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January 30th, 2020

This week in money-in-politics

Senators overseeing impeachment trial got campaign cash from Trump legal team members

Some members of President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense team are campaign donors to jurors in the Senate.

Former independent counsels Ken Starr and Robert Ray, who investigated then-President Bill Clinton around the time of his impeachment, each made large campaign contributions to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) last year before joining Trump’s legal team.

Starr, who on Monday lambasted what he called the “age of impeachment” before the Senate, gave $2,800 to McConnell in July 2019. Just after House Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry in September, Ray gave McConnell $5,600, the maximum allowed for the primary and general elections. OpenSecrets couldn’t identify any other federal contributions from the two during the 2020 cycle.

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Majority of top 2020 Democrats backed by outside groups as early primaries near

Democratic presidential candidates started their race to the White House with the promise to reject support from outside groups. But with just a few days left till the early primaries, yet another TV ad campaign by an outside group — this time in support of former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg — indicates the 2020 Democrats are opening up to outside money.
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Lobbying spending in 2019 nears all-time high as health sector smashes records

Federal lobbying spending surpassed $3.47 billion last year, a nine-year high, as influential industries tried to sway the Trump administration and Congress over policies that would hurt the bottom lines of some of the nation’s most powerful companies. Not accounting for inflation, lobbying spending in 2019 falls just behind the record $3.51 billion spent in 2010.
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‘Dark money’ groups target key senators during impeachment

Influential “dark money” groups are hitting senators in their home states with impeachment-focused ads. Some of these ads pressure senators to vote a certain way in the trial, while others use impeachment as a means to weaken senators at the ballot box in November. These issue ads don’t advocate for or against the candidates’ election, so they are not required to report their spending to the FEC.
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Spring Semester Interns with OpenSecrets

Reporting Intern Ilma Hasan - Ilma graduated from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in 2019 and has worked at Newsweek and CNN since then. Born and raised in New Delhi, she was a television and web correspondent for the India Today Group covering politics, crime and health out of the capital before moving to New York City.
Reporting Intern Brian Johnson - Brian is a graduate student at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, where he has written about transportation in Chicago and has covered politics and national security in Washington, D.C. Brian graduated with highest distinction from Indiana University in May of 2019, where he majored in history and political science and minored in economics.
Reporting Intern Tatyana Monnay - Tatyana is a Mid-Missouri based multimedia journalist, born and raised in South Florida. When Tatyana wasn't practicing her multimedia editing skills, she spent time freelancing for the South Florida SunSentinel and obtaining leadership roles in her campus newspaper. She is currently pursuing a bachelor's degree in Journalism at the Missouri School of Journalism with an emphasis in Convergence Investigative Reporting.
IT Intern Faiz Shah - Faiz is studying information science specializing in data science at the University of Maryland College Park. Before joining the Center he interned at General Dynamics helping upload cancer research data into the cloud.
Research Intern Phillip Whitten - Phillip is currently a junior at American University who is studying Political Science and Economics. Before joining the Center, he spent time in a Senate office and at the Brady gun violence prevention group.

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OpenSecrets in the News

See where we've been cited by media outlets around the nation this week.

Republican Bill Weld Makes Little Traction in New York in Run Against Trump (The Wall Street Journal)
The Weld campaign raised $1.3 million as of September, including just over $100,000 from New York donors. That’s more than donations from any other state except Massachusetts, but New York’s Trump skeptics are hardly rallying behind Mr. Weld.

Bankrupt Murray Energy coal company still banks on Trump, FEC records show (The Cleveland Plain Dealer)
While Murray Energy may have declared bankruptcy, the coal company's corporate PAC still found $160,000 to donate to “Trump Victory,” a joint fundraising committee that benefits both the Trump campaign and the RNC.

Gun control groups spend big in 2020 (The Hill)
The nation’s most prominent gun control advocacy groups are spending big for 2020, outpacing the powerful National Rifle Association in what both sides see as a crucial election.