lobbying news stories on Newser

Lobbyists Clog White House All The Time

Kevin Spak — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:43:35 CDT

President Obama took office as perhaps the most anti-lobbying president ever, barring lobbyists from joining his administration and advisory boards. But the Washington Post looked over the White House visitor logs, and found that lobbyists still have plenty of access to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., with what it characterized as a...

Gingrich's Freddie Mac Contract Released

Matt Cantor — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:48:14 CST

Newt Gingrich made $25,000 a month working for Freddie Mac, where he reported to one of the company's leading lobbyists, according to his newly released contract with the mortgage giant. The 15 pages unveiled by Gingrich's former firm cover one year of his eight-year, $1.6-million relationship with Freddie—...

Non-Lobbyist Newt Gingrich Acted a Lot Like a Lobbyist

Kevin Spak — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 10:15:25 CST

Newt Gingrich’s consulting clients all signed contracts saying that Gingrich “does not provide lobbying services of any kind,” but what he did for them looks an awful lot like lobbying to the New York Times . Gingrich actively hawked his clients’ products in his presentations to lawmakers, and arranged meetings between...

Freddie Mac Paid Gingrich $1.6M

Kevin Spak — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 07:45:00 CST

Newt Gingrich raked in somewhere between $1.6 million and $1.8 million over the course of an eight-year span consulting for Freddie Mac, sources tell Bloomberg —a far cry from the $300,000 he was asked about in last week’s CNBC debate. His main contact was the firm’s chief...

MF Global Hid Debt From Investors

Kevin Spak — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 08:20:05 CDT

MF Global appears to have spent the past two years hiding its debt risk from investors by temporarily slashing debt right before issuing its quarterly reports, in a shady-but-legal process known as “window dressing,” the Wall Street Journal reports. The company insists borrowing fluctuated due to “client facilitation activities,” but...

Corporations Push to Influence Redistricting

Kevin Spak — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:36:05 CDT

“Minnesotans for a Fair Redistricting” may sound like a pretty innocuous, non-partisan group. But its leadership is almost identical to the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota, a group tied to Koch Industries, a ProPublica investigation discovered. The Freedom Foundation’s head, Annette Meeks, claims she has “no involvement” with Fair Redistricting, but...

Thousands Ditch Congress for Lobbying Firms: Study

Kevin Spak — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 12:37:05 CDT

There’s a veritable car pool lane connecting Capitol Hill to K Street, according to a new study, which found that almost 5,400 ex-congressional staffers and nearly 400 former lawmakers have taken jobs with lobbying firms over the past decade. The road goes in the opposite direction as well, with...

Ethanol Group Paid Gingrich $300K

Rob Quinn — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 01:19:00 CDT

Newt Gingrich earned more than $300,000 acting as a consultant to a coalition of ethanol lobbying groups in 2009, according to IRS records. The possible GOP 2012 candidate—who declared "I am not a lobbyist for ethanol" during a spat with Wall Street Journal editors over his support for...

GE 2010 Profits: $14.2B GE Tax Bill: $0

Matt Cantor — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 10:36:05 CDT

General Electric is America’s biggest firm, but it’s not paying a dime in US taxes this year—instead, it has claimed a $3.2 billion tax benefit, the New York Times reports. Though it made a $14.2 billion profit in 2010, $5.1 billion of which was made here,...