CHECKING IN: Coming up on a year since the deadly insurrection at the Capitol, several watchdog groups are out today with analyses taking stock of corporate America's pledges to pull back on political contributions, either to Republican members who objected to the 2020 election results or to federal lawmakers altogether. — Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington found that more than 717 corporations and trade groups gave more than $18 million to nearly every one of the 147 members of Congress who voted against certifying Biden's presidential win after the insurrection, as well as to House and Senate Republicans' campaign arms. Not all of those were part of the group that pledged to freeze donations — but companies who did make those pledges gave $2.4 million directly to those members' campaigns and leadership PACs through November of last year (campaign finance data for December will not be available until later this month). — The top corporate donors to election objectors last year were Boeing, Koch Industries, American Crystal Sugar, General Dynamics and Valero Energy, the report found, though of those only Boeing and Valero suspended PAC donations after the insurrection, while the Koch political network said it would "weigh heavy" lawmakers' actions in the insurrection. Perhaps unsurprisingly, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who could become speaker if Republicans retake the House this fall, was the top fundraiser among election objectors. — A separate analysis by the watchdog group Accountable.US, first reported by CNBC's Brian Schwartz, examines the public statements of 30 Fortune 500 companies and major trade groups in the days following the insurrection compared with their contributions — and found the companies and trade groups still donated over $8.1 million to election objectors. — Still, as PI reported last year , a recent survey found that nearly half of corporate PACs have changed their criteria for political donations since the insurrection, with more than 80 percent of corporate PACs suspending political contributions in the aftermath. Corporate giving to most of those lawmakers last year was down 60 percent since 2019, Popular Information's Judd Legum reports, even as the party as a whole has begun outraising Democrats and fundraising will really begin to pick up in earnest throughout this year. HOW BIG TECH IS WORKING TO THWART ANTITRUST BILLS: "Amazon and Google are mobilizing a powerful force to counter Congress' increasing appetite for corporate trust-busting," POLITICO's Emily Birnbaum writes: "the throngs of business owners and ordinary users who have made the tech giants a part of their daily lives." — "The campaign, carried out by petitions , email blasts and Zoom calls, seeks to reverse the usual David-vs.-Goliath portrayal of Washington's antitrust debates — pushing the narrative that two of the world's wealthiest corporations are on the sides of the underdogs." — "The antitrust bills' supporters accuse the tech giants of spreading baseless fears and stoking small businesses' anxieties to blunt the growing anti-monopoly momentum in Congress. But the effort shows that the companies' networks of data centers, warehouses, business partnerships and legions of users have given Amazon and Google a huge number of potential allies in their showdown with Washington." — Emily reports that "two members of Congress, who requested anonymity to speak about a divisive topic, said they have been inundated with calls and emails from entrepreneurs who heard Amazon's warnings that the legislation might force it to shut down its platform for sellers. The companies have also told lawmakers whose districts are home to Amazon warehouses and Google data centers that the legislation could lessen their voters' job opportunities, according to two congressional aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly." — The effort appears to have had some degree of success: "A House member whose district includes a Google data center is hesitating on supporting the antitrust legislation after the lawmaker's office received similar objections from the local chamber of commerce, one of the congressional aides said." SOUTH KOREAN CHIPMAKERS LOOK FOR A LOBBYING FOOTHOLD IN DC: Samsung, Hyundai, SK Group and LG , South Korea's largest semiconductor conglomerates, are among the country's chipmakers boosting their lobbying efforts in the U.S. in an effort to win "critical export licences to supply Chinese companies targeted by trade sanctions" and amid pressure from Washington to shift chip and electric battery manufacturing into the U.S., the Financial Times' Song Jung-a reports. — "LG will open a lobbying office in Washington next year, after its battery-making unit LG Energy Solution was embroiled in a multibillion-dollar legal dispute with domestic rival SK Innovation that threatened to disrupt Ford's electric car plans in the US. The company also had to reimburse General Motors after a costly electric vehicle recall over battery flaws." — "The Korean groups are seeking export licences to supply US-blacklisted Chinese companies, including technology group Huawei and chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. The US commerce department had granted more than $103 billion in export licences to Huawei and SMIC from November 9 2020 to April 2021. — "We are trying to hire Americans with connections to Washington as we need to strengthen networking with the US government and Capitol Hill," an executive at LG Energy Solution told FT. Kim Young-woo, an analyst at SK Securities , told the outlet that "Korean chipmakers now have to deal with the commerce department and Pentagon more often to discuss security concerns. So they need to hire more former US officials as their lobbyists." IF YOU MISSED IT OVER THE BREAK: "A new legal ethics complaint from a businesswoman charged in a prosecution involving unregistered foreign lobbying threatens to roil two major cases in the Justice Department's high-profile effort to crack down on foreign influence in the U.S. political system," POLITICO's Josh Gerstein reports. — "The complaint was filed with the Justice Department last month on behalf of Nickie Lum Davis, a Hawaii- and California-based businesswoman. The submission alleges that Public Integrity Section Principal Deputy Chief John Keller acted unethically by negotiating a plea deal for her last year with Davis' attorney at the time, Abbe Lowell, while Keller was investigating Lowell in a separate inquiry into what a judge called a 'bribery for pardon' probe." — "The allegations in the complaint raise questions about whether Davis understood important aspects of her predicament in August 2020 when she pleaded guilty in a Hawaii federal court to aiding and abetting violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act," but they could also "pose complications for a related, higher-profile prosecution against Prakazrel 'Pras' Michel — a well-known rapper and member of the Fugees, a legendary hip-hop trio." Michel was indicted on campaign finance charges in 2019 but last June a grand jury in Washington returned a new indictment accusing him of taking part in the same unregistered lobbying effort as Davis and former RNC deputy finance chair Elliot Broidy.
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