US Politics

The Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said a deal has been reached with the GOP to repeal the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force against Iraq, which provided the congressional authority for America’s strikes against Saddam Hussein’s government, and the invasion that ultimately toppled him from power.In a speech on the Senate floor, Schumer said the foreign affairs committee would begin considering the measure next week.“There’s support on both sides of the aisle for this proposal. Because both Democrats and Republicans have come to the same conclusion: we need to put the Iraq war squarely behind us once and for all. And doing that means we should extinguish the legal authority that initiated the war to begin with,” the New York lawmaker said.Lawmakers from both parties have sought to repeal the authorizations for years, but never managed to do so. Punchbowl News reports that in the House, two of its most conservative Republican members are leading the charge to approve the repeals.The mystery of “Havana syndrome” continued, with US intelligence agencies concluding no foreign adversary was behind the debilitating attacks on its government officials overseas, but otherwise coming up with no answers for what so harmed their health. Meanwhile at the White House, Joe Biden introduced Julie Su, who he has nominated for a promotion to the labor department’s top post. If confirmed by the Senate, she would be the first Asian American cabinet secretary to serve since he took office two years ago.Here’s what else happened today:
The Senate will consider legislation to revoke the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force against Iraq, its Democratic leader said.
FBI agents in Washington tried to slow down the investigation into Donald Trump’s possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Top Democrats want Fox News to stop promoting Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.
Attorney general Merrick Garland got into it with rightwing senator Ted Cruz over security for supreme court justices.
The mute people in straitjackets wandering around the Capitol? Adam Kinzinger sent them.
Elsewhere in the Capitol, things have gotten a bit weird:The House offices are filled with people silently walking the halls in straitjackets and light-up glasses.I asked if it’s a protest but they indicated they’re not allowed to speak. pic.twitter.com/Q6Lb7NQDh9— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) February 28, 2023
That was from yesterday. Today, the white-clad performers were back, this time displaying a QR code that Axios used to figure out who was behind them: Adam Kinzinger. The retired House lawmaker was one of two Republicans to serve on the January 6 committee, but ultimately decided not to run for another term and left Congress at the end of last year.Now, he’s helming a campaign against political extremism, and told the website the performers’ uniforms and straitjackets were meant to send a message. “We call them ‘drones’ … They’re just kind of droning around, they really don’t have a purpose at the moment… because they just feel unrepresented. They feel like government is just kind of going along.” The whole point of their presence in the halls of the Capitol offices were to grab attention, he said, and satirize the “desperate need of every lawmaker and staffer there” to go viral on social media or appear on TV.Thus far, Kinzinger has spent $250,000 on the campaign’s launch, which also includes advertising on billboards and television. “I’m sure it’ll end up probably building to be even more,” Kinzinger told Axios.The Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said a deal has been reached with the GOP to repeal the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force against Iraq, which provided the congressional authority for America’s strikes against Saddam Hussein’s government, and the invasion that ultimately toppled him from power.In a speech on the Senate floor, Schumer said the foreign affairs committee would begin considering the measure next week.“There’s support on both sides of the aisle for this proposal. Because both Democrats and Republicans have come to the same conclusion: we need to put the Iraq war squarely behind us once and for all. And doing that means we should extinguish the legal authority that initiated the war to begin with,” the New York lawmaker said.Lawmakers from both parties have sought to repeal the authorizations for years, but never managed to do so. Punchbowl News reports that in the House, two of its most conservative Republican members are leading the charge to approve the repeals.Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator whose hostility to aggressively fighting climate change and some social aid programs infuriated progressives, remains coy about whether he will stand for another term in 2024, Punchbowl News reports.Try and decode this:Asked if he’ll run for re-election, Manchin says “I will be involved.”— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) March 1, 2023
Love him or hate him, the truth is that Manchin’s presence has allowed Democrats to control the Senate since January 2021 – and few in the party believe that voters in red-state West Virginia would replace him with another Democrat if he does not run again.As he testifies before the Senate judiciary committee, it’s become clear what Republicans are using as their attack line of the day against attorney general Merrick Garland.GOP senators at the hearing are accusing him of ignoring the security concerns of conservative supreme court justices, who were the target of protests outside their homes, particularly around the time of their decision to overturn Roe v Wade. Case in point, here’s Republican Tom Cotton of Arkansas’s exchange with Garland:Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) asks Attorney General Merrick Garland why the DoJ wouldn’t arrest protesters outside Supreme Court justices’ houses when the department devoted time to prosecuting January 6th insurrectionists.Garland: “Our priority is violence and threats of violence.” pic.twitter.com/Oqksj0TbaQ— The Recount (@therecount) March 1, 2023
Last year, Congress agreed to pay for more security for supreme court justices and their families in a measure approved by bipartisan votes.Our world affairs editor, Julian Borger, considers the state of US-China relations, and views about US-China relations from both sides of the aisle in DC, a day after the first hearing of the House China committee…The Biden administration has settled on the ambiguous phrase “pacing challenge” to characterise Beijing’s place in its global outlook, but the newly formulated House China committee expressed impatience with such delicacy at its first hearing on Tuesday.“We may call this a ‘strategic competition’,” said Mike Gallagher, the committee’s Republican chairman. “But this is not a polite tennis match. This is an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century, and the most fundamental freedoms are at stake.”The ranking Democrat, Raja Krishnamoorthi, said both Republican and Democratic administrations had underestimated the threat posed by China and called for a policy built around deterrence.“We do not want a war with the PRC [People’s Republic of China], not a cold war, not a hot war, we don’t want a ‘clash of civilizations’. But, we seek a durable peace. And that is why we have to deter aggression,” Krishnamoorthi said.Here’s Lauren Gambino’s report on that first committee hearing:‘Time is not on our side’: Congress panel says tackling China defines next centuryRead moreSpeaking of Trump’s election subversion and the events of January 6, Politico is first to report a new move by Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican and member of GOP royalty who stood up to Trump, vice-chaired the House January 6 committee and lost her seat in Congress to a Trump loyalist as a result.Cheney is joining the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia as a professor of practice, Politico reports, a move due to be announced today. The daughter of the former congressman, defense secretary and vice-president Dick Cheney will “offer guest lectures in classes and public events as well as participate in research”.Liz Cheney said: “There are many threats facing our system of government and I hope my work with the Center for Politics and the broader community at the University of Virginia will contribute to finding lasting solutions that not only preserve but strengthen our democracy.”The other Republican who sat on the January 6 committee, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, retired from Congress rather than face losing his seat to a Trumper.Politico now reports that he is launching “a nationwide campaign urging voters to reject extreme candidates on both sides of the aisle ahead of the 2024 election”..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The centerpiece of the campaign is a nearly six-minute-long video titled Break Free, inspired by Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl ad about escaping the conformity of non-Apple computers. In the political ad’s twist, people are forced to wear blue- and red-tinted goggles showing them divisive images and broadcasts from a Big Brother-type character until they take them off and escape. A monologue from Kinzinger urges Americans to reject political extremes.”Here’s more about the 1984 Apple ad:The Apple Super Bowl ad that announced the future was hereRead moreAnd here’s an interesting nugget about Cheney: her defiance of Trump was in part informed and inspired by her reading of Lincoln on the Verge, a 2020 book by the historian and sometime Guardian contributor Ted Widmer which you should definitely read. Here’s some lunchtime reading on that:‘What it means to be an American’: Abraham Lincoln and a nation dividedRead moreDonald Trump has responded to news of Rupert Murdoch’s extraordinary deposition in Dominion Voter Systems’ billion-dollar defamation suit against Fox News.The deposition concerns the repetition by Fox News hosts of the lie spread by Trump and his advisers and allies that Joe Biden’s 2020 election win was the result of voter fraud, specifically voter fraud supposedly carried out using Dominion machines in extraordinarily outlandish ways.The Trump response is, predictably, furious and filled with a characteristic disregard for the truth:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}If Rupert Murdoch honestly believes that the Presidential Election of 2020, despite MASSIVE amounts of proof to the contrary, was not Rigged & Stolen, then he & his group of MAGA Hating Globalist RINOS should get out of the News Business as soon as possible, because they are aiding & abetting the DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA with FAKE NEWS. Certain BRAVE & PATRIOTIC Fox News Hosts, who he scorns and ridicules, got it right. He got it wrong. THEY SHOULD BE ADMIRED & PRAISED, NOT REBUKED & FORSAKEN!!!That was delivered, of course, via Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform which he set up after being booted off Twitter for inciting the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.For some further and rather more temperate reading, here’s Charles Kaiser’s look at why the Dominion suit is such a serious problem for Murdoch and Fox News:How Dominion Voting Systems filing proves Fox News was ‘deliberately lying’Read moreAnd here’s Ed Pilkington’s look at the Murdoch deposition … and why it is such a serious problem too:Stunning Rupert Murdoch deposition leaves Fox News in a world of troubleRead moreThe mystery of “Havana syndrome” continues, with US intelligence agencies concluding no foreign adversary was behind the debilitating attacks on its government officials overseas, but otherwise coming up with no answers for what so harmed their health. Meanwhile at the White House, Joe Biden introduced Julie Su, who he nominated for a promotion to lead the labor department. If confirmed by the Senate, she would be the first Asian American cabinet secretary to serve since he took office two years ago.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
FBI agents in Washington tried to slow down the investigation into Donald Trump’s possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Top Democrats want Fox News to stop promoting Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.
Attorney general Merrick Garland got into it with rightwing senator Ted Cruz over security for supreme court justices.
Joe Biden is cheering news that drugmaker Eli Lilly will drop the price of insulin:Huge news.Last year, we capped insulin prices for seniors on Medicare, but there was more work to do.I called on Congress – and manufacturers – to lower insulin prices for everyone else.Today, Eli Lilly is heeding my call. Others should follow. https://t.co/Kv57KFATe9— President Biden (@POTUS) March 1, 2023
As is Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Thanks to the leadership of President Joe Biden, Americans across the country will no longer be forced to pay astronomical prices for the life-saving insulin they need. Make no mistake: Eli Lilly’s decision to cap its insulin prices at $35 a month is a direct result of President Biden calling on drug manufacturers to lower insulin prices for everyone else, after Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act to cap insulin costs for seniors on Medicare, which every single Republican in Congress voted against. While Democrats’ fight to bring down costs for American families, MAGA Republicans have threatened to try and repeal the Inflation Reduction Act and raise drug prices for millions of Americans.”Attorney general Merrick Garland usually presents a placid facade in public, but in today’s Senate judiciary committee oversight hearing, Republican Ted Cruz managed to get the top prosecutor’s back up.The Texas lawmaker hammered Garland about why US Marshals did not stop protesters outside the homes of supreme court justices who voted last year to overturn Roe v Wade. Republicans have used the arrest of California man who allegedly plotted to murder conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh to argue that the demonstrators presented a threat to justices, and that the Biden administration did little to stop it.Here’s the exchange:Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and AG Garland go back and forth over protesters outside SCOTUS justices’ homes.Cruz: “How did you choose not to enforce this statute?”Garland: “The marshals on scene …”Cruz: “Marshals don’t make that decision.”Garland: “They do make the decision!” pic.twitter.com/FlPLy8etU3— The Recount (@therecount) March 1, 2023 More

House committee advances legislation to ban TikTok over security concernsRepublican committee chair describes Chinese-owned social app as a ‘spy balloon in your phone’A powerful US House committee has applied further pressure to TikTok by backing legislation that could give Joe Biden the power to ban the social video app.The House foreign affairs committee voted on Wednesday along party lines to grant the administration new powers to ban the Chinese-owned app as well as other apps believed to pose security risks. The fate of the measure is still uncertain and it would need to be passed by the full House and Senate before it can go to Biden.The Republican committee chair, Michael McCaul, described TikTok this week as a “spy balloon in your phone”, referring to the Chinese surveillance balloon that was shot down off the coast of South Carolina last month. Democrats on the committee voted against McCaul’s deterring America’s technological adversaries act but Republican lawmakers pushed it through 24 to 16.The committee vote came in the same week that Canada joined the US in banning TikTok from being installed on all government-issued mobile devices, due to security concerns. The European Commission has also banned TikTok from staff phones. Politicians who support the TikTok bans have expressed concerns that the Chinese government could access user data or manipulate public opinion via the app – accusations that TikTok denies.On Monday the British government said there was no evidence of the need for a TikTok ban.“We have no evidence to suggest that there is a necessity to ban people from using TikTok,” the UK’s secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, Michelle Donelan, told Politico. “That would be a very, very forthright move, that would require a significant evidence base to be able to do that.”McCaul told Reuters after the vote that he thinks the TikTok bill will be taken up on the floor “fairly soon” and voted on by the full House this month. He said this week that Democrats would prefer to rely on a security review of TikTok being undertaken by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, although an approved plan has yet to emerge from that process.Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House foreign affairs committee, said he opposed the legislation because it would “damage our allegiances across the globe, bring more companies into China’s sphere, destroy jobs here in the United States and undercut core American values of free speech and free enterprise”. TikTok has around 110 million users in the US, according to analytics firm data.ai, and more than 1 billion worldwide.In a letter sent to McCaul this week, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) warned that the legislation was “vague and overbroad” and would “violate the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans who use TikTok to communicate, gather information, and express themselves daily”.TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, said it was “disappointed” to see the legislation being brought forward.“A US ban on TikTok is a ban on the export of American culture and values to the billion-plus people who use our service worldwide. We’re disappointed to see this rushed piece of legislation move forward, despite its considerable negative impact on the free speech rights of millions of Americans who use and love TikTok,” said a TikTok spokesperson.On Tuesday a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said banning TikTok on US government devices revealed Washington’s own insecurities and was an abuse of state power.Reuters contributed reportingTopicsTikTokUS politicsChinanewsReuse this content More

Biden nominates Julie Su as his first Asian American cabinet secretaryPresident calls Su, who is still to be confirmed by the Senate, ‘the American dream’ as he picks her to lead US labor departmentCalling her “the American dream”, Joe Biden on Wednesday introduced his nominee to lead the US labor department, Julie Su, who if confirmed will become the first Asian American cabinet secretary in his administration.“Julie is the American dream,” the president said in a White House ceremony.Su is a civil rights attorney and a former head of the California labor department. Biden noted how both her parents came to the US from China, her mother holding a union job and her father owning a small business.“I think even more importantly, she’s committed to making sure that dream is within reach of every American,” Biden said.In her own remarks to lawmakers and officials, Su said: “Sixty years ago, my mom came to the United States on a cargo ship because she couldn’t afford a passenger ticket.“Recently, she got a call from the president of the United States telling her that her daughter was going to be nominated to be US labor secretary.”Noting that a union job gave her parents a path to the middle class, eventually leading her to college at Stanford and law school at Harvard, Su said: “I believe in the transformative power of America, and I know the transformative power of a good job.”Lawmakers have pressured Biden for not having any cabinet secretaries of Asian American or Pacific Islander (AAPI) descent, though the parents of the US trade representative, Katherine Tai, grew up in Taiwan and the mother of the vice-president, Kamala Harris, was Indian.In a nod to that pressure, Biden opened Wednesday’s ceremony by remarking: “If in fact you were not picked to be the next secretary of labor, I would be run out of town.”Su is currently deputy labor secretary. If confirmed she will take over from Marty Walsh, who is leaving to lead the National Hockey League player’s union.Biden said: “If I ever want anybody in the foxhole with me, I want Marty Walsh.”As Walsh’s deputy, Su was central to negotiations between labor and freight rail companies last year, working to avert a strike. She has also worked to broaden employee training and crack down on wage theft.Her nomination will run through the Senate, which is controlled by Biden’s Democratic allies. Su has drawn support. The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said on Tuesday she would be “phenomenal” in the job.“The president couldn’t have picked a better nominee,” the New Yorker told reporters. “I’m really excited about her, and we’re going to move to consider her nomination very, very quickly.”Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who will preside over Su’s confirmation as chair of the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee, also praised the selection.“I’m confident Julie Su will be an excellent secretary of labor,” Sanders tweeted. “I look forward to working with her to protect workers’ rights and build the trade union movement in this country.”The Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy, the top Republican on the committee, opposed Su when she was selected for deputy secretary. He called her record “troubling” and “anti-worker”.The committee should “have a full and thorough hearing process”, Cassidy said.In the House, Judy Chu, the California Democrat who chairs the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, said she was “overjoyed” and thanked Biden for “nominating your first AAPI cabinet secretary”.“It certainly is better late than never,” Chu said.The Associated Press contributed reportingTopicsJoe BidenUS politicsBiden administrationnewsReuse this content More

Ohio senators introduce safety rules after toxic train derailment disasterRailroads would be subject to new federal regulations and financial consequences under legislation Railroads like the one involved in last month’s crash and toxic chemical release in East Palestine, Ohio, would be subject to new federal regulations and financial consequences under legislation introduced on Wednesday by the state’s two US senators.The Railway Safety Act of 2023 is cosponsored by Sherrod Brown and JD Vance, a Democrat and Republican, and others of both parties.The bill responds to the derailment of a Norfolk Southern train near the Pennsylvania border on 3 February, when 38 cars derailed and more burned.‘Crafting an illusion’: US rail firms’ multimillion-dollar PR pushRead moreThough no one was injured or killed, the accident imperiled neighborhoods in both states, prompting an evacuation of about half the 4,000 residents of East Palestine, a multi-agency emergency response and worries about health impacts.The new bill aims to address questions including why the Ohio state government was not made aware the hazardous load was coming through and why the crew did not learn sooner of an impending malfunction.“Through this legislation, Congress has a real opportunity to ensure that what happened in East Palestine will never happen again,” Vance said. “We owe every American the peace of mind that their community is protected from a catastrophe of this kind.”Brown said it shouldn’t take a disaster for elected officials to work for their communities.“Rail lobbyists have fought for years to protect their profits at the expense of communities like East Palestine and Steubenville and Sandusky,” he said. “These commonsense bipartisan safety measures will finally hold big railroad companies accountable, make our railroads and the towns along them safer, and prevent future tragedies, so no community has to suffer like East Palestine again.”Under the bill, all trains carrying hazardous materials, including those that do not fall under existing regulations for high-hazard flammable loads, would face new requirements. Carriers would need to create emergency response plans and provide information and advance notification to emergency response commissions in each state a train passes through.Hazardous materials shipments account for 7% to 8% of roughly 30m railroad shipments in the US each year. But almost any train, aside from grain or coal trains, might carry one or two cars of hazardous materials, because railroads often mix shipments.The Association of American Railroads says 99.9% of hazardous materials reach their destinations safely, and railroads are generally regarded as the safest option to transport chemicals on land.Railroad unions argue that operational changes and widespread job cuts have made railroads riskier. They say employees are spread thin and train crews deal with fatigue because they are on call 24/7.The new bill would set train crews at a two-person minimum. The provision isn’t in response to East Palestine – where the train had three crew members – but to a trend toward one-person crews. The Federal Railroad Administration was already considering requiring two-person crews in most instances. That rule was proposed last summer but the agency is reviewing comments received.Under the Senate bill, the US Department of Transportation would be required to revisit rules on train size and weight and to work to stop delays causing trains carrying hazardous loads to block rail crossings.Train lengths have grown to two miles or more, as railroads streamline operations. Unions say longer trains are more prone to problems and can clog lines because they extend farther than sidings off main tracks.Brown, Vance and their cosponsors – including the Pennsylvania Democrats Robert Casey and John Fetterman and the Republicans Marco Rubio, of Florida, and Josh Hawley, of Missouri – also would increase the maximum fine the US Department of Transportation can impose for safety violations. It would rise from $225,000 to up to 1% of a railroad’s annual operating income, which could be tens of millions of dollars.The bill also requires railroads to pay for hazardous materials training for first responders.The National Transportation Safety Board determined the crew in East Palestine was alerted by a device detecting overheating bearings, but not soon enough to prevent the crash. Federal regulators have urged rail operators to re-examine practices regarding such detectors. The Senate proposal would make them more prevalent.The bill would set requirements for installing, maintaining and placing the devices and mandate they scan trains carrying hazardous materials every 10 miles, twice as often as the East Palestine train was scanned. No federal requirements exist for wayside detectors, though they are widely used.The Federal Railroad Administration would be required under the bill to update inspection regulations to ensure cars carrying hazardous materials receive regular checks. Railcar inspectors previously had about two minutes to inspect every car but now get about 30 to 45 seconds, unions say. Signalmen who maintain signals and warnings at crossings have bigger territories to cover.Two Democrats, Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania and Ro Khanna of California, have introduced a separate bill in response to East Palestine in the Republican-held House.TopicsOhio train derailmentUS politicsRail industrynewsReuse this content More

Drugmaker Eli Lilly says it will cut insulin prices by 70%Move comes amid criticism of healthcare companies over rising costs of insulin, as CEO says cuts ‘should be the new standard’Eli Lilly will cut list prices by 70% for its most commonly prescribed forms of insulin, Humalog and Humulin, beginning from the fourth quarter of this year, the drugmaker said on Wednesday.The move comes amid criticism of healthcare companies by US lawmakers over rising costs of insulin, with Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act including a $35 cap on insulin for those enrolled in Medicare health insurance plans.More than a million Americans ration insulin due to high costsRead more“While we could wait for Congress to act or the healthcare system in general to apply that standard, we’re just applying it ourselves,” the company’s chief executive, Dave Ricks, told CNN in an interview.The drugmaker will also lower the price of its non-branded insulin injection Lispro to $25 a vial and expand its Insulin Value Program, under which the $35 cap will apply to about 85% of US pharmacies.Rick said patients using other pharmacies that do not participate in the program can get a rebate through the drugmaker’s website.He said the price cuts “should be the new standard in America” and called on other companies and stakeholders “to meet up at this point”.“Insulin has become such a pivotal issue because of affordability,” Rick said.About 8.4 million of the 37 million people in the United States with diabetes use insulin, according to the American Diabetes Association.Eli Lilly, along with Sanofi and Novo Nordisk, makes up 90% of the US market for insulin.Drugmakers had previously priced insulin at more than $275 a vial, representing a 1,200% increase in price over the past 20 years, according to the advocacy group Insulin Initiative.TopicsPharmaceuticals industryDiabetesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

They’re lobbying for Ukraine pro bono – and making millions from arms firmsSome of Washington’s most powerful lobbyists are providing their services to Ukraine for free, but they also have financial incentives for aiding the countryThis article was co-published with Responsible Statecraft.Some of Washington’s most powerful lobbyists are providing their services to Ukraine for free – but at the same time, they are taking in millions in fees from Pentagon contractors who stand to benefit from the country’s war with Russia.Following Russian president Vladimir Putin’s internationally condemned decision to invade Ukraine there was an outpouring of support to the besieged nation from seemingly every industry in America. But, arguably, one of the most crucial industries coming to Ukraine’s aid has been Washington’s powerful lobbying industry.The invasion has led some of the lobbying industry’s biggest players to do the unthinkable – lobby for free. While the influence industry may have altruistic reasons for representing Ukraine pro bono, some lobbying firms also have financial incentives for aiding Ukraine: they’ve made millions lobbying for arms manufacturers that could profit from the war.The surge in pro-bono Ukraine lobbyingUS law requires agents of foreign principals who are engaged in political activities to make periodic public disclosures of their relationship under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (Fara). Twenty-five registrants have agreed to represent Ukrainian interests pro bono since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Before the war, just 11 Fara registrants were working on behalf of Ukrainian interests.“I don’t recall a comparable surge in pro-bono work for any foreign principal,” said David Laufman, a partner at the law firm Wiggin and Dana, who previously oversaw Fara enforcement at the justice department.Many of these new pro-bono Ukrainian lobbyists are pushing for greater US military support for the Ukrainian military. As one registrant explained in a Fara filing, they intend “to lobby members of the US government to increase US Department of Defense spending on contracts related to equipment and other efforts which will aid the ability of the Ukrainian military to succeed in its fight against the Russian military”.While many of these pro-bono lobbyists may be doing this work purely out of solidarity with Ukraine, some of the firms working free of charge for Ukraine have an added incentive.Hogan LovellsBefore winning the speakership in the new Republican Congress, Representative Kevin McCarthy warned that Republicans wouldn’t approve a “blank check” for Ukraine aid once they took power. But, just last week the GOP’s biggest fundraiser agreed to provide pro-bono assistance in loosening Congress’s purse strings when it comes to Ukraine.On 16 February, former senator Norm Coleman, senior counsel with the law firm Hogan Lovells, filed Fara paperwork revealing that he is pro-bono lobbyist for a foundation controlled by the Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk. Coleman oversaw the raising and spending of over $260m in funds supporting Republican congressional candidates in the 2022 midterm elections.Coleman, who has extensive experience as a lobbyist for foreign interests via his longstanding role as an agent for Saudi Arabia, was already busy at work for Ukraine. Emails from 4 February disclosed as part of Coleman’s Fara disclosures, revealed him requesting assistance from senators Lindsey Graham and Thom Tillis’s chiefs of staff in hosting an event at the Capitol “to give members of Congress a better understanding of the horrific loss of life and the tragic agony that the people of Ukraine have experienced over the course of the last year as a direct result of Russian war crimes” and “do as much as possible to ensure continued, strong, bipartisan support for the truly heroic efforts that this administration and Congress have made to provide the essential military and economic assistance to Ukraine”.While Hogan Lovells conducts this work pro bono, two of the firm’s paying clients, Looking Glass Cyber Solutions and HawkEye 360, have extensive defense department contracts and an interest in the conflict in Ukraine.Looking Glass, which paid Hogan Lovells $200,000 in 2022, holds a five-year contract with the Department of Defense to “to provide tailored cyber threat intelligence data and enhance the mission effectiveness of US military cyber threat analysts and operators” and writes on its website about the role of such threats in Russia’s military strategy.HawkEye 360, which also paid $200,000 to Hogan Lovells in 2022, similarly is a defense department contractor, specializing in detection and geolocation of radio signals. Their detection network conducted analysis in Ukraine and their website boasts of identifying GPS interference in Ukraine, appearing to be part of Moscow’s “integration of electronic warfare tactics into Russian military operation to further degrade Ukraine’s ability for self-defense”.Hogan Lovells did not respond to multiple requests for comment.BGRBGR Government Affairs (BGR), a lobbying and communications firm, began working pro bono for two Ukrainian interests last May. The contracts are with Vadym Ivchenko, a member of Ukraine’s parliament, and Elena Lipkivska Ergul, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.In 2022 BGR made more than half a million dollars lobbying for Pentagon contractors, some of whom are already profiting from the Ukraine war. Raytheon, for example, which paid BGR $240,000 to lobby on its behalf in 2022, according to OpenSecrets, has already been awarded more than $2bn in government contracts related to the Ukraine war.Indeed, two days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a BGR adviser was publicly calling for increased military aid to Ukraine in the face of Putin’s recognition of the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics as independent states.“Militarily, the United States and Nato allies need to get far more serious about helping Ukraine defend itself,” wrote Kurt Volker, BGR senior adviser and former US Nato ambassador, in an article published by the Center for European Policy Analysis (Cepa).His article, “Buckle Up: This is Just the First Step”, was promoted on the BGR website. Cepa did not disclose Volker’s BGR affiliation in the article.“BGR has no conflict of interest and is proud of its work on behalf of Ukraine and all of its clients,” said BGR’s president, Jeffrey H Birnbaum, in a statement responding to questions about whether their work posed any such conflict.MercuryMercury Public Affairs (Mercury), a lobbying, public affairs and political strategy consultancy, began working pro bono for GloBee International Agency for Regional Development (“GloBee”), a Ukrainian NGO, in mid-March 2022. The firm made headlines for agreeing to work for a Ukrainian client pro bono. The firm’s Fara filing later in the year shows that Mercury’s work consisted of sending just four emails on Globee’s behalf in the first three and a half months of this arrangement.Mercury, like BGR, was also working on behalf of Pentagon contractors in 2022, while working for a Ukrainian client pro bono. All told, Mercury reported being paid more than $180,000 for lobbying on behalf of Pentagon contractors in 2022.Mercury’s work for a Ukrainian client is also notable because before the Ukraine war the firm had, for years, been working on behalf of Russian interests. This work included lobbying on behalf of Russia’s Sovcombank, as well as a Russian energy company founded by the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska was recently implicated in a scheme to bribe an FBI agent that was investigating him. Mercury dropped both of these Russian clients when the Ukraine war began, but not before earning nearly $3m from these Russian interests in the five years before the firm agreed to work for a Ukrainian client pro bono, according to Fara filings.Mercury did not respond to multiple requests for comment.Navigators GlobalOn 29 April 2022 Navigators Global, which describes itself as an “issues management, government relations and strategic communications” firm, registered under Fara to represent the committee on national security, defence and intelligence of the Ukrainian parliament. According to the firm’s Fara filing, they reached out to dozens of key members of Congress on behalf of the Ukrainian parliament – including eight phone calls, texts and emails with McCarthy – and contacted the House and Senate armed services committees two dozen times.As Navigators Global was doing this pro-bono lobbying of the policymakers in Congress with, arguably, the greatest sway over US military assistance to Ukraine, the firm was also raking in revenue from Pentagon contractors. Specifically, in 2022 Navigators Global made $830,000 working on behalf of defense contractors, according to lobbying data compiled by OpenSecrets. The firms’ lobbying filings also show that their work for these contractors was directed, among other issues, at the FY23 National Defense Authorization Act, the defense policy bill that increased spending on the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative by half a billion dollars.Navigators Global did not respond to multiple requests for comment.OgilvyOn 26 August 2022 Ogilvy Group, a giant advertising and public relations agency, registered under Fara to work with the ministry of culture and information policy of Ukraine on the ministry’s Advantage Ukraine Initiative. The initiative’s website describes it as the “Investment initiative of the Government of Ukraine”. The top listed investment option is Ukraine’s defense industry. Ogilvy is joined in this endeavor by fellow Fara registrants Group M and Hill & Knowlton Strategies, as well as the marketing company Hogarth Worldwide, which has not registered under Fara.While the Ogilvy Group spread “the message that Ukraine is still open for business”, as its statement of work with the ministry explains, Ogilvy Government Relations was lobbying for Pentagon contractors who paid the firm nearly half a million dollars in 2022. These two Ogilvy organizations are technically separate entities. They are owned by the same parent company, WPP.At least one of the contractors that Ogilvy Government Relations lobbies for, Fluor, would appear to directly benefit from increased US military support for Ukraine and heightened US military presence in Europe more generally. In 2020, the US army’s seventh army training command awarded Fluor with a five-year Logistics Support Services contract, which a Fluor spokesman explained, “positions Fluor for future work with the US European Command and the US Africa Command headquarters located in Germany”. Fluor paid Ogilvy Government Relations $200,000 for lobbying in 2022, according to OpenSecrets.Ogilvy did not respond to a request to comment on the record.As the war in Ukraine heads into its second year, US defense spending continues to balloon. Weapons and defense contractors received nearly half – $400bn – of the $858bn in the 2023 defense budget.“There’s high demand for weapons to transfer to Ukraine and to replenish shrinking US stockpiles … contractors are seeing billions of dollars in Ukraine-related contracts.” said Julia Gledhill, who investigates defense spending at the government watchdog the Project On Government Oversight.TopicsUkraineLobbyingUS politicsArms tradefeaturesReuse this content More

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