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October 5, 2023
Google ramped up federal lobbying ahead of DOJ antitrust showdown
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Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., spent more on federal lobbying in the second quarter of 2023 than it has in any quarter in the last five years. The increase comes as the Department of Justice pursues two antitrust lawsuits against the tech giant.
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Former GOP challenger to Maxine Waters charged with misusing campaign funds
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A newly-unsealed indictment charges Omar Navarro, a recurring Republican candidate who has repeatedly failed to oust Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) from Congress, with funneling tens of thousands of dollars in campaign funds back to himself through friends, family and sham companies.
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2023 sets new high for midyear lobbying
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Federal lobbying spending in the first half of the year topped $2.1 billion, surpassing 2022’s record by a whopping $86.6 million.
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OpenSecrets' Chart of the Week
Dive deeper into the data behind the headlines
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In the 2022 midterm cycle, Sam Bankman-Fried became “one of the largest publicly reported political donors," making nearly $39 million in political donations. This week, Bankman-Fried stands trial for masterminding one of the biggest financial frauds in U.S. history.
Prosecutors claim Bankman-Fried and his alleged co-conspirators' tens of millions in political contributions violated federal law because the contributions were made in the name of straw donors or paid for using misappropriated corporate funds.
Bankman-Fried spent his way into the good graces of Washington before FTX imploded in November, wiping out Bankman-Fried’s $16 billion fortune almost overnight.
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OpenSecrets in the News
See our media citations from outlets around the nation this week:
How Polarization Sent Washington to the Brink of a Shutdown (Wall Street Journal) [[link removed]]
Lawmakers are less reliant on political parties for money. Greene, for example, was the ninth-largest fundraiser in the 2022 election cycle among current House members, and 98% of her money came from individual donors rather than party, corporate or political-action committee sources, data from the nonpartisan group OpenSecrets shows. Ocasio-Cortez ranked 10th, and essentially all of her money came from individual donors.
Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud ran through Washington, prosecutors say (The Washington Post) [[link removed]]
Two of Bankman-Fried’s top lieutenants have already pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance law by making donations that Bankman-Fried reimbursed, among other charges. Nishad Singh, FTX’s former director of engineering — who is set to testify as a witness for the prosecution — directed more than $14 million to Democratic candidates and causes, according to a tally by OpenSecrets. He has acknowledged he did not select the beneficiaries and was paid back partly with FTX customer money.
Asymmetric pay policy keeps US prone to shutdown (Reuters) [[link removed]]
The $174,000 annual salaries paid to each of the 535 U.S. legislators, meantime, will be unaffected. Their median net worth is just over $1 million, according to the nonprofit research outfit OpenSecrets, so the paychecks are important to most of them. Making the debate more financially meaningful on a personal level would help cut through the political nonsense
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