Welcome To Checks & Imbalances | Investigating Money In Politics

Zach Everson

Staff Writer

Thanks for subscribing to Forbes’ Checks & Imbalances. You’re about to get a tour of the money trail winding its way through Washington, D.C.

I used to be a travel writer, and in 2016, I got an unusual assignment: to cover the opening of a Washington hotel that belonged to a man vying for the White House, Donald Trump. After he won, I became fixated on that hotel and began to chronicle the many, many conflicts of interest that came with it.

Now I’m digging into the businesses of other government officials, too. There’s plenty of material. Checks & Imbalances already has broken stories about Ted Cruz’s book deal, the fourth-ranking House Democrat apparently violating stock-trade rules, and likely scam PACs.

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The following is a sample of the Forbes Checks & Imbalances newsletter from Monday, June 7, 2021.

June 7, 2021

SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS ROUTES MONEY TO TRUMP VIA GUBERNATORIAL CAMPAIGN

Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is running for governor of Arkansas, and Donald Trump is benefitting.

Sanders’ campaign paid Mar-a-Lago more than $10,700 on March 12 for event catering according to the committee’s quarterly campaign-finance report. Per a tweet from Sanders, her campaign held a fundraiser at Trump's private Palm Beach resort that weekend.

Sanders also wrote that her fundraiser enjoyed a "surprise appearance" from Trump. Who owns Mar-a-Lago. And lived there at the time.

The $10,700 investment was more than half of what the Sanders campaign spent on event catering for the entire quarter. Less than a month later the campaign returned to Mar-a-Lago to hold another fundraiser (Trump swung by that event too).

The Sanders campaign did not respond to multiple inquiries about why it chose to patronize Mar-a-Lago and if it has plans to book Trump properties again. Similarly, the Trump Organization did not reply when asked if it solicits business from political campaigns.

Former President Trump surprised Sarah Huckabee Sanders when he appeared at her campaign in his home. TWITTER/SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS

WHEELING & DEALING

In May, the wife of Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) dumped more than $100,000 in both Chipotle and Qurate Retail, a media conglomerate. She also bought more than $15,000 of shares in Peloton and an ad-buying platform named The Trade Desk.

In May, the wife of Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.) sold between $30,000 and $100,000 in bonds issued by HSBC linked to the stock price of Bristol-Myers Squibb. She also bought $15,000 to $50,000 in bonds Credit Suisse issued that are linked to Cisco’s stock price.

On May 1, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and his wife bought $15,000 to $50,000 worth of Bird Dog Hospitality Fund 1, which invests in commercial real estate debt.

FOREIGN AGENTS

A possible candidate for Haiti’s presidency, Reginald Boulos, hired Colorado-based Novitas Communications to advocate on his behalf in the United States. Novitas is headed by Michelle Lyng, who's active in Denver’s Republican party. Boulos also pays former Colorado State. Rep. Joe Miklosi (D) $10,000 a month to generate interest in Boulo’s campaign among Haitian-Americans and facilitate meetings with D.C decision-makers.

On May 27, law firm Baker & Hostetler registered with the Justice Department to represent Libya’s Asset Recovery and Management Office “with respect to asset tracing and recovery proceedings.”

Mexico’s Ministry of Finance and Public Credit hired white-shoe law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP to assist with “proposed sovereign debt restructuring legislation.”

JILL STEIN LENT HER CAMPAIGN 10 BUCKS

Apparently feeling generous, Jill Stein floated her campaign a whopping $10 on March 30, according to Federal Election Committee filings.

It’s unclear why Stein's 2016 primary campaign needed such a small amount of money, especially since it ended the quarter with $7,100 on hand. A look at Stein’s social media profiles around the date of the loan provided no clues about the disbursement and her campaign didn’t report any expenditures on March 30.

Neither Stein nor her campaign responded to requests for comment,

“I’ve never seen another campaign committee report a loan from the candidate for such a small amount,” said Brett Kappel, an attorney specializing in campaign finance at Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg.

There are other oddities about Stein’s $10 advance: the FEC filing says the interest-free, unsecured loan is due January 1, 1900.

“The incorrect maturity date may trigger a request for more information from the FEC,” Kappel said.

Stein, by the way, is still soliciting donations to “resolve final issues from the 2016 campaign and pay any residual obligations.”

Anyway, if you know why Stein’s campaign bummed $10 from the candidate, please email your correspondent at zeverson@forbes.com.

Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein waits to be introduced prior to a 2016 press conference. GETTY IMAGES

WELCOME TO THE WORLD

Financial services firm Robinhood launched a political action committee on May 21, in the wake of government investigations and in the lead-up to an initial public offering.

OOPSIES

A360 Media, the successor to the company that owned the National Enquirer, agreed to pay a $187,500 fine to the FEC for the tabloid’s role in catching and killing the story of Karen McDougal, who alleged she had an affair with Trump. It’s one of the largest fines the FEC has ever assessed.

On May 19, the Republican Party of Arkansas informed the FEC that the state party originally failed to report $3.5 million it received from one of Donald Trump’s joint-fundraising committees "due to clerical errors." Seems like a big amount to miss. The Arkansas GOP’s federal account only received $4.8 million in 2019 and 2020. And at the time of the error, the chair of the Arkansas GOP was Doyle Webb, who also was the RNC’s general counsel.

The Republican Party of Minnesota also neglected to originally inform the FEC about almost $350,000 it received from the same Trump joint-fundraising committee, and the Rhode Island Republican State Central Committee made the same whoopsie regarding more than $455,000 it took in from that Trump group.

On May 28, the FEC notified the pro-Bernie Sanders Americans Socially United that the committee would be terminated. The move comes more than two years after the super PAC’s treasurer, Cary Lee Peterson, was sentenced to 52 months in prison for falsifying SEC filings and securities fraud (unrelated to the PAC).

America Rising PAC claimed its debit card number was stolen and used to rack up more than $10,000 in fraudulent charges on Facebook, according to a letter the pro-GOP outlet sent to the FEC. Facebook has issued a refund.

‘YOU’RE FIRED!?’ RNC FINALLY STOPS PAYING FORMER TRUMP BODYGUARD, AFTER HE COLLECTED $585,500 OVER FOUR YEARS

In January, for the first time in three-and-a-half years, the Republican National Committee did not pay Keith Schiller, a former director of security inside the Trump Organization who later became director of Oval Office operations.

The RNC had paid Schiller’s KS Global Group $15,000 a month for “security services” since October 2017, when Schiller left the White House, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.

Attempts to ask Schiller why he was no longer working with the RNC were unsuccessful. An RNC spokesperson who said she’d look into what services KS Global provided and why the committee stopped paying. The spokesperson did not end up responding or replying to follow-up inquiries.

Other than the RNC, the only other federal political committee that has reported payments to Schiller’s firm was the Trump campaign. It paid KS Global Group $10,000 a month between July 2016 and December 2016, as well another $7,500 at the end of the year.

In a financial disclosure filed in early 2017, Schiller reported that his annual income from KS Global Group had been $64,000—about one-third of what the RNC would later pay him in a year. He also reported income of $160,000 from the Trump Organization, $70,000 from Trump's campaign, and $43,000 from his New York City police pension. Schiller listed only four bank accounts as assets in that 2017 filing, with a value totaling $66,000 to $166,000.

According to Palm Beach County records, Schiller purchased a four-bedroom home for $1.075 million in August 2020.

Keith Schiller walks through the lobby at Trump Tower in August 15, 2017 in New York City. Within a few weeks of this photo, he'd left his position as director of Oval Office operations and was providing security for the Republican National Committee. GETTY IMAGES

BILLIONAIRE BACKERS

Connie Ballmer, wife of Microsoft billionaire Steve Ballmer, contributed $3.5 million to Everytown for Gun Safety's PAC on April 8. At month’s end, the committee’s cash on hand totaled $3.66 million.

On March 31, three years after accusations of sexual misconduct surfaced against him, Steve Wynn donated $109,500 to the National Republican Congressional Committee. The Las Vegas legend has denied the allegations. (Separately, the Justice Department informed Wynn he must register as a foreign lobbyist for China, Bloomberg reported in late May.)

Former Anheuser-Busch chair August Busch III donated $125,000 to a fundraising group for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in March. The Busch family was worth an estimated $17.6 billion as of December 2020, making it the 16th-richest family in America.

Members of Tennessee's multi-billion-dollar Haslam family donated a combined $350,000 to the Republican National Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee in March and April.

The Republican National Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee received $912,500 from investment banker Warren Stephens and his trust in March and April.

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg made political contributions totaling $1 million on April 21: some $600,000 went to pro-choice Emily’s List’s super PAC and the League of Conservation Voters’s super PAC received $400,000.

Avram Glazer, part of the billionaire family that owns the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers, contributed $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee on April 30.

Kanye West, who ranked second on Forbes’s 2020 Celebrity 100, told the FEC he is yet to decide if he’ll run for president again in 2024. Or, as he put it in 2008’s “Street Lights,” “Things ain't always set in stone.”

FOLLOWING FRAUGHT EXPERIENCE AS U.S. AMBASSADOR, GORDON SONDLAND HAS CEASED ALL POLITICAL DONATIONS

After making 113 contributions totaling more than $537,000 to federal campaigns since 1984, plus forking over a cool $1 million to Trump's 2017 inaugural, hotelier Gordon Sondland hasn't donated to a political committee since March 2019—just months before he became embroiled in the Ukraine scandal.

“Ambassador Sondland chose to cease any and all political donations during and since his period of service,” said a spokesperson for Provence, the hotel collection Sondland founded and chairs [bold added]. (The campaign for Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), however, reported receiving two $100 contributions from Sondland during his tenure with the State Department.)

Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland testifying before the House Intelligence Committee during an impeachment hearing in November 2019. It was just a few months before this experience that he ceased donating to political campaigns. THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES

THE REVOLVING DOOR

ENTERING

President Biden named Heidi Shyu, a consultant holding positions with several defense contractors, to be the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.

In late April, President Biden nominated Frank Kendall, a board member for three defense contractors and a consultant for yet another three, to be secretary of the Air Force.

Biden nominated Meredith Berger, a senior manager for defending democracy at Microsoft, to be the Navy’s assistant secretary for energy, installations, and environment.

Biden’s nominee to be the country's first national cyber director, Chris Ingliss, sits on at least four corporate boards, including FedEx and Blackpoint Cyber. Ingliss also is the managing director of Paladin Capital Group.

EXITING

On Friday, Taronis Fuels, a producer of renewable and socially responsible fuel products, announced that former Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross has joined its board.

In May, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services in the Trump administration, Caitlin Oakley started as the director of communications at Bristol Myers Squibb, the pharmaceutical giant.

An oversights and investigations counsel in DHS during the Trump Administration, Courtney Veatch started as the associate director of public affairs for the Alzheimer’s Association in April.

Dimple Shah, who served in the Department of Homeland Security in the Trump administration, started as the senior director for global technology and data policy at Honeywell in May. Shah is focusing on global government affairs.

The Semiconductor Industry Association hired Meghan Biery as its director of global technology and security policy. During the Trump administration and for a few months under Joe Biden, she was a senior national security policy adviser at the Bureau of Industry and Security in the Department of Commerce.

Trump’s special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, is the new vice chairman of Cerberus Global Investments.

TRACKING TRUMP

A GOP candidate for governor in New Jersey, pastor Phil Rizzo, held a fundraiser at Trump Bedminster with Matt and Mercedes Schlapp in attendance, according to posts on the campaign’s Instagram and Facebook accounts. Rizzo is a member of the club, David Wildstein for The New Jersey Globe reported previously. Rizzo also visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago recently.

Trump endorsed Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) for that state’s open U.S. Senate seat on Saturday. Budd’s one of several GOP politicians to have called on Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

A local health inspector found seven violations of D.C. regulations during a routine examination of in-room dining at the Trump International Hotel in March. The violations mostly amounted to mundane issues—the facility lacked a garbage disposal and its food containers weren’t labeled. The hotel fixed three of the problems during the visit and three others in the next month. Only one remained unsolved at a follow-up inspection in April: the missing garbage disposal.

The in-room dining facilities at Trump's D.C. hotel had issues according to a health inspector in March. DC HEALTH REGULATION AND LICENSING ADMINISTRATION

"Money / It's a gas"

Pink Floyd

Zach Everson

Staff Writer

I’m a staff writer at Forbes, reporting on money and politics. I took an unusual route to get here. In a past life, I worked as a travel and food writer, which is how I got the assignment in 2016 to cover the grand opening of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., just a couple miles from my home. When Trump won the election and refused to divest his business, I stayed on the story, starting a newsletter called 1100 Pennsylvania (named after the hotel’s address) and contributed to Vanity Fair, Politico and NBC News. I’m still interested in Trump, but I’ve broadened my focus to follow the money connected to other politicians as well—both Republicans and Democrats.

Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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