this country’s democratic process — setting the precedent for legislators to throw out legitimate election victories they disapprove of. Despite making promises to uphold democracy and to stand against disenfranchisement of voters of color, corporations are financing lawmakers who propagated myths about voter fraud attempting to subvert a presidential election. These companies need to put their money where their mouths are and stop giving political power to those seeking to undermine elections. Our democracy depends on it.

sedition caucus

The promise keepers

Colin Allred says Ted Cruz 'hid in a supply closet' while Jan. 6 rioters stormed the Capitol

Opinion | Meet the Real Dark Money GOP Donors Who Funded Those Who Voted to Overturn the Election | Alex Kotch (commondreams.org)

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meet the Real Dark Money GOP Donors Who Funded Those Who Voted to Overturn the Election

Top Donors

Money Trail to the Siege at the Capitol Leads to Charles Koch and Koch Industries

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