Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group

1. Firms severing ties with Wikileaks have multiple interests before feds

   By Bill Allison Dec 7, 2010 3:52 p.m.

    

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2. Foreign agents lobbied on issues raised in Wikileaks cables

   By Bill Allison Dec 2, 2010 12:45 p.m.

   As the cache of internal State Department cables released by Julian Assange and Wikileaks.org amply demonstrates, U.S. government officials offer frank opinions about the leaders, policies and political developments in other countries. Another treasure trove of documents, disclosure of which is required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act, shows how foreign governments use Washington lobbyists to challenge those judgments and plead their case in Washington. The Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group, thanks to a grant from ProPublica.org, has digitized and made searchable data from FARA filings. To see all the data, click here.

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3. Orszag to Citigroup?

   By Bill Allison Dec 1, 2010 1:44 p.m.

   Bloomberg.com is reporting that Peter Orszag, formerly director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Obama administration, is in talks with Citigroup to join its investment banking division. Orszag wouldn't be the first former government official to land at Citigroup, as our friends at the Center for Responsive Politics show.

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4. Two groups file as Super PACs

   By Bill Allison Dec 1, 2010 12:07 p.m.

   The mid-term elections are over and the 2012 contest is 23 months away, but the independent groups that played an outsized role in the former are already gearing up for the next contest. Protecting America's Retirees and America's Next Generation filed letters last month with the Federal Election Commission declaring their intent to take unlimited contributions from any source. 

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5. In defense of Charlie Rangel: Does everybody do it?

   By Bill Allison Nov 15, 2010 9:23 a.m.

   Rep. Charles Rangel faces an adjudicatory hearing before the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct--better known as the House Ethics Committee--this morning. We'll are covering the whole hearing on Sunlight Live, delving into the charges of violations of ethics rules that in some cases go back years. Rangel stands accused of everything from soliciting donations to a nonprofit center that bears his name from interests with business before the Ways and Means Committee, which he chaired at the time, to abusing his parking privileges in the House garage. (A full list of charges is available here). 

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6. Super PAC discloses donors?

   By Bill Allison Oct 25, 2010 5:58 p.m.

   Update: America's Families First Action Fund, an independent expenditure committee associated with a 501(c)4 organization that doesn't have to disclose its donors, discloses its donors. Their plan to avoid 1994 in 2010 is here. My sharp eyed colleague Aaron Bycoffe noticed this in the document the Times acquired: "The project team has established both a federal independent expenditure committee, America's Families First Action Fund (AFFAF) and a 501c4 advocacy organization, America's Families First. Gifts to the independent expentiture committee are disclosed but can be unlimited. Gifts to a 501c4 advocacy organization can be anonymous."

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7. Did Murkowski certify that Alaskans Standing Together isn't working with Murkowski?

   By Bill Allison Oct 17, 2010 6:14 p.m.

   Alaskans Standing Together is a Super PAC funded by federal contractors based in the 49th state that's trying to help Sen. Lisa Murkowski remain in Congress through a write-in campaign. The organization filed its third quarter disclosure report with the Federal Election Commission on Oct. 13 and an amended version on Oct. 15; on the last page of each, the FEC requires Alaskans Standing Together to avow that it's not working with any candidate or party committee--that it's truly independent. The exact language reads as follows:

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8. Editor's note: Tracking another Super PAC

   By Bill Allison Oct 15, 2010 3:45 p.m.

   Michael Dubke gets around. He's a partner at Crossroads Media, LLC, which buys airtime for political ads for Super PACs and candidates. He "exercises control" (the Federal Election Commission term) over Partnership for America's Future, which buys ads from Crossroads Media. He founded Americans for Job Security, which also buys ads from Crossroads Media. Another Crossroads Media client is Alliance for America's Future, run by Mary Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Richard Cheney. Cheney's former political director, Kara Ahern,  works for Alliance for America's Future, filing its disclosures with the FEC. She's also custodian and assistant treasurer for Partnership for America's Future. Her boss there, treasurer Barry Bennett, is a director of Alliance for America's Future. 

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9. Editor's Notebook: Following the muddled money

   By Bill Allison Oct 7, 2010 3:03 p.m.

   Over the weekend, I came across a new group in our Follow the Unlimited Money tool called CSS Action Fund. I googled the group and didn't find anything about it; by Monday they'd set up a website. Curious, I asked Ryan Sibley, who's been all things post-Citizens United for us, to see what she could find out about the group.

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10. Bauer, Obama's new ethics point man, had double standards on 527s

    By Bill Allison Aug 13, 2010 3:08 p.m.

    At a May 3, 2000, press conference, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., announced that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) had filed a lawsuit, prepared by its counsel, Robert F. Bauer, alleging that Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, was using a series of nonprofits and political committees (called section 527s, after the section of the tax code under which they're created) to circumvent campaign finance laws, extort money from donors, and evade disclosure. Kennedy and Bauer presented the charges, based for the most part on media reports about DeLay's fundraising tactics, as an unprecedented assault on campaign finance law. "Money laundering," Bauer elaborated on one of the main charges, is "the way in which he avoids public disclosure and washes the fruits of his illegal fundraising operation through these unregistered organizations, which do not disclose the source or object of their expenditures." 

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11. Bob Bauer in his own words

    By Bill Allison Aug 10, 2010 12:36 p.m.

    Robert F. Bauer, who will take on part of the responsibilities of Norm Eisen, the departing Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform, has a long and storied career in Washington. He has represented the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Kerry and Obama presidential campaigns, and 527 organizations like Vote Now and America Coming Together. He’s defended Democratic politicians who ran into ethics trouble, including former Rep. Tony Coelho and former Sen. Robert Torricelli—both of whom were forced to give up their offices as ethics charges mounted against them. He's filed ethics complaints against Republican and Republican-leaning organizations, most spectacularly when he prepared a complaint alleging racketeering on the part of former Republican Majority Leader Rep. Tom DeLay for extortion (for his aggressive fundraising), money laundering and illegally coordinating with section 527 groups to evade campaign finance laws. The suit was later dropped.

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12. "It's left up to the members"

    By Bill Allison Jul 29, 2010 6:43 p.m.

    My colleague Anu Narayanswamy has written on House disbursements; interestingly, they figure in a footnote of Rep. Charles Rangel's defense against the charges leveled against him by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct:

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13. Rangel's ethics defense, visualized

    By Bill Allison Jul 29, 2010 5:58 p.m.

14. House to charge Charlie Rangel with ethics violations

    By Bill Allison Jul 22, 2010 6:06 p.m.

    Despite his oft repeated assertions to the contrary, Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., will be charged by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct for as yet unspecified violations of congressional ethics rules.

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Investigations by Sunlight Foundation reporter Bill Allison