• New names show up on list of top Obama donation bundlers

    By Michael Beckel
    The Center for Public Integrity

    President Barack Obama prides himself on rejecting donations from registered lobbyists, but a newly released list of campaign fundraisers is peppered with leaders from companies and law firms that lobby the federal government.


    New bundlers, whose names were released this week, include Anthony Welters, executive vice president of UnitedHealth Group, and Qualcomm co-founder and former chairman Irwin Jacobs and his wife Joan.

    Each raised at least $500,000 for the Obama Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee that includes Obama’s presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and party committees in several battleground states.

    The exact amounts are unknown. The campaign only divulges bundlers’ fundraising activity in broad ranges, with a top category of “more than $500,000.”

    Qualcomm has spent at least $6 million each year since 2007 on federally reportable lobbying efforts, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. UnitedHealth spent at least $2.5 million annually in the same period.

    None of these individuals were bundlers for Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. However, Welters’ wife, Beatrice, raised between $200,000 and $500,000 for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

    Bundlers are elite political fundraisers who turn to relatives, friends and business associates to raise large sums and deliver the funds in a “bundle” to the candidate. They are often given perks and special access — both on the campaign trail and once politicians are elected.

    Beatrice Welters was one of about two dozen bundlers who were named ambassadors during the president’s first term. Welters was appointed to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago, a post from which she resigned last November.

    There’s nothing illegal about registered lobbyists contributing to a presidential campaign, as long as those donations are reported. But Obama’s campaign went further and voluntarily rejected such contributions. Still, some of his bundlers lead or work for law firms that also provide government lobbying services, although they are not lobbyists themselves.

    Other newly disclosed bundlers include:

    • Andy Sandler, the chairman and executive partner at BuckleySandler, which provides legal counsel and lobbying services for the financial services industry. He bundled between $50,000 and $100,000. Records indicate that his firm’s several recent lobbying clients have included the California-based East West Bank, Virginia-based Genworth Financial and the Electronic Signature and Records Association.
    • Walter White, a London-based partner at the multinational legal powerhouse McGuireWoods, who bundled between $50,000 and $100,000. White is the head of McGuireWoods’ emerging markets transactions practice, according to his official bio. McGuireWoods’ current lobbying clients in the United States include Alpha Natural Resources, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Duke Energy, Progress Energy and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), according to federal records.
    • Jim Black, a Germany-based partner at the law firm White & Case, who bundled between $100,000 and $200,000. Black specializes in equity capital markets and mergers and acquisitions, according to his official company bio. Domestically, White & Case’s several lobbying clients include the National Association of Publicly Traded Partnerships. 
    • Rick Mayo-Smith, the managing director of Indochina Land, who bundled between $100,000 and $200,000. Indochina Land is the real estate division of Indochina Capital Corp., one of Vietnam's leading financial services groups.

    The White House directed inquiries to Katie Hogan, a spokeswoman for the Obama campaign and Obama’s new nonprofit advocacy group, Organizing for Action. Hogan did not respond to requests for comment.

    Overall, the Obama campaign reaped financial riches from 769 bundlers, who collectively raised more than $186 million. Twenty-eight of these bundlers moved into higher dollar categories during the fourth quarter of 2012, the new disclosure reveals.

    Another newly listed Obama campaign bundler is Imad Husain, Obama's freshman-year roommate at Occidental College, who is now a banker in Boston. Husain raised between $50,000 and $100,000, according to the campaign.

    Robyn Beck / AFP - Getty Images file

    Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith in 2010.

    Hollywood is also represented among Obama’s newly identified top fundraisers, with super couple Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith collecting more than $500,000. While hardly a professional lobbyist, Pinkett Smith last year pressed lawmakers to take a stand against human trafficking and forced labor, testifying before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations with her husband present.

    They join the ranks of previously identified bundlers such as pop star Gwen Stefani and Warner Brothers CEO and Chairman Barry Meyer.

    Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign did not volunteer bundler information, releasing only the names of registered federal lobbyists who bundled, as federal law compelled it to do. Nearly six dozen lobbyists collectively raised more than $17 million for the Republican’s unsuccessful presidential bid, as the Center for Public Integrity previously reported.

    While Obama is safely in the White House for another four years, his chase for cash may not be over.

    These elite moneymen and women could be tapped to fundraise for Obama’s presidential library, and are already being pursued by Organizing for Action, which is promoting the president’s legislative agenda over the next four years.

    Organizing for Action will host a fundraiser in Washington, D.C., next week where a minimum contribution of $50,000 is required to attend, Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times reported Monday.

    Obama’s nonprofit group will, on a quarterly basis, voluntarily disclose the names and donation amounts of contributors giving $250 or more, Organizing for America National Chairman Jim Messina wrote Thursday in an opinion piece posted on CNN.com.

    The group, to date, has not revealed any donors.

    The Center for Public Integrity is a non-profit, independent, investigative news outlet.  For more of its stories go to publicintegrity.org.

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  • Obama campaign gives database of millions of supporters to new advocacy group

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    Obama supporters like this woman who showed up to cheer at a campaign event in Melbourne, Fla., on Sept. 9, may not realize how much personal data the organization collected, or what it's doing with it now.

    By Michael Isikoff, National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News

    President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has turned over its most valuable asset — a massive computer database containing personal data on millions of American voters — to a new advocacy group created to advance the White House agenda on issues ranging from gun control to immigration reform. 

    Organizing For Action (OFA), the advocacy group set up in recent weeks by the president’s top political aides, has already acquired access to the database under a leasing agreement with the Obama campaign, Katie Hogan, a former Obama campaign aide who is now serving as spokeswoman for the lobbying group, told NBC News. The information will be used to unleash an “army of the door knockers” to back the president’s legislative agenda as well as raise money for “issue ads” – particularly in crucial congressional districts, she said.  

    As an opening salvo, the group on Friday urged the president’s supporters to call members of Congress in support of Obama’s gun control proposals, even offering a sample script of what they should say.

    The creation of OFA, which is being chaired by former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, is stirring controversy – both among public interest groups over the group’s plans to accept unlimited corporate donations, and among privacy advocates over the transfer of the database.

    “It’s extremely worrisome,” said Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, noting that Obama campaign supporters likely have no idea that personal data they voluntarily shared with the campaign has now been transferred and is being used for purposes beyond the election.

    Dubbed the “nuclear codes” by campaign aides, the Obama campaign database is widely described as one of the most powerful tools ever developed in American politics. According to published reports, it contains the names of at least 4 million Obama donors – as well as millions of others (the campaign has consistently refused to say how many) compiled from voter registration rolls and other public databases. In addition, the campaign used sophisticated computer programs — with code names like “Narwhal” — to collect information through social media: Anybody who contacted the campaign through Facebook had their friends and “likes” downloaded. If they contacted  the campaign website through mobile apps, cellphone numbers and address books were downloaded. Computer “cookies” captured Web browsing and online spending habits.

    “I can’t think of anything that rivals this data,” said Coney, noting that much of the data was voluntarily supplied by voters, something that consumers are often reluctant to do when dealing with commercial companies. “The private sector would love to be able to do what the (Obama) campaign was able to do.”  

    OFA spokeswoman Hogan said that Obama supporters have the option in emails they receive of opting out — or unsubscribing — from the list, as required by federal law. But critics say that is not necessarily an option for information collected about voters through other means (such as public databases) and note that many on the list likely don’t notice the “unsubscribe” fine print on the emails.

    At the same time, OFA’s plans for corporate-backed lobbying of Congress have spurred sharp criticism from campaign reformers — a cause the president once championed. Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a leading reform group, called OFA “dangerous and unprecedented,” noting that it has been set up under the same section of the tax code used by controversial GOP advocacy groups, such as Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS (as a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” nonprofit organization). This will allow the group to accept unlimited donations from wealthy individuals and corporations.

    “With his decision to allow corporations to fund the new organizations that will operate as an arm of his presidency, President Obama has ‘given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money,’” said Wertheimer in a statement that quoted Obama’s own words two years ago to denounce the Citizens United Supreme Court decision striking down  many campaign finance limits. “This would take President Obama about as far away as he could possibly get from the goal he set in 2008 to change the way business is done in Washington.” 

    Related: Nonprofit spends big on politics despite IRS limitation

    In response to a request for comment, a White House spokesman emailed recent comments by top Obama political adviser David Plouffe to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos: “Yes, we will voluntarily disclose all of our donors,” Plouffe said. “And we're very excited. The people who actually made the president's campaign in both '08 and '12, our great grassroots volunteers, were pretty clear after the election they wanted to stay with it and they want to be out there organizing, driving message, holding people accountable on issues like immigration, you know, the deficit and jobs, gun safety.”

    But how much the group will disclose about the source of its money is still unclear. There is no legal requirement for a 501(c)(4) group like OFA to do so. Hogan, the OFA spokeswoman, declined to say how often the group will make disclosures or whether it will report amounts that donors give or simply provide a list of contributors. (Such a list -- without amounts detailed -- was recently released by the Presidential Inaugural Committee.) “That’s still being worked out,” she said.

    As if to underscore the role of major corporations in helping to underwrite OFA, the unveiling of the group came at a special invitation-only event on inaugural weekend at the Newseum, sponsored by Business Forward, a corporate-backed trade group close to the White House, according to a Politico account. Business Forward -- whose charter members include Citi, Dow Chemical, Duke Energy, Ford, Google and Comcast, majority-owner of NBCUniversal, parent company of NBC News -- had lobbied for the White House-backed fiscal cliff deal, specifically touting its tax breaks for businesses, such as write-offs for new capital investment and research and development credits, according to a statement on the group’s website.

    “We need you. This president needs you,” Messina said at the launch event, according to the Politico account, adding that the national advisory board of OFA will be “filled with people in this room.”  

    One corporate executive who attended the event told NBC News the roll out -- which featured a spirited talk by former President Bill Clinton on gun control -- drew numerous major Obama campaign bundlers and fundraisers, such as Obama campaign finance chairman Mathew Barzun (now reportedly a front-runner to be tapped for ambassador to the Court of St. James) and finance director Rufus Gifford.

    “My takeaway from this was that they set this up to take advantage of the Citizens United decision and operate this outside the Democratic National Committee so they won’t have to file (election) reports,” said the executive, who asked not to be identified.

    Hogan, the OFA spokeswoman, said that OFA will not run campaign ads — only “issue” ads that do not fall under the election laws.

    But the underlying political purpose of the group is not disputed. “The way it’s organized, we legally can’t participate in elections,” Stephanie Cutter, a top Obama campaign official who now serves on the board of OFA, said at a recent Politico-sponsored inaugural event. “But that doesn’t mean the issues we’re organizing around won’t mobilize the American people to vote for things — to vote for that economy we’ve been working for, to vote for immigration reform, to vote for common sense gun reforms. I think we can affect elections, we just can’t legally be involved in them — for this particular organization.”

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  • RNC cuts ties with firm over voter fraud allegations

    The Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd talks to NBC's Michael Isikoff about Florida voting fraud and what's being done about it now

    By Michael Isikoff
    NBC News

    Updated:  8:46p.m. ET:  Election officials in six Florida counties are investigating what appears to be "hundreds” of cases of suspected voter fraud by a GOP consulting firm that has been paid nearly $3 million by the Republican National Committee to register Republican voters in five key battleground states, state officials tell NBC. 

    But the veteran GOP consultant, Nathan Sproul, who runs the firm, strongly defended his company's conduct, saying it has rigorous "quality controls" and blamed the alleged fraud on the actions of a few "bad apples," workers who were hired to register Republican voters for $12 an hour and then tried to "cheat the system." 

    The allegations of suspected voter fraud committed by Strategic Allied Consulting of Tempe, Arizona spread Thursday to counties throughout Florida. At the same time, the Republican National Committee said it had severed its ties to the firm altogether.

    "We have heard from supervisors in six counties that they have irregularities in voter registration," said Chris Cate, spokesman for the Florida Department of State, which oversees the state's division of elections.  Although local prosecutors are already investigating the firm's conduct, Cate said state officials were also considering turning the matter over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to determine if there was a pattern of misconduct.  

    The suspected fraud included apparent cases of dead people being registered as Republican voters, said Paul Lux, the supervisor of elections in Okaloosa County and a Republican. He compared the suspected fraud to the alleged acts of ACORN, the liberal activist group that became the center of a national controversy several years ago.

    "It's kind of ironic that the dead people they accused Acorn of registering are now being done by the RPOF" [Republican Party of Florida], Lux said in an interview with NBC News.

    While Republican groups as a whole are still outspending Democratic groups, the gap is narrowing, in part to the individual donors finally stepping up on the Democrats' behalf. NBC News' Michael Isikoff discusses.

    In addition to Palm Beach County, where election officials initially reported 106 instances of suspected fraudulent registration forms, officials in Okaloosa, Pasco, Santa Rosa, Lee and Clay counties have also reported instances of possible fraudulent forms submitted by the firm, officials said.

    In a statement on Strategic Allied's website, the firm's lawyer said:

    "Strategic has a zero tolerance policy for breaking the law. Accordingly, once we learned of the irregularities in Palm Beach County, we were able to trace all questionable cards to one individual and immediately terminated our working relationship with the individual in question. Strategic is committed to following the letter of the law and will continue to cooperate with the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections to ensure that this issue is resolved."

    Sproul said in a telephone interview that his company has employed between 4,000 and 5,000 people to register Republican voters under its contract with the RNC, including over 2,000 in Florida. The employees are given training on how to register voters, including being required to watch a video instructing them not to register felons. The video also instructs recruiters not to "modify or falsify voter registration forms."

    "No matter what quality controls you have there are always going to be bad actors in any large scale operation," Sproul said.

    Sproul, who has long worked for the GOP, also criticized Florida and national Republican officials for dumping him.

    "They're trying to get the distraction behind them," he said about the RNC's action. 

    Sean Spicer, communications director for the RNC, said Strategic Allied Consulting had been retained by the RNC and state Republican parties to register new Republican voters in five key battleground states.

    But Spicer said that the party's relationship with the firm-- which has been paid $2.9 million by the RNC so far this year, according to federal elections records -- has now been terminated in light of alleged voter fraud linked to one of the firm's employees that was reported this week to Florida prosecutors by election officials in Palm Beach County. 

    "We've made it clear we're not doing business with these guys anymore," said Spicer.  "We've come out pretty strong against this kind of stuff -- and we have zero tolerance for this."

    Strategic Allied’s parent firm, Lincoln Strategy Group, also headed by Sproul, has been paid about $80,000 by the Romney campaign to conduct "field consulting," according to election records. Asked for comment, Sarah Pompei, a spokeswoman for the Romney campaign, said by email:  "We used this vendor for signature gathering services during the primary but have not used them since 2011."

    Besides Florida, Strategic Allied Consulting was hired to register GOP voters in Nevada, North Carolina, Colorado and Virginia. Spicer said it was the only firm hired by the RNC to conduct voter registration. In the case of Nevada, he said, the RNC was paying the firm directly. In the other four states, the firm was being paid by state parties with the funds reimbursed by the RNC. 

    The allegations involving voter fraud by the GOP consulting firm are a new twist in the national controversy over the threat posed by voter fraud and the impact of new state laws passed by Republican controlled legislatures to combat it. While Republican officials have repeatedly accused Democratic groups such as ACORN of fraudulently registering voters in the past, the new dispute over what happened in Palm Beach--  involving the registration of Republican voters -- appears to be one of the first to have led to a criminal inquiry in this year's election.

    Christine Weiss, a spokeswoman for the Palm Beach State Attorney's Office, told NBC News Thursday that the alleged voter fraud by a Strategic Allied Consulting employee is "currently being investigated" by prosecutors in her office after it was brought to the attention of prosecutors on Monday by Palm Beach election supervisor Susan Bucher.

    Out of 304 Republican voter registration forms recently dropped off by a Strategic Allied employee at a small "satellite office" of the Palm Beach  elections office, 106 were flagged as potentially fraudulent-- including "a lot" with "similar looking" signatures and others with apparently phony addresses, Susan Bucher, the Palm Beach elections supervisor, said in an interview.

    Among the suspect home addresses were those that matched a gas station in Miami, a medical building in Boca Raton and a Land Rover automotive dealership in Palm Beach County, she told NBC News.

    Bucher said she called in the political director for the Palm Beach Republican Party and the GOP official agreed that the registration forms were a problem. She then took the forms to the Palm Beach County State's Attorney's office on Monday and requested the investigation.

    In a statement issued Tuesday night, Mike Grissom, executive director of the Florida Republican Party, said: "When we learned today about the instances of potential voter registration fraud that occurred in Palm Beach County, we immediately informed the Republican National Committee that we were terminating the contract with the voter registration vendor we hired at their request because there is no place for voter registration fraud in Florida."

    Sproul has been previously accused of suppressing Democratic voter turnout, throwing away registration forms, and manipulating ballot initiatives. His firms -- formerly Sproul & Associates, Lincoln Strategy, and Strategic Allied Consultants -- had previously worked for RNC voter registration efforts during the campaigns of George W. Bush and John McCain. In 2004, Democratic Senators Leahy and Kennedy sent a letter to then Attorney General John Ashcroft requesting that he "launch an immediate investigation into the activities of Mr. Sproul and his firm." But the request did not lead to any criminal charges against Sproul. 

     

     

  • Contempt: Now what?

    By NBC's Pete Williams

    Once the House committee votes in favor of citing Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt, it goes to the full House for consideration.

    If the full House votes in favor of the contempt citation, the issue is sent to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. A federal law adopted by Congress in 1857 directs federal prosecutors to refer these matters to a grand jury for possible prosecution. The language is mandatory as to the U.S. attorney: "whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action."

    But from there on, it gets complicated.

    The Justice Department has long taken the position, as a separation of powers matter, that Congress cannot force the Justice Department to undertake a prosecution of an executive branch official. The courts have never resolved the question. 

    The Justice Department, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, has further claimed that a U.S. attorney must not initiate a prosecution when the president has asserted executive privilege over what Congress seeks.

    The administration of George W. Bush most recently made this claim during the congressional investigation of the firings of several U.S. attorneys nationwide. Congress subpoenaed former White House counsel Harriet Miers and Chief of Staff Josh Bolton, and the president directed that neither should testify or produce the requested documents. Though the broad issue of executive privlege went to court, it is still unresolved.

    Another gray area here is how much a president can cover under the umbrella of an assertion of executive privilege. The further a matter gets from the White House and presidential decision making, the more the courts have been unwilling to recognize it.

    On a broader point, the federal courts have been reluctant to referee what they see as fights between the White House and Congress. During the legal battle over Miers, the federal district court in Washington practically begged the two sides to work it out without suing each other.

    "The court strongly encourages the political branches to resume their discourse and negotiations in an effort to resolve their differences constructively," it said.

    And finally, there's this point to remember: if this does end up in court, it could take up to two years to resolve, given the time for a trial and subsequent appeals. However, a contempt citation is valid only during the Congress which approved it. Each term of Congress lasts only two years, so if the issue was still in the courts when this Congress ends in a year and a half, the contempt citation would evaporate, and so would any lawsuit.

  • Obama bundler to 'de-register' as lobbyist

    By NBC’s Michael Isikoff

     

    A former Florida congressman who has been a top campaign bundler for President Obama said Wednesday he is taking immediate steps to de-register as a lobbyist for a Florida-based airline so he can continue to raise funds for the president.

    Ron Klein, who has raised between $200,000 and $500,000 for the president, was registered as a lobbyist last month for Spirit Airlines, a low-cost airline that has been fighting new Obama administration airline regulations. But the Obama campaign has a rule against accepting campaign contributions from federally registered lobbyists.

    After the Washington Free Beacon website reported on his lobbyist role today -- noting that he is listed on the Obama campaign's website as one of its bundlers -- Klein told NBC News that his registration with the Secretary of the Senate last month was a "clerical error" by an employee of Holland & Knight, the Washington law and lobbying firm where he currently works. He will "de-register" with the Secretary of the Senate today, he said.

    Klein said he had brought in Spirit Airlines as a client for Holland & Knight in keeping with his role of "business development" for the firm. But, he added, "I'm not a lobbyist" even thought he was listed as one of the three Holland & Knight lobbyists who were registered last month to work on issues relating to "Department of Transportation aviation regulations" and "customs and border protection" at Ft. Lauderdale airport.

    The case illustrates the fuzzy rules of what constitutes lobbying in Washington. Spirit Airlines recently launched a campaign to overturn a new Transportation Department regulation allowing passengers to change flights within 24 hours of booking without paying a penalty.

    The airline has launched a website to fight the new rule -- KeepMyFaresLow.org -- urging customers to contact their congressmen and senators and imposed a $2 fee on its customers it calls the "Department of Transportation Unintended Consequences Fee."

    Klein said he knew Spirit Airlines, because it's located in his former district, resulting in his recruitment of the company for Holland & Knight.

    "They want to express their story on Capitol Hill," he said.

    When first contacted about Klein, an Obama campaign official said by email, "All of the funds he raised for the campaign were raised last year. At the moment, he became a federal lobbyist he stopped raising for the campaign."

    But Klein said he had not heard from anybody in the Obama campaign. And, he added, he fully expects to continue raising money for the president's re-election. 

    "I understand the rules," he said.

  • Obama's elite fundraisers receive plenty of perks

    President Barack Obama’s administration is rewarding elite campaign donors in the same ways that its predecessors did, helping them win influence and access to power in Washington, according to a Center for Public Integrity investigation published Thursday. 

    The investigation of so-called “bundlers” – fundraisers who solicit contributions of up to $2,500 and combine them in campaign donations that range from $50,000 to $500,000 – found that many have been appointed to advisory panels and commissions that can help set government policy. They also have been invited to exclusive White House briefings, holiday parties and social events, the investigation found. 

    And some have landed government contracts that appear to have aided their business interests or investment portfolios.  

    Among the highlights of the CPI investigation: 

    • At least 68 of 350 Obama bundlers for the 2012 election or their spouses have served in the administration.
    • At least 250 of the bundlers have been cleared to attend a White House event since January 2009.
    • At least 30 of the 2012 bundlers have ties to companies that conduct business with federal agencies or hope to do so. 

    Click here to read the full CPI report.