Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi reassured investors concerned about new European Union regulations in December, telling a group of bankers that his company can continue to thrive even under rules that would force it to hire drivers as employees.

“We can make any model work,” Khosrowshahi said when asked about potential EU legislation that would require Uber to designate drivers as employees or provide additional rights such as vacation time and a pension.

Speaking by video at a December 14 “fireside chat” hosted by the Swiss bank UBS, Khosrowshahi told investors that recent decisions in Spain and the United Kingdom have not drastically harmed the company. In the past year, both countries have enacted rules compelling gig companies to provide more worker protections to drivers.

“Spain business is up close to 40 percent on a year-on-year basis, and Spain EBITDA margins are very close to our overall long-term margins as well,” noted Khosrowshahi, referencing the company’s cash flow before taxes and interest.

“There’s a lot of demand for our technology, our service, our brand, our safety, our reliability. So any model can work economically for us,” he added.

The Uber CEO’s nonchalant remarks appear to contradict the company’s stance in the United States.

The classification of gig economy drivers has become one of the most contentious modern labor industry issues in the U.S., where an estimated 59 million total gig workers labor without benefits, guaranteed hours, or the protection of a union. Uber has been a leading force in preserving this gig structure, pouring over $190 million into a ballot measure in California alone to reverse rules that granted most drivers employee status. The regulations, passed by the California State Assembly in 2019 as Assembly Bill 5, or A.B. 5, aimed to make these workers eligible for minimum wage, union membership, and health care benefits.

In 2020, as gig companies fought the law in California courts, Khosrowshahi floated the possibility of temporarily suspending services in the entire state. The law has now been partially repealed, keeping the ride-hailing and delivery drivers it was designed to convert classified as independent contractors.

Uber has preserved its focus on maintaining this classification in every market in which it operates. The company is currently spending millions of dollars on advocacy to enshrine independent contractor status laws for drivers in Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and other states that have considered gig labor reform.

Employer costs for employee benefits tend to be higher in the U.S. than in Europe, given the U.S. system of employer-provided health coverage. In many European states, the government provides health benefits and directly limits health care costs.

But the political environment is different across the Atlantic in many other ways. Despite a string of lobbying victories in the U.S. around the driver classification issue, the tides have recently turned in Europe, where the courts and elected officials are more aligned with labor interests.

Last August, Spain enacted the “Rider Law,” which requires gig food delivery companies to classify drivers as employees. Uber lashed out in response, claiming that such rules “directly hurt thousands of couriers who use food delivery apps for much-needed flexible earnings opportunities and made it clear they do not want to be classified as employees.”

Like in the U.S., independent contractors in Spain are not afforded a number of employer-provided benefits, such as paid leave, and are excluded from joining unions or collective bargaining agreements. Under the new law, Just Eat, Europe’s largest gig economy food delivery platform, signed a contract with Spanish unions CCOO and UGT for a higher hourly rate, extended vacation, a maximum working day of nine hours, and other protections. Uber Eats, however, responded by hiring a fleet of drivers through third-party employment agencies, an arrangement that helps the California-based firm avoid direct management of its drivers while complying with the Spanish labor law.

In the U.K., courts ruled last year that Uber must classify 70,000 drivers as “workers.” The worker classification, a technical distinction from either an independent contractor or employee under British labor law, allows drivers to receive a minimum wage, vacation time, and access to a pension plan.

In the wake of the U.K. decision, Khosrowshahi published an opinion column pledging to respect the ruling and treat drivers as workers. “Following last month’s UK Supreme Court ruling, we could have continued to dispute drivers’ rights to any of these protections in court. Instead, we have decided to turn the page. Beginning today, Uber drivers in the UK will be treated as workers,”  Khosrowshahi wrote.

By revealing Uber’s continued business success in Spain despite the enhanced worker protections, last month’s investor call belies the company’s advocacy.

The series of defeats for Uber’s management could roll into a much larger setback, as the EU is now considering federation-wide adoption of Spain’s gig economy law. The European Trade Union Confederation said that the EU “must” follow Spain’s lead and adopt a similar law, a push that is growing in the European Parliament.

While conceding defeat in the U.K., Uber has continued to oppose Spain’s Rider Law and has employed lobbyists in Brussels to prevent a similar statute from being enacted across the EU. By revealing Uber’s continued business success in Spain despite the enhanced worker protections, last month’s investor call belies the company’s advocacy.

Asked for comment about Khosrowshahi’s apparent reversal, Uber emphasized its focus on treating drivers as independent contractors.

“Poll after poll shows that drivers overwhelmingly want to remain independent contractors and work where and when they want — but they also deserve more protections,” wrote Uber spokesperson Noah Edwardsen in an email to The Intercept.

“In Europe, Accenture, Good Work, Oxford Economics and the latest studies from Copenhagen Economics (based on a survey of 16k European couriers) as well as Compass Lexecon make it clear the #1 reason people access platform work is for flexibility to earn money while balancing other commitments, and would prefer to remain independent. This is why we believe the best answer is to provide new benefits, while ensuring drivers and couriers keep the flexibility they value,” Edwardsen continued.

But labor advocates see a company that is merely forced to comply with the rules and will stop at nothing to maximize profit for executives and shareholders.

“Uber has always said it couldn’t adapt to an employee model that afforded its drivers fundamental protections in law like a minimum wage and the right to form a union,” wrote Steve Smith, a spokesperson for the California Labor Federation, in a statement to The Intercept.

“Dara Khosrowshahi’s acknowledgement that the company can — and has — adapted to treating workers as employees in other countries is a slap in the face to every single driver in the US that Uber continues to exploit,” Smith added. “It boils down to pure greed of wealthy executives who will do anything in their power to lock workers out of having a share of the profits their labor creates.”

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The representatives of the biopharmaceutical companies behind the Covid-19 vaccines made undisclosed donations to Democratic and Republican campaign organizations last year.

The revelations are detailed in the latest tax filings of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, which lobbies on behalf of Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and other leading biotech companies involved in the business of treating the Covid-19 virus.

BIO has long served as an influential voice for the biotech industry on Capitol Hill and has more recently become the public face of the vaccine industry amid the Covid-19 crisis.

But the decision to step up direct contributions to dark-money groups active in the 2020 election reflects a new strategy for BIO, which in previous years only gave to congressional leaders through relatively low-dollar and transparent PAC donations.

The tax disclosure shows that BIO gave $500,000 to Majority Forward, a nonprofit that works to elect Senate Democrats. BIO gave $250,000 to American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic fact-checking and research website that sponsored campaign advertisements in support of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign and Democrats during the Georgia special election. Neither group discloses donor information.

Center Forward, which was instrumental in backing conservative Democrats opposed to broad drug price negotiation policies proposed this year as part of the Build Back Better Act, received $35,000 from BIO.

The spending was part of a wave of pharma money entering politics through both lobbying and campaign cash that paid dividends. After the election, many prominent Democrats, including Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida and Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, sided with BIO against proposals to share vaccine intellectual property with low-income countries. More recently, the Build Back Better Act passed by the House contained a watered-down version of the original Democratic proposal for Medicare drug price negotiations.

One Nation, the dark-money nonprofit with ties to Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., received $250,000 from BIO during the election. The group transferred much of its cash to super PACs backing Senate Republicans involved in closely contested races.

The campaign money, undisclosed during the 2020 election, was only made public in the 990 tax form over a year after voters went to the polls. And the true source of the money is still obscured. BIO is funded through annual contributions by biotech companies that use the organization as a veil of anonymity to cloak their political engagement. The group raised over $77 million last year.

Johnson & Johnson voluntarily disclosed that it provided at least $500,000 last year to BIO and says that about one-third of its support to the organization goes to lobbying or direct political advocacy. Moderna also voluntarily discloses its support of BIO. John Young, a Pfizer executive, sits on BIO’s board of directors.

BIO did not respond to a request for comment.

The aggressive shift in campaign donations comes as BIO has transitioned leadership. Last summer, former Rep. Jim Greenwood, R-Pa., who had long served as the head lobbyist for BIO, earning about $2.5 million a year, retired from the position. The organization is now helmed by Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath, a former Johnson & Johnson executive who has promised to bring the industry into the modern era with a new focus on social justice and diversity.

Over the last two years, BIO has led the charge in shaping and defending corporate-friendly vaccine policies. The organization operates COVIDVaccineFacts.org and has fiercely opposed policy proposals that might limit the potential for profits from vaccine sales, such as caps on drug prices.

And despite BIO’s commitment to “promote health equity,” McMurray-Heath has aggressively attacked the proposal for vaccine makers to share the manufacturing know-how and intellectual property secrets necessary for cheap, generic vaccines to be produced for low-income countries. The new BIO president has mocked the proposal from public health activists as among the “empty gestures” that won’t solve the Covid pandemic and has been quoted widely on the industry-focused push to maintain World Trade Organization rules that restrict the open use of vaccine IP.

While wealthy countries such as Japan and the U.S. have easily purchased more than enough vaccines, low-income countries have struggled to obtain affordable access. The World Health Organization reports that fewer than 6 percent of people in the African continent are vaccinated against Covid-19. Earlier this year, McMurray-Heath’s lobbyists encouraged the Biden administration to impose trade sanctions on countries that placed price restrictions or engaged in the production of generic vaccines without the consent of U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturers.

In recent comments to reporters, following a series of meetings with the Biden administration, Congress, and international trade officials, McMurray-Heath said that any effort to share vaccine IP would be “almost unforgivable.” Biopharmaceutical lobbyists worked carefully at every stage of the pandemic to ensure favorable outcomes for the industry.

Disclosures show that in the first months of the spread of Covid-19 in the U.S., BIO lobbyists moved to shape a broad range of issues around vaccine development, pricing, legal liability, and transparency. The group lobbied on all of the appropriation measures aimed at financing the research and production of vaccines and therapeutics used to treat Covid-19.

Congress approved over $10.5 billion for the production of vaccines, money that ultimately went to BIO members such as Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. Despite hefty support from taxpayers for the basic science, research personnel, development funds, and manufacturing money used to produce the Covid vaccines, the industry has ensured a policy environment that positions private corporations as the sole owners of vaccine technology, with the final say over the price and production level.

The success of the vaccine has been an unprecedented financial windfall for vaccine makers. A recent report from the People’s Vaccine Alliance, a group that favors that creation of a generic vaccine, found that Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna are earning combined profits of $65,000 every minute. Pfizer alone will bring in $33.5 billion from its vaccine this year, making it one of the bestselling drug products ever produced.

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Pfizer and other large pharmaceutical corporations are pushing to block legislation that would make it easier for whistleblowers to hold companies liable for corporate fraud.

In the midst of a dizzying legislative environment, with much attention focused on the Build Back Better debate, major corporate interests, including Pfizer, are fighting an update to the False Claims Act, a Civil War-era law that rewards whistleblowers for filing anti-fraud lawsuits against contractors on behalf of the government.

The law has historically returned $67 billion to the government, with whistleblowers successfully helping uncover wrongdoing by military contractors, banks, and pharmaceutical companies.

The law has been particularly thorny for Pfizer. In 2009, Pfizer paid $2.3 billion in criminal and civil fines to settle allegations that the company illegally marketed several drugs for off-label purposes that were specifically not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The company instructed its marketing team to advertise Bextra, which was approved only for arthritis and menstrual cramps, for acute and surgical pain issues. The lawsuit, brought under the False Claims Act through the actions of six whistleblowers, ended in one of the largest health care fraud settlements in history.

But the law poses far less risk today to companies engaged in criminal behavior. That’s because the anti-fraud statute has been severely hampered by a series of federal court decisions that radically expanded the scope of what’s known as “materiality.” In 2016, the Supreme Court ruled in Universal Health Services v. United States ex rel. Escobar that a fraud lawsuit could be dismissed if the government continued to pay the contractor.

The court reasoned that if the government continues to pay a company despite fraudulent activity, then the fraud is not “material” to the contract. That ruling functionally neutered application of the False Claims Act against many companies that are so large that the government cannot abruptly sever payments, especially against large health care interests and defense contractors.

Recent court decisions, including cases involving Honeywell and Halliburton, show contractors winning dismissal of fraud cases by simply citing “continued government payments.” Last year, a federal district court dismissed a False Claims Act case against engineering company Aecom brought by a whistleblower alleging widespread billing fraud for a $2 billion contract in Afghanistan. Aecom lawyers also cited the government’s continued payments to the company. The lawsuit is now under appeal.

What’s more, the federal government has taken an active role in discouraging cases. In 2018, the Trump administration’s Justice Department issued the “Granston Memo,” which encouraged the dismissal of more whistleblower-initiated suits under the False Claims Act.

In October, Attorney General Merrick Garland officially rescinded the “overly restrictive” memo, a move widely seen as designed to promote greater False Claims Act enforcement.

The erosion of the statute has brought together a bipartisan push, led by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, to update the law to give whistleblowers greater protection against potential industry retaliation and make it more difficult for companies charged with fraud to dismiss cases on procedural grounds.

Earlier this year, as he introduced the legislation, Grassley took to the Senate floor to showcase images of scrapped multibillion Afghanistan War contracts and examples of fraud cases that have escaped accountability because of the judicial constraints placed on the False Claims Act.

“Defendants get away with scalping the taxpayers because some government bureaucrats failed to do their job,” thundered the senator. “In my many years of investigating the Department of Defense, it has taught me that a Pentagon bureaucrat is rarely motivated to recognize fraud. That’s because the money doesn’t come out of their pocket.”

“A Pentagon bureaucrat is rarely motivated to recognize fraud. That’s because the money doesn’t come out of their pocket.”

The legislation, the False Claims Amendments Act of 2021, adjusts the materiality standard to include instances in which the government made payments despite knowledge of fraud “if other reasons exist” for continuing the contract. The bill also expands the anti-retaliation protections of the law, which currently only cover current whistleblower employees of a company. The bill seeks to prevent an industry from blacklisting former whistleblowers seeking employment.

That push has run into a buzzsaw of corporate opposition, some of it disclosed and some of it shrouded from public view. Pfizer hired Hazen Marshall, a former policy director for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to lobby on the issue, along with the law firm Williams & Jensen, a powerhouse that employs an array of former congressional staffers.

Pfizer, which has cast itself as a hero in the fight against Covid-19 and a trustworthy corporate citizen, did not respond to a request for comment.

In an initial test vote, the bill was blocked. In August, Grassley proposed his False Claims Amendments Act as an amendment to the bipartisan infrastructure agreement in the Senate. The bill, however, never reached the floor for a vote because of an objection lodged on behalf of Senate Democrats.

In October, the legislation again found a hearing. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., attempted to erase most of the bill in a Judiciary Committee meeting. The amendment Cotton proposed sought to strike all substantive lines of the bill except for the first title, which is simply the description of the legislation. During committee debate, Cotton argued that the Supreme Court “made the right decision” in the Escobar case and the “continued payment” standard for materiality. The legislation “potentially could increase health care costs,” the senator argued, echoing industry claims that litigation from the False Claims Act would force health care interests to raise prices.

The American Hospital Association reportedly lobbied to delay a vote, but the bill eventually passed 15-7 out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, with the support of Grassley and his main co-sponsor, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

“This is a very concerted lobbying effort that really took our supporters on Capitol Hill by surprise.”

“This is a very concerted lobbying effort that really took our supporters on Capitol Hill by surprise,” said Stephen Kohn, a whistleblower attorney with the law firm Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto.

Many of the companies engaged in the lobbying fight have chosen to conceal their efforts through undisclosed third-party groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has made the Grassley bill one of its primary targets for defeat. The chamber does not disclose its membership or which corporations direct its advocacy, but previous reporting suggests companies such as Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, and JPMorgan Chase, among others that have faced False Claims Act violations in the past.

Other trade groups — including the American Hospital Association, the Healthcare Leadership Council, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and the American Bankers Association — have lobbied against the bill without disclosing the companies directing their actions.

The known corporate interests lobbying on the Grassley bill include Pfizer, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Merck, and Genentech. These companies listed the legislation on lobbying disclosures. All five have paid nine-figure settlements over health care fraud brought to light through the False Claims Act.

“Drug companies are notorious for paying kickbacks, giving benefits in exchange for a competitive advantage. Drug companies and health care firms are about 80 percent of the False Claim[s] Act recoveries for a reason,” said Kohn.

In the case of Pfizer’s record settlement, whistleblowers charged that the company promoted Bextra for uses that were not approved by the FDA, placing patients at risk for heart attack and stroke. The company allegedly paid doctors kickbacks for off-label uses. The False Claims Act, like other “qui tam” laws, awards whistleblowers a portion of the money the government recovers from lawsuits.

“Drug companies are notorious for paying kickbacks, giving benefits in exchange for a competitive advantage.”

“The whole culture of Pfizer is driven by sales, and if you didn’t sell drugs illegally, you were not seen as a team player,” said John Kopchinski, one of the Pfizer whistleblowers, following the settlement.

The Grassley initiative is championed by a diverse array of watchdog groups over government waste. Taxpayers Against Fraud, the National Whistleblower Center, the Project on Government Oversight, and the Government Accountability Project are among the groups officially supporting the update to the anti-fraud law.

But advocates have expressed confusion over the involvement of several other supposed taxpayer protection organizations. Citizens Against Government Waste and Americans for Tax Reform, two conservative groups that do not disclose donor information, filed a letter to lawmakers urging them to vote down the Grassley measure.

Despite Citizens Against Government Waste’s official focus on fighting government waste, the very intent of the False Claims Act, the group’s lobbying arm argued in a letter that the bill was not appropriate for inclusion in the infrastructure package because it is “not related to traditional infrastructure” and the bill is not fully “understood by the 95 senators who have not cosponsored” the legislation. Americans for Tax Reform similarly argued that the legislation had not “received proper debate.”

Neither Citizens Against Government Waste nor Americans for Tax Reform responded to a request for comment explaining why they have lobbied so aggressively against taxpayer protection legislation and whether any donor interests are involved.

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In 2004, then-Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., cast herself as a conservative, commonsense Democrat focused on finding savings, such as moving to allow Medicare to use its size and scale to collectively negotiate lower drug prices.

“We tried desperately to allow the secretary of [the Department of Health and Human Services] to negotiate, using all 42 million seniors as a negotiating tool, to bring down the cost of pharmaceuticals,” said Lincoln, staring down her Republican opponent during a televised debate. “And we weren’t allowed to do that. At least two times I voted on that amendment.”

Days later, she won her reelection campaign. But six years after that race, Lincoln was swept out of office during the 2010 congressional midterm elections, due in part to an infusion of drug company dark money that flowed into the race.

Lincoln now serves Pfizer as a lobbyist focused on blocking the very cost-saving proposal she once championed. The Lincoln Policy Group, a firm she founded, brings in about $20,000 per month working to maintain the ban on Medicare negotiating lower drug prices that is now being weighed in Congress’s budget reconciliation package.

In strategy calls with other drug company officials, Lincoln has worked to fight the drug pricing proposal. And in recent weeks, the former senator has continued to socialize with Democratic leadership, including making an appearance at a recent rooftop party in Washington, D.C., where House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., were in attendance.

The popular, once bipartisan idea to hold down Medicare costs is now at the center of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda. Legislation backed by the administration calls for Medicare to mirror other government agencies, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, in being able to negotiate for cheaper medicine through the Part D program.

The idea could potentially save the government nearly $500 billion over a decade, freeing up funds to pay for the expansion of other Medicare programs, including a new proposed benefit to cover dental, vision, and hearing care that is part of the president’s so-called Build Back Better plan. The drug pricing proposal could also translate to lower prescription costs across the board, as private health insurers would also have access to the reduced prices.

The drug industry, according to its top lobbyist, Stephen Ubl, has made defeating the provision its top priority, calling the legislative effort “an existential threat to the sector.” The industry has marshaled major resources, including calls from patient advocacy groups and sponsored advertising in key districts.

But inside the Beltway, the opposition is coming from familiar faces. Many leading Democratic lawmakers and staff have been hired by the drug industry to convince their former colleagues to abandon the drug pricing proposal.

The Democratic National Committee held its very first indoor, in-person fundraiser this year on the rooftop of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, a prominent law firm that helps drug companies such as Eli Lilly and Co., Johnson & Johnson, and Roche influence the drug pricing debate. Lobbyists from the firm mingled with DNC Chair Jaime Harrison and other prominent Democratic officials, according to a report about the event.

Lincoln’s onetime colleague, former Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., also works at Brownstein as a lobbyist for Eli Lilly and Co. Pryor, like Lincoln, voted to allow Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices when he served in office, before making the jump to the private sector. In 2007, Pryor appeared with other Senate Democrats and activists to demand action on lowering prescription drug prices by lifting the prohibition on Medicare’s negotiating power.

Pfizer alone has assembled a lobbying team that includes Dean Aguillen, a former adviser to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Remy Brim, a former health policy adviser to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; and over half a dozen aides to senior Senate Democrats.

Ann Jablon, former chief of staff to Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., the current chair of the Ways and Means Committee, with jurisdiction over tax-writing policy, currently represents several drug companies as a lobbyist, including Amgen Inc., Astellas Pharma, and Bayer.

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the trade group that represents the largest drug companies in the world, has also gone on a hiring spree of Democratic lobbyists, adding Vin Roberti, a prominent fundraiser close to Pelosi, to its roster of 185 registered lobbyists earlier this year. In recent months, PhRMA has hired other firms with close ties to congressional Democrats, including Thorn Run Partners, Foley & Lardner LLP, and Tiger Hill Partners. In July, PhRMA hired Christopher Putala and his firm, Putala Strategies, as a contract lobbying firm. Putala is a former aide to Biden.

The drug industry has even retained some influence among its most outspoken critics. Michaeleen Crowell, former chief of staff to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is working as a lobbyist on behalf of drug company Horizon Therapeutics PLC against the Medicare pricing proposal.

Of course, it’s not only Democratic staff and lawmakers retained by drugmakers. Former Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., is retained by both Merck and PhRMA, while former Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., works for Pfizer. Dozens of former GOP aides make a living as drug industry lobbyists.

The tidal wave of influence spending appears to be paying off. Not only are GOP lawmakers standing firm against any measure to allow Medicare to use its bulk buying power to bring down prices, but a few conservative Democrats have also broken ranks to threaten the proposal.

Last month, a group of centrist House Democrats, including Reps. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore.; Scott Peters, D-Calif.; and Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., joined with Republicans to vote against adding the Medicare drug pricing language to the $3.5 trillion social spending bill in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Instead, they support a counterproposal that would limit the drugs Medicare could negotiate. Schrader and Peters have both received significant campaign cash from the pharmaceutical industry.

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Few lawmakers are as outspoken about the end of the war in Afghanistan as Michael Waltz, a Republican from Florida’s 6th Congressional District.

In recent weeks, Waltz has called on President Joe Biden to “reverse course,” relaunch military operations in the region, and “crush the Taliban offensive by committing American air power” supported by “special forces.” The Florida congressman has warned darkly of an “Al-Qaeda 3.0” and stated that no negotiations should take place with the Taliban “until the situation is stabilized militarily.”

Leading this push, in the pages of newspapers, over talk radio, and on cable television, Waltz couches his advocacy in his identity and experience. Not only is he a sitting memer of Congress, but he is a former Green Beret, a former aide to Dick Cheney, and “a father … sickened by what’s to come for the Afghan women and girls that are being mercilessly abused by the Taliban and sold into sex slavery,” as he wrote in opinion column published last week in Fox News.

There’s one crucial part of Waltz’s experience he tends to leave out: Before his successful run for Congress in 2018, he managed a lucrative defense contracting firm with offices in Afghanistan. The company was recently sold to Pacific Architects and Engineers, or PAE, one of the largest war contractors the U.S. has hired to train and mentor Afghan security forces. The deal personally enriched Waltz by up to $26 million, a figure made public by a filing disclosed this month.

In 2010, after stints in the military and as an adviser to the Bush administration, Waltz helped found Metis Solutions, a defense contractor that “provides strategic analysis, intelligence support, and training,” with offices in Arlington, Virgina; Tampa, Florida; Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; and Kabul, Afghanistan. The company grew rapidly to 400 employees.

Led in part by Waltz, the company won coveted contracts to train special forces in Afghanistan, including a controversial program to develop artisanal mining operations in strategic villages.

“Congressman Waltz is a highly decorated army officer who served his country in uniform for the last 25 years that included combat tours in Afghanistan where he took the fight directly to the Taliban alongside Afghan forces,” said a Waltz spokesperson in a statement to The Intercept. “Additionally, he served in civilian positions where he frequently traveled to Afghanistan at his own risk to assist in building the capacity of the Afghan government and business sectors.”

Metis Solutions continued to grow even after Waltz stepped down to serve in Congress. In July 2020, shortly before its acquisition by PAE, Metis Solutions was awarded a $26 million contract from the military on “counter threat finance.” The announcement of the award noted that the work would be conducted in Afghanistan and the U.S.

Congressional ethics disclosures show that in 2019, Waltz held up to $1 million in equity from Metis Solutions and up to $250,000 in options of Metis Solutions stock. In November 2020, PAE announced that the company was acquiring Metis Solutions in an all-cash deal worth $92 million with the self-proclaimed goal to increase its foothold in the intelligence, analysis, and training space serving government clients. The lawmaker’s subsequent ethics disclosure, filed last week, shows that he earned between $5 and $25 million in capital gains from his stock sales, in addition to up to $1 million from exercising his options.

For Waltz, the timing was impeccable. The sale occurred just before the formal announcement by both Donald Trump and Biden to finally end the war in Afghanistan. PAE’s stock is now down nearly 20 percent since last year, with the greatest drop in value occurring over the last month. The company has been reported as among the most harmed by the decision to draw down forces in Afghanistan.

Waltz is “proud to have helped build a company that employs hundreds and provided advisory support to the U.S. military and Afghan government,” his spokesperson wrote to The Intercept. “This in no way disputes the recklessness of the Biden Administration’s withdrawal. Congressman Waltz is in full compliance with his obligations as approved by the House Ethics Committee with Democrats in the majority.”

PAE is the fourth largest defense contractor active in Afghanistan since fiscal year 2016. Over that period, the company accumulated contracts in Afghanistan worth more than $930 million, largely for the training and mentoring of Afghan security forces. It currently holds the primary contract for securing the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

For PAE, these great financial gains from war come despite allegations of waste and failure.

In 2015, PAE paid $1.45 million to settle a whistleblower fraud case claiming that the company set up a big-rigging scheme to defraud the U.S. government over uniforms intended for the Afghan military. Two years later, the company paid another settlement, this time for $5 million, over claims that the firm submitted false invoices and defrauded the government over its work mentoring counter-narcotics police in Afghanistan.

Metis Solutions’ work in Afghanistan included a foray into the controversial area of mineral extraction. In 2012, the firm released a statement touting its work with the Afghan government developing agribusiness, construction, and mining. “We are very excited to begin this important work,” said Waltz in a press release. “Together with our Afghan partners and the Department of Commerce, METIS will make this program an instrumental next step in developing Afghan businesses for sustainable growth.”

Part of the work developing mining solutions came from the Afghan Business Development program, funded through USAID, which provided $1.8 million to Metis Solutions.

Another part of the mining development work was funded through the Pentagon’s “Task Force for Business and Stability Operations initiative,” an effort that was reportedly rife with fraud. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan, known as SIGAR, reported that Metis Solutions was tapped by the TFBSO to “provide an artisanal mining expert to train both special forces personnel and local partners in proper artisanal mining methods and supporting Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force–Afghanistan Village Stability Operations by identifying potential small scale mineral development in strategic villages.”

But the projects never got off the ground. Another SIGAR audit report found that Metis Solutions was one of several contractors awarded TFBSO work that “met few to none of their contract deliverables.” The report noted that “these contract deliverables were not met because of a combination of inadequate planning by TFBSO, weak definition of contract requirements, lack of oversight by TFBSO of its contractors, changing circumstances in Afghanistan, and changing priorities of the Afghan government.”

In particular, the auditors flagged that Metis Solutions was forced to terminate its contract in less than five weeks over timeframe concerns and a bidding dispute. The report did not blame Metis Solutions for the failure and noted that “because of unforeseen obstacles, it may have avoided the waste of $83,861 had it not rushed Metis contractors to deploy to Afghanistan before the protest could be resolved.”

Wasted dollars and failed projects are perhaps among the most defining aspects of the American-led occupation of Afghanistan, which is estimated to have cost more than $2 trillion over its 20 years. SIGAR audits have identified countless examples of mind-boggling forms of fraud and waste worth hundreds of billions of dollars, including $70 million embezzled from a trucking company, $1.6 million on a water-filtration system that failed after only two months, and $50 billion on mine-resistant vehicles that were scrapped as unnecessary.

The police forces trained by PAE and other defense contractors have declined in quality in recent years, and they quickly abandoned their posts as the Taliban approached over the last month. The failure should come as no surprise.

Auditors found that Kabul residents experienced skyrocketing crime in 2020, with violence unfolding in previously safe neighborhoods. Gallup polling has indicated that the failure to protect the Afghan public from petty criminals and organized crime was a central concern for residents in 2019, before the Taliban’s recent return to power. At the same time, there were rampant reports of police corruption, with Afghan police involved in extortion schemes and checkpoint robberies of residents.

The extractive industry has been similarly scarred with grift and false hope. Afghanistan’s recently deposed President Ashraf Ghani has faced criticism over his personal family ties to artisanal mining contracts, allegedly concealed from the public during his time in office. The industry has faced pervasive corruption, as well as health and safety issues, and few stable job prospects for Afghan residents.

Waltz’s fervor for protecting the Afghan people ignores years of government reports showing an abysmal record of U.S. nation-building efforts. The U.S.-launched war has resulted in the deaths of 47,245 civilians, over 66,000 Afghan police and military, widespread torture, and the empowerment of warlords and criminal gangs that have unraveled life for most Afghans.

Even the mixed gains for women’s rights in Afghanistan have faded under U.S. occupation. SIGAR has shown that female participation in Afghan elections declined dramatically since 2014, and many of the U.S.-backed gender equality efforts have been poorly designed and implemented, with little local support. As several independent investigative reports have found, the U.S. has falsified women’s enrollment in education programs and misled on other development benchmarks.

Waltz, though, is undeterred, and has said America’s 20-yearlong engagement in Afghanistan is only the beginning.

“We are in a multi-decade war and we are only 15-years in,” said Waltz, speaking to the Scout Warrior and the National Interest for a story published in January 2017. The future congressman and defense contractor said he expected a 100 year war.

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Public relations experts working for a mysterious client have been preparing ghostwritten opinion columns set to run in Arizona newspapers.

The columns sharply warn Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema to oppose civil litigation reform legislation designed to prevent Americans from being forced into binding arbitration. If enacted, the legislation would ensure consumers’ and employees’ rights to pursue civil litigation against corporations, rather than going through a private arbitrator.

The catch? The consultants couldn’t find local Arizona residents to author the columns. Instead, they are offering as much as $2,000 to help identify “normal, everyday” people willing to sign their names to prewritten arguments.

Emails shared with The Intercept show that Drew Johnson, a former journalist, reached out to a group of consumer attorneys last week for assistance with the ghostwritten push to pressure Kelly and Sinema.

“I’m a columnist and a scholar at several public policy think tanks in Washington,” wrote Johnson. “I’m currently working on an effort with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of think tanks, arbitration professionals and businesses to fight back against the FAIR Act.”

“I’ve written several Arizona-focused newspaper op-eds explaining why a ban on arbitration would harm employees, consumers and businesses. My hope is to find a normal, everyday person who has benefitted from arbitration to sign on to the op-ed pasted below as the author,” Johnson explained. “If one of your clients is willing to sign on to the piece, I can offer you $2,000 for your time.”

The attached draft opinion column imagines a hypothetical situation in which “it’s six o’clock on a Friday night and you come home to find your refrigerator and freezer are broken.” The cold beers are warm, and groceries must be thrown out. The best way to resolve the dispute with the refrigerator manufacturer, the column argues, is through binding arbitration, a process placed in danger by the FAIR Act.

The FAIR Act, also known as the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act, sponsored by Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., eliminates forced arbitration agreements in employment, consumer, and civil rights cases. The bill passed the House of Representatives in 2019 before stalling in the Senate; the legislation has been revived this year. If signed into law, the bill would allow voluntary arbitration only if the customer or employee agrees to it instead of civil litigation.

The use of binding arbitration in consumer and employment cases has expanded radically in recent years. The once obscure practice, typically relegated to disputes between businesses, has become commonplace in employment contracts, and most major corporations now include binding arbitration clauses when selling consumer products.

Opponents of the practice argue that the private arbitrators tend to favor corporations, which usually stipulate in arbitration clauses that they have the sole power to select which arbitration firms are used. Private arbitrators are not required to follow legal precedent; appeals are rarely allowed; and most arbitrations are conducted in secret, meaning that cases involving defective products or employment abuse are kept hidden from public view.

The proceedings also tend to restrict discovery, the process by which parties obtain information, and do not allow punitive damages, a basic element of civil litigation to deter businesses from fraudulent or abusive practices.

The results have been sprawling. Uber drivers claiming they have been denied payment and misclassified as independent contractors have been forced into binding arbitration. Customers who have found bedbugs in furniture ordered online have had cases thrown out of court and been forced into binding arbitration.

Yet proponents argue that arbitration is a cheaper and faster process than civil litigation. The cases are quickly brought to arbitration firms. Disputes are resolved rapidly, without the need for an employee or customer to seek the costly services of an attorney. The proponents claim that the civil litigation process is a financial boon primarily for class-action attorneys, not customers or employees.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest corporate trade association in America, which spends more on lobbying Congress than any other entity and represents firms ranging from Goldman Sachs to AT&T to Walmart, has made the defeat of the FAIR Act a major focus. The Chamber has vowed to reward opponents and punish supporters of this legislation by making it a “key vote” it uses to score members of Congress.

In addition to lobbying directly and providing campaign contributions, special interests often seek to shape legislative outcomes by ghostwriting public comments or newspaper letters seemingly from constituents or influential figures.

United Airlines lobbyists ghostwrote a letter seeking to build support for curtailing competition from foreign airlines. Comcast’s consultants ghostwrote community letters in support of its bid to acquire Time Warner Cable. Lobbyists for the health care industry more recently were caught ghostwriting opinion columns denouncing the Medicare for All health insurance system.

But the identity of the business coalition financing the push to build popular opposition to the FAIR Act is still shrouded in secrecy.

In his email to the attorneys, Drew Johnson identified himself as a “senior scholar” for the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative-leaning think tank. 

But David Ridenour, the president of the National Center for Public Policy Research, denied any affiliation with this specific campaign against the FAIR Act in an email to The Intercept. “Your email inquiry was forwarded to me and as the CEO and the only employee empowered by our board to authorize expenditures, I can tell you with complete certainty that the National Center for Public Policy Research is not offering attorneys $2,000 to help fight the FAIR Act. This is not our effort. While Drew Johnson is a senior scholar with the National Center, he does not work for us exclusively,” wrote Ridenour.

Johnson told The Intercept that he was in fact contacting attorneys on behalf of his spouse, who owns a small public relations firm. 

“I helped her find voices for a FAIR Act project,” he wrote in an email. “I will not disclose her clients, but I can say unequivocally that the Chamber is NOT a client and neither of us have had any discussions with anyone at the Chamber about the FAIR Act. Also, no think tank I work with has anything to do with the project. This is my wife’s project and I was just helping her out.”

The email was followed by an email from Sarah Johnson, who said her firm, Spotlight Liberty, was tapped to build opposition to the FAIR Act. 

“I will be happy to share client information as soon as the trial lawyers funding the lobbying and media effort in support of the FAIR Act disclose all of the lobbying firms, PR companies and media outlets they are working with,” wrote Sarah Johnson, who accused The Intercept of obtaining her husband’s “poorly worded email” from the “trial lawyers lobby.” (The Intercept received the email from a source who is not a lobbyist or paid by any advocacy group.)

It was surprising that the Johnsons had reached out to a group email list used by consumer attorneys for help seeking to oppose the FAIR Act, the source said. Consumer attorneys are typically inclined to oppose binding arbitration agreements.

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In courthouses across the country this week, grief and anger over looming eviction orders turned to hope as the Biden administration shifted course.

The evictions were temporarily halted yesterday with the announcement that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will extend the federal eviction moratorium in counties with “high levels of community transmission levels” for 60 days.

But not everyone was pleased. Some view the coming eviction wave in more jubilant terms, as a long-awaited financial opportunity to increase dividend payments. Wall Street financial analysts, speaking to corporate-owned apartment complexes in recent weeks, have pressed for answers on how investors can benefit from the expected wave of tenant evictions.

Many of the largest investor-owned apartment trusts have carefully tracked pandemic-related restrictions on landlords, preparing for a return to normal so that those late on payments can be removed and rents can be increased. The push for profits comes despite the fact that many corporate landlords are roaring back and performing better than ever.

In June, rents soared 14.6 percent over the previous year, a rate of increase not seen since 1993. Publicly traded residential real estate stocks have been surging, with increased dividends and stock performance that have made them one of the most successful asset classes this year.

NexPoint Residential Trust, which owns over 14,000 rental units around the country, noted in a call with investors last week that its occupancy rate is up to 96 percent, a rate the company noted was at an “all-time high” and positions the company to “aggressively push [rental] rates” for the “remainder of the year.”

But that good financial news also included a push to evict the relatively small number of nonpaying tenants.

“We’re tiering out the folks that we think are candidates for eviction immediately,” announced Brian Dale Mitts, the chief financial officer of the company.

“Could you talk a little bit, maybe about that process, how quickly you get them out?” asked Michael Robert Lewis, an analyst with Truist Securities, the recently formed investment bank. Lewis also asked about the “market fundamentals” of the end of the eviction moratorium as “not just you but others kind of release all of a sudden available inventory into the market.”

Matthew Ryan McGraner, the chief investment officer of NexPoint, noted that the firm had identified 123 units that have “gone dark on us, so to speak or haven’t been making any payments.”

Those units, he said, have been notified, evictions have been filed, and the company had teams prepared to go in and renovate to place the units back on the market. On the bigger economic question, of how landlords might be harmed by a sudden influx of available rental units and renters from the end of the moratorium, McGraner noted “most institutional owners will not rent to a tenant that’s been evicted for whatever reason” and would be going to apartments that are “lower quality.”

Last Thursday, UDR Inc., a real estate trust that owns 149 apartment complexes, also released its earnings report, showing dazzling growth. The company reported strong financials, including increased revenue and a 97.5 percent occupancy rate, a “new high watermark.” Alexander Kalmus, a senior associate with Zelman & Associates, during the call pressed UDR on the end of various restrictions on landlords.

UDR executives quickly chimed in, explaining that the firm would move swiftly on evictions once the moratoriums are gone.

“We have about 400 people that if we could evict today, we would,” replied Michael Lacy, UDR’s senior vice president of property operations, during a general discussion of the company’s second quarter earnings.

“I think, too, as you look at that 400, some of those individuals are just noncommunicative individuals that will not communicate with us, that have not signed a declaration of hardship from Covid that, in many cases, have the ability to pay those rents,” said Joseph Fisher, UDR’s chief financial officer.

“They have the ability to pay in many cases,” he added. “They have simply taken advantage of the system.”

Thomas Toomey, UDR’s chief executive, added that the company lost $1.5 million to $1.6 million a month from the 400 tenants they planned to evict.

“So the challenge for us in the future,” said Toomey, “we’d like to get the unit back, reprice it to market, and get that revenue stream back online. That being said, we will work with any resident on their hardship and programs to take advantage of government aid or keep them in our apartment homes, but we are anxious to get those 400 units back online in terms of revenue.”

UDR and NexPoint did not respond to a request for comment.

The pressure from investment banks on investor-owned apartment complexes has existed since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

In May of last year, during an earnings call, Daniel Ismail, an analyst with Green Street Advisors, pushed executives at Douglas Emmett, which owns apartment buildings in southern California and Hawaii, to find creative ways to pressure delinquent tenants on rent.

“You mentioned the restrictions on evictions. Are you able to utilize security deposits and letters of credits to make up some of the shortfall and nonpayment?” asked Ismail.

Jordan Kaplan, an executive at the firm, said no. “I don’t think pulling security deposits and starting to sort of unravel a lease going kind of DEFCON 4 on them, I just don’t think it’s the right idea right now,” he noted. “I think if we get these moratoriums worked out to be less penalizing, I think a lot of these people are just going, ‘I’ll pay now.’”

The real estate industry has been vocally opposed to the CDC’s moratorium.

Lobbying records show real estate groups spent millions of dollars over the last year attempting to weaken or repeal eviction moratoriums and other landlord-related restrictions relating to the pandemic.

Last December, the National Apartment Association, a trade group representing landlords, joined a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the eviction moratorium order. And last month, the National Apartment Association filed a new suit designed to recover economic losses incurred by the CDC’s eviction moratorium.

In both lawsuits, the apartment industry interests argued that the CDC lacked the legal authority to make such a sweeping policy and that apartment owners were forced to shoulder an undue burden from the pandemic.

Congress enacted the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, a $46.5 billion fund to assist renters facing financial hardship from the Covid-19 crisis. But both landlords and tenant advocates have complained that state governments have failed to deliver the money with a botched rollout that has made applications for the grant money virtually impossible in many jurisdictions.

The Intercept has previously reported on the failure of states to deliver the renters’ assistance. New York’s online application did not open until June 1 and other states have faced chronic problems, including onerous paperwork requirements that effectively prevent a range of tenants from qualifying.

Many small landlords, including individuals who own a single property or a duplex, have argued that the eviction restrictions, combined with the failed delivery of federal assistance, have left them on the verge of bankruptcy.

But corporate landlords, which own roughly half of the rental market and have access to vast financial and legal resources, have managed the losses well and are returning to unprecedented levels of occupancy and profits.

Despite the good fortune, many of the investor-owned apartment complexes are still preparing to seize the end of the eviction moratorium.

The Supreme Court last month ruled in a 5-4 decision to maintain the previous CDC order preventing evictions. But the court also ruled that Congress would have to pass clear legislation to extend the moratorium past July 31. Lawmakers have not done so, leaving the new CDC order extending the moratorium until October in legal limbo.

The post Wall Street Investors Press Corporate Landlords on Eviction Plan appeared first on The Intercept.

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Let’s Build Infrastructure is preparing to launch formally in Washington, D.C., next week with a six-figure advertising blitz focused on pressing lawmakers to use privatization, rather than taxation, to pay for the infrastructure proposals debated in Congress.

The organization touts public-private partnerships and a process known as “asset recycling,” in which the government finances new construction and repairs by selling or leasing roads, bridges, water utilities, parking lots, and other infrastructure assets to private contractors instead of paying for them with public funding. The private operators in turn recoup costs by adding tolls or increasing user fees, such as water bills or parking fees. 

The new group, helmed by two former mayors, Republican Mick Cornett of Oklahoma City and Democrat Michael Nutter of Philadelphia, has published virtually no information about its supporters on its website or how it’s paying for the wave of television advertisements.

There is scant information about Let’s Build Infrastructure anywhere on the internet. The website was registered anonymously in June and leaves no trace about its funding sources. Cornett and Nutter have not responded to requests for comment.

But a trail of evidence, including social media posts as well as nonprofit business registration and lobbying documents, suggests that toll road operators are affiliated with the pro-privatization push.

In 2019, Hans Klinger, a registered lobbyist for toll road operator Cintra, the U.S. subsidiary of the Spanish infrastructure conglomerate Ferrovial, S.A., served as director of a nonprofit called Invest in Texas Roads Now. The group promoted a partnership to build six new tolled lanes on an expressway near Dallas on Interstate 635 and four on Interstate 35 in Texas.

The website for Invest in Texas Roads Now now redirects to Let’s Build Infrastructure, and the two groups share the same website language, header graphic, and logo design. 

Klinger, who did not respond to a request for comment, was the first and only person to retweet the Twitter promotion for Let’s Build Infrastructure before the group was unveiled in Politico this week. Black Diamond Strategies, the consulting firm for which Klinger serves as a partner, is registered to represent Cintra on issues related to transportation public-private partnerships. 

Cintra has faced controversy over the years over its management of U.S. toll roads. In Indiana, the company more than doubled the rate for cars paying cash to drive the Indiana Toll Road, from $4.65 to $9.40. The 75-year lease to operate the road raised eyebrows at the time. But plunging traffic, in part from the high toll costs, led to bankruptcy for the project in 2014. 

The company again faced a backlash in North Carolina after the Interstate 77 Express project, which gave a consortium led by Cintra the ability to collect toll money for 50 years in exchange for building and operating the lanes. Motorists have complained of uneven pavement, confusing lane design, and Cintra’s “dynamic tolling,” which uses congestion factors to hike tolls from a maximum of $7 to as high as $10.

The Cintra-promoted group is appearing just as Senate negotiations around the role of public-private partnerships in infrastructure have hit a critical point. Dueling proposals for the size, scope, and financing of the infrastructure legislation are working their way through Congress. 

Many Democrats have converged on a plan that is financed through a mix of IRS enforcement, a higher capital gains tax for high-income individuals, a higher marginal tax increase on high-income households, and a mix of income taxes for corporations. Those funds will be used to directly pay for an expansion in broadband, electric vehicle infrastructure, upgrades to airports and ground transportation, and other investments.

But a rival proposal, backed by Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, released a bipartisan outline that relies less on taxes and more on the type of public-private partnerships that would benefit firms such as Cintra. The Biden administration readout of demands from the senators explicitly lists “public-private partnerships, private activity bonds, direct pay bonds and asset recycling for infrastructure investment” as key for financing the alternative proposal.  

Recently released lobbying disclosures show that other toll road operators and investors are attempting to influence congressional negotiators. Transurban, a controversial toll operator that has charged as much as $30 for congestion pricing on its Washington, D.C., area roads, is lobbying on the bill. The Global Infrastructure Investor Association, which represents interests involved in water and transportation privatization, is also attempting to influence legislators.

In an opinion column announcing the effort, Cornett and Nutter wrote for The Hill that public-private partnerships are simply a cost-effective way to bring those with the most expertise into the process of rebuilding America’s aging infrastructure.

“The deals are designed to incentivize the private operators to pick up the tab for the repair and maintenance of existing infrastructure, as well as build new projects, leveraging expertise government officials simply do not have,” wrote the mayors. 

The pair also suggested that such arrangements are best for the public and carry little risk or cost. “The state and taxpayers are fully protected, and the roadway always remains state-owned,” the pair wrote. “Funding these critical projects are no small task and should not have to rely solely on tax increases and new borrowing.”

The recent record, however, is less lofty than the rhetoric. In one infamous public-private deal, Chicago leased the city’s parking meters to a group of investors, which rapidly hiked fees by 800 percent. The lease agreement also forced the city to pay the investors every time a parade or street fair limited parking. The deal will last until 2083.

In one infamous public-private deal, Chicago leased the city’s parking meters to a group of investors, which rapidly hiked fees by 800 percent.

In 2012, private equity investors purchased a lease on the water utilities in Bayonne, New Jersey, and Middletown, Pennsylvania. The new operators swiftly began hiking water utility bills every year, and by 2019, water rates had increased by more than 50 percent.

Even the featured success stories on the Let’s Build Infrastructure website are fraught. The organization touts the work of the San Antonio Water System, a water utility, which completed a deal with a private operator to expand pipeline capacity to serve city residents. Residents are already facing a nearly 10 percent hike in water utility bills to help pay for the project.

Nutter, the co-chair of the new group, has his own ties to infrastructure privatization interests. He serves as an adviser to the law and lobbying firm Dentons, which maintains a practice on transportation public-private partnerships. The former Philadelphia mayor also recently served as a paid director on the board of Conduent, a toll road operator that has faced scandals across the country for overbilling motorists.

In the press release announcing the group, Nutter is touted as an expert and advocate for American infrastructure, though his recent work for a toll road operator is omitted from his biography.

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West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, in a private call on Monday with a group of major donors, provided a revealing look at his political approach to the most thorny issues confronting lawmakers.

The remarks were given on a Zoom teleconference session that was obtained by The Intercept.

The meeting was hosted by the group No Labels, a big money operation co-founded by former Sen. Joe Lieberman that funnels high-net-worth donor money to conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans. Among the gathering’s newsworthy revelations: Manchin described an openness to filibuster reform at odds with his most recent position that will buoy some Democrats’ hopes for enacting their agenda.

The call included several billionaire investors and corporate executives, among them Louis Bacon, chief executive of Moore Capital Management; Kenneth D. Tuchman, founder of global outsourcing company TeleTech; and Howard Marks, the head of Oaktree Capital, one of the largest private equity firms in the country. The Zoom participant log included a dial-in from Tudor Investment Corporation, the hedge fund founded by billionaire Paul Tudor Jones. Also present was a roster of heavy-hitting political influencers, including Republican consultant Ron Christie and Lieberman, who serves as a representative of No Labels and now advises corporate interests.

The meeting was led by Nancy Jacobson, the co-founder of No Labels.

The wide-ranging conversation went into depth on the fate of the filibuster, infrastructure negotiations, and the failed effort to create a bipartisan commission to explore the January 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, and offers a frank glimpse into the thinking of the conservative Democrat who holds the party’s fate in his hands.

Manchin told the assembled donors that he needed help flipping a handful of Republicans from no to yes on the January 6 commission in order to strip the “far left” of their best argument against the filibuster. The filibuster is a critical priority for the donors on the call, as it bottles up progressive legislation that would hit their bottom lines.

When it came to Sen. Roy Blunt, a moderate Missouri Republican who voted no on the commission, Manchin offered a creative solution. “Roy Blunt is a great, just a good friend of mine, a great guy,” Manchin said. “Roy is retiring. If some of you all who might be working with Roy in his next life could tell him, that’d be nice and it’d help our country. That would be very good to get him to change his vote. And we’re going to have another vote on this thing. That’ll give me one more shot at it.”

“Roy is retiring. If some of you all who might be working with Roy in his next life could tell him, that’d be nice and it’d help our country.”

Regarding Blunt, Manchin appears to be suggesting — without, perhaps, quite explicitly saying so — that the wealthy executives on the call could dangle future financial opportunities in front of the outgoing senator while lobbying him to change his vote. Senate ethics rules forbid future job negotiations if they create a conflict of interest or present even the appearance of a conflict of interest. Manchin, notably, doesn’t suggest that the donors discuss a job, but rather says that people who Blunt may later be working with would be likely to have significant influence, reflective of the way future job prospects can shape the legislative process even when unspoken.

The commission, Manchin tells No Labels, is important in its own right, necessary to determine how security failed and what former President Donald Trump’s role was in the riot, if any. But it’s also critical to maintaining support for the filibuster. The January 6 commission got 56 votes, four short of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster — a thorough embarrassment for those like Manchin who claim bipartisanship is still possible in the divided Senate chamber.

Manchin told the donors he hoped to make another run at it to prove that comity is not lost. He noted that Sen. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican who missed the vote, would have voted for it had he been there, meaning only three more votes are needed. “What I’m asking for, I need to go back, I need to find three more Republican, good Republican senators that will vote for the commission. So at least we can tamp down where people say, ‘Well, Republicans won’t even do the simple lift, common sense of basically voting to do a commission that was truly bipartisan.’ It just really emboldens the far left saying, ‘I told you, how’s that bipartisan working for you now, Joe?’”

During the Zoom event, Manchin’s Senate office appeared in the background. It is against campaign finance ethics rules to solicit funds while in a federal building, but Manchin did no solicitation beyond the broad suggestion that donors help out Republicans who switch their votes on the commission. Rather, the group talked openly about how much money it planned to raise, and how — and on whom — it would spend that cash.

Sam Runyon, a spokesperson for Manchin, said that the meeting was not a fundraiser. “Senator Manchin was discussing the issue of money in politics and the impact campaign donations have on Senators and members of Congress. He was not soliciting donations for himself or anyone else,” Runyon told The Intercept.

Margaret White, co-executive director of No Labels, said the same. “The group who engaged with Senator Manchin is motivated by a concern about the future of our nation,” she said in a statement. “This was not a fundraising call and any suggestion to the contrary is a false and obvious attempt to undermine Senator Manchin because he is one of the rare leaders in Washington who refuses to just toe the party line. It’s often a lonely place to be. No Labels is proud to stand with him.”

The group is passionately supportive of the filibuster, and when multiple donors quizzed Manchin on his stance on it, the senator displayed an openness to reform that is at odds with his latest public statements.

Last spring, he said that he could be supportive of a “talking filibuster” that required the minority to hold the floor, rather than putting the onus on the majority. After an uproar from Republicans, he penned a Washington Post op-ed saying that he would not “weaken or eliminate” the filibuster, which optimists noted left room for reforms that strengthened it in spirit, by forcing more bipartisanship.

In June, he told CNN, when asked if he was committed to maintaining the 60-vote threshold, that he wanted to “make the Senate work,” a sentiment he repeated each time he was pressed. Once again, he followed it up with an op-ed, this time in the local Charleston Gazette-Mail, saying that he had no intention of weakening the filibuster.

Manchin’s openness for filibuster reform on the call is notable given it flew in the face of many attendees’ hopes. Asked about a proposal to lower the threshold to beat back a filibuster to 55 votes, he said that it was something he was considering, but then quickly referred back to his earlier idea of forcing the minority to show up on the Senate floor in large enough numbers to maintain a filibuster.

“That’s that’s one of many good, good suggestions I’ve had,” he said of lowering the cloture total from 60 to 55. Manchin went on to discuss the last time the cloture threshold was lowered, in the 1970s.

“I looked back … when it went from 67 votes to 60 votes, and also what was happening, what made them think that it needed to change. So I’m open to looking at it, I’m just not open to getting rid of the filibuster, that’s all,” he said.

“60 is where I planted my flag, but as long as they know that I’m going to protect this filibuster, we’re looking at good solutions.”

Manchin acknowledged that publicly he had drawn a line at 60, but said that he was open to other ideas. “Right now, 60 is where I planted my flag, but as long as they know that I’m going to protect this filibuster, we’re looking at good solutions,” he said. “I think, basically, it should be [that] 41 people have to force the issue versus the 60 that we need in the affirmative. So find 41 in the negative. … I think one little change that could be made right now is basically anyone who wants to filibuster ought to be required to go to the floor and basically state your objection and why you’re filibustering and also state what you think needs to change that’d fix it, so you would support it. To me, that’s pretty constructive.”

As an example, Manchin said that he was prepared to specify his objections to S. 1, the For the People Act. In the voting rights and democracy reform bill, he said, he opposed automatic voter registration because some rural voting locations don’t have internet access to check a voter’s eligibility. He also opposed a provision in the bill that restricted a state’s ability to purge voter rolls, which he said would make the rolls less reliable. And he expressed reservations related to some of the campaign finance reform provisions, arguing they needed to apply equally to labor and business.

“I’m telling you why I’m against something. So I’m going to send to [No Labels leaders] Margaret [White] and to Nancy [Jacobson], everybody on the voting thing, what I support, and the voting changes that need to be made and what I oppose in S. 1. So at least I’m saying I’m against it for this reason, and here’s the things I think can make a piece of legislation better. I think we all should do that. We should be responsible for that,” he said.

Those specific objections, notably, were absent from a second Charleston Gazette-Mail opinion column written by Manchin last week, stating his opposition to the For the People Act. In the piece, Manchin argued that the bill was done in a “partisan manner” and that he objected to such a sweeping bill that is “solely supported by one party.”

The column made no mention of Manchin’s specific concerns about preserving the ability to purge voter rolls and same-day registration — the objections that were given to No Labels and its audience of wealthy donors.

The Zoom call also featured a lengthy discussion about campaign money. “As far as the members of Congress, I mean, we did over 500,000 for [Rep.] Brian Fitzpatrick, which took us two weeks to put that together,” Jacobson said on the call, adding that the group planned to raised and direct some $20 million in “hard” dollars this cycle, referring to money that goes directly to a member of Congress’s political action committee; that means the member of Congress has control over it, rather than having to rely on an outside super PAC.

“It’s dollars that they control, hard money dollars,” said Andrew Bursky, another co-founder of No Labels and the founder and managing partner of private equity firm Atlas Holdings. “I will tell you that I participated in the last cycle, when we handed out checks to a number of our members of the House in the range of $50,000. And in many cases, they went there, the fact that was the single largest check they received, overall in their campaigns.”

It would be illegal for an individual donor to give a $50,000 check, though the money could theoretically be bundled from multiple donors.

The Intercept has previously reported on No Labels’ sprawling network of PACs, used to elect allied lawmakers and congressional candidates, that go by names such as Patriotic Americans, No Labels Action, Govern or Go Home, Progress Tomorrow, United Together, United for Progress, and Citizens for a Strong America. The combined campaign funds helped secure the victory of No Labels-backed candidates across the country in recent election cycles.

“Think about joining the House: You’re there for 730 days, unless you pick the leap year, and maybe you get 731,” said Bursky. “And for the vast majority, those days, you’re spending four hours on the telephone, dialing for dollars. And so what this does — aside from sending the very strong message that there are folks who will have your back if you take tough votes that by partisan nature that may not be popular within your party — it also in real life frees them to do more work, because it’s spending less time raising those funds.”

“So it’s powerful. And there’s just no question that we have had and we continue to have an impact,” he added.

Later in the call, Bursky, while helping Manchin field questions from the Zoom audience, noted that No Labels hoped to mobilize many more donors around pivotal votes.

“We’ve been working hard to build a coalition. Most recently, the Chamber of Commerce has agreed to lock arms with us,” said Bursky. “We’re building out the No Labels Team One Thousand,” he said, referencing a group of donors who could be tapped to give anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000 a year in support of No Labels candidates.

The Zoom talk also focused on the national infrastructure bill, a sweeping set of proposals to pour investments into broadband, sustainable housing, electric vehicles, transportation, research, workforce development, manufacturing, and community-based care for the elderly and disabled. The Biden administration has called for a slew of tax hikes to pay for the legislation.

Manchin has been at the center of the negotiations, pushing for a pared back infrastructure program in exchange for Republican votes. GOP lawmakers have pushed back against many of the tax proposals of the bill; their resistance is echoed by many on Wall Street who fear higher corporate rates.

Manchin talked at length about paring back the initiative and bringing Republicans on board. He also zeroed in on the energy-related provisions, including opposition to direct funds for electric vehicle charging locations and the need to finance carbon sequestration plants to enhance coal-fired power plants.

“I’m not going to sign off on reconciliation, giving up on bipartisanship until you give it a try,” said Manchin, eschewing the procedural motion that would allow Democrats to pass the infrastructure legislation without any Republican votes.

While many of the attendees celebrated Manchin’s remarks for his bipartisan fervor, some hailed his policy positions as beneficial to incumbent business interests.

Lynn Schenk, a former Democratic lawmaker from the San Diego area, spoke up on the call, thanking the West Virginia senator for his remarks in opposition to direct federal funding for electric vehicle charging stations.

Schenk noted that she had just left the board of Sempra Energy, the utility company based in Southern California. The private sector, Schneck said, is “all ready to do the electric vehicles and all the kinds of things that you were mentioning, so please stay with it, because that is the way for us to go forward,” said Schenk.

Manchin concurred, saying that the government never built gas filling stations for the rollout of Henry Ford’s Model T automobiles. The shift to electric cars should be no different, Manchin argued. The government, he said, should instead offer low-interest loans and other tax incentives to the private sector to build out infrastructure.

White, the No Labels co-executive director, said in her statement to The Intercept that thinking of those in attendance as peddling influence misunderstood the situation. “No Labels believes America urgently needs a two-party infrastructure solution,” she said. “Senator Manchin has been courageously working to forge such an agreement and he was briefing a group of our supporters on progress with his colleagues in both parties. Our community from all over the country would likely not be recognized or understood by Beltway reporters or influence peddlers.”

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Just before going live on Al Jazeera last week, Achal Prabhala, an activist for equitable access to medicine, performed a quick internet search on his sparring partner in a debate on the proposal to share vaccine technology with low-income countries.

It didn’t take long before Prabhala found that his opponent, an academic who favors pharmaceutical monopoly rights, leads an institute at Duke University funded by Pfizer and AstraZeneca. He pointed this fact out to the producers on air.

The apparent conflict of interest is hardly a rare occurrence.

Across newspapers, online outlets, and broadcast media, prominent experts and organizations backed by the pharmaceutical industry are weighing in against the global push to temporarily waive enforcement of certain patent and intellectual property rights on vaccines and other pandemic-fighting technologies, a proposal designed to allow the creation of generic coronavirus vaccines and therapeutic medicine to meet global demand. Despite their relevance for many opponents of the waiver, financial ties to the drug lobby are rarely disclosed.

The Biden administration’s announcement earlier this month that it would back the waiver at the World Trade Organization has escalated the fight.

Dr. Krishna Udayakumar, the pundit Prabhala faced on Al Jazeera, leads the drug industry-backed Duke Global Health Innovation Center and appears frequently in major media outlets to discuss vaccine issues without any mention of his drugmaker ties. He did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment.

Ayoade Alakija, left, Krishna Udayakumar, center, and Achal Prabhala, right, speak on an Al Jazeera “The Stream” segment titled, “What will it take for rich nations to stop hoarding COVID vaccines?” on May 11, 2021.

Screenshot: Al Jazeera English

“The doctors in the media come with this scientific imprimatur, who come with good hearts and a lofty sense, but it’s completely absurd,” said Prabhala, the coordinator of the AccessIBSA project, which campaigns for access to medicines. “They say the waiver doesn’t matter, that it will make no difference, they are so sure despite the fact they have no experience in large-scale vaccine manufacturing.”

Prabhala noted that technology transfer could allow factories in the developing world to quickly scale up production of more vaccines. One major problem, he added, is that companies need to share vaccine formulas with firms willing to step up to radically increase supply.

Another potential conflict Prabhala noted is that of Dr. Ashish Jha, a prominent physician and dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, who appeared on a New York Times podcast to dismiss the waiver. Jha, who did not respond to a request for comment, also works as an adviser to the Albright Stonebridge Group, a consulting firm that helps drugmakers with international patent issues. Disclosures obtained by The Intercept show that the firm recently counted Pfizer as a client.

“Academics should disclose conflicts in their Twitter bios,” tweeted Amy Kapczynski, a Yale Law School professor, pointing to Jha’s dual roles. In a response to the social media controversy, Jha wrote on Twitter that he was an unpaid volunteer for the consulting firm.

But the conflicts span a variety of voices with credibility to viewers, from think tank economists and former lawmakers to Christian conservatives and minority advocacy organizations.

Ron Klink, a former Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania, responded sharply to President Joe Biden’s support of the temporary waiver. “Anyone who supports such a silly notion is dangerously wrong on the facts. Intellectual property rights are not getting in the way of global vaccination,” Klink wrote in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The newspaper identified him as a “senior policy adviser” to a law firm and former legislator, leaving out Klink’s status as a registered patent lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America, the trade group that represents Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca.

The group, known as PhRMA, has distributed talking points to consultants to vigorously push back against the waiver request. PhRMA’s tax return shows that the group provides funding to a dizzying array of advocacy organizations, many of which are now stepping up against the waiver.

Several groups devoted to increasing the visibility of minority voices, including the Latino Coalition and the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce, signed onto a letter claiming that “the waiver would undermine the global response to COVID-19 and would not achieve its stated goal to rapidly expand vaccines production.” The LGBT Chamber lists Pfizer and PhRMA as corporate sponsors, and the Latino Coalition receives support from several drug companies.

Eagle Forum, the Christian conservative pressure group founded by the late Phyllis Schlafly, similarly tried to shape the debate, charging that the waiver request represents an effort by India and South Africa to use the “COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext to raid intellectual property through the World Trade Organization.”

The Missouri-based organization, which is generally known for its opposition to LGBTQ rights, abortion access, and gun control, echoed the drug lobby’s arguments in a series of publications. The group has received at least $90,000 in contributions from PhRMA over the last six years.

The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council, a nonprofit purportedly devoted to helping small businesses, has loudly protested the waiver, despite the fact that it would largely impact a small number of transnational mega-pharmaceutical companies.

“One has to wonder, therefore, why these calls for rolling back intellectual property protections are even being made. Is it more about advancing a political agenda? Government undermining property rights will not magically translate into others quickly ramping up production,” said Raymond Keating, the chief economist of the SBE Council, in a statement. The group, notably, is also a recipient of funds from PhRMA.

One of the most-cited voices in the debate is the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, or ITIF. The group, which is funded by Pfizer, Merck, and the two largest lobbying groups for vaccine makers — the Biotechnology Innovation Organization and PhRMA — has blasted the waiver in a series of press statements and reports, though its affiliation with the drug lobby is rarely noted.

The Washington Post, for instance, cited the group to note that some believed “endorsing this waiver petition succumbs to the fundamental fallacy that IP rights represent any kind of significant barrier to access and manufacturing of the medicines needed to overcome this crisis.” ITIF experts have been published or cited in anti-waiver pieces published by the Post and Courier, Business Day, and the Epoch Times, among other outlets.

In some cases, media outlets have gone back to clarify conflicts. Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration under President Donald Trump, has appeared in the media several times in recent weeks to argue against issuing the patent waiver. In some cases he has been clearly identified as a Pfizer board member — a position that awards over $380,000 in annual compensation — and in other cases, he has not.

Axios, after publishing his comments opposing the waiver, updated its story to note Gottlieb’s board position.

Last week, The Intercept published internal talking points distributed by PhRMA to its consultants working to drum up opposition to the waiver. The group has advised lawmakers and others to argue that the waiver is not necessary, that sharing vaccine technology would embolden China, and that any loss of pharmaceutical monopoly power over patents and IP could cost crucial American jobs.

But the drug lobby rarely shows it hand publicly, frustrating activists and others seeking more equitable access to vaccines.

When they appear as industry-backed pundits, “doctors argue, ‘Vaccines are complex.’ It’s said with people with a straight face like it’s something profound. OK, so are croissants,” said Prabhala. “I would prefer to debate actual pharmaceutical representatives so I know who I am talking to and the audience actually knows who they are listening to.”

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President Joe Biden’s promise to reverse the revolving door of lobbying and usher in a new, transparent administration hasn’t extended to one of his closest advisers.

Thanks to an ethics loophole, Anita Dunn, a member of the president’s inner circle, does not have to file the public financial disclosure required of every other presidential appointee.

Dunn, an influential figure in Democratic politics, became the de facto campaign manager for Biden after his dismal showing last year in the Iowa Democratic caucus. Dunn and SKDK, formerly SKDKnickerbocker, a corporate and political consulting firm she co-founded, helped steer the Biden campaign to victory.

After initially claiming that she would return to SKDK after the campaign, Dunn changed course and became a senior adviser to Biden, one of the most coveted roles in the White House. The role, she told reporters, would only last until summer, at which point she will return to SKDK.

The temporary status allows Dunn to skirt traditional ethics disclosures, which require government officials to make public previous consulting clients, investments, debts, and other potential conflicts of interest. Instead, she was hired into a special, temporary role that keeps her disclosure — and, therefore, her client list at SKDK and any conflicts of interest — out of the public eye.

SKDK’s corporate client list is largely secret. In New York, the firm releases a partial client list through state-level lobbying disclosure filings, showing work on behalf of casino company Genting New York LLC, NRG Energy, and the Greater New York Hospital Association. But many of the firm’s clients, including firms advised by Dunn, are undisclosed.

SKDK reportedly works with companies with a major stake in decisions made by the Biden administration, including Pfizer, which is currently engaged in a high-stakes lobbying campaign to oppose the creation of generic coronavirus vaccines and other price-cutting measures. Its recent clients also include Microsoft, IBM, Ford, and Comcast — major corporations with a stake in Biden policies.

“Because Ms. Dunn is a special government employee, she is required to file an OGE 450 which is a confidential financial disclosure form,” wrote an official for the White House ethics office in an email to The Intercept. “Confidential financial disclosure forms are not made available to the public. Ms. Dunn is not required to file a public financial disclosure form and accordingly, we do not have any documents responsive to your original request.”

Other senior White House officials, including Eric Lander, Biden’s top scientific adviser, have been forced to recuse themselves from vaccine-related decisions given conflicts of interest. The White House has not responded to questions over whether Dunn faces any similar recusals.

The position occupied by Dunn is known for its history of pivotal White House advisers. Karl Rove was the senior adviser to President George W. Bush. David Axelrod served in the same position for President Barack Obama. Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller were senior advisers for President Donald Trump.

But all four of them, by contrast — Rove, Axelrod, Kushner, and Miller — filed publicly available disclosures. Mike Donilon, a second senior adviser to Biden, disclosed his personal ethics statement. Dunn will not.

Unlike the other senior advisers, Dunn joined the administration as a special government employee, a designation often taken by scientists and other experts that join part-time boards. SGEs, as they are known, work for the government for no longer than 130 days during a 365-day period. Crucially, SGE officials face more lenient disclosure requirements and must only file the OGE 450 listing potential conflicts.

“Regardless of Dunn’s role as a presidential adviser and SGE, she is subject to the conflict of interest code.”

“It would appear that Anita Dunn is in a key advisory role to the president, and if her service may reasonably be expected to exceed 60 days, she should be subject to the public disclosure requirements,” said Craig Holman, an expert on lobbying and ethics with Public Citizen.

“Furthermore,” added Holman, “regardless of Dunn’s role as a presidential adviser and SGE, she is subject to the conflict of interest code. It appears Dunn may hold an assortment of conflicting properties, and thus it is all the more important that she publicly disclose her financial reports so that any conflicts can be monitored and managed appropriately.”

An official from the White House declined to comment further. Dunn is expected to leave the White House to return to SKDK fairly soon — presumably before May 29, the 130-day threshold since joining the administration.

Over the course of Dunn’s career in politics, which goes back to her time as an intern for President Jimmy Carter, she has advised dozens of Democratic candidates, including presidential campaigns and congressional runs, as well as elected officials such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Sen. Tom Daschle. In 2008, she played a senior role shaping Obama’s communications and policy strategy and worked briefly as his White House communications director.

And throughout her time working with Democratic Party leaders, Dunn built a powerhouse consulting firm that has worked to craft the image and lobbying priorities of major corporate interests.

In 1993, Dunn joined Democratic consultants Bob Squier and Bill Knapp to form Squier Dunn Knapp, the firm now known as SKDK. The company, as The Intercept has reported, has worked on behalf of business interests to undermine progressive causes.

In 2010, Dunn’s SKDK mobilized to help processed food companies such as General Mills, Kellogg, and Pepsi defeat guidelines designed by first lady Michelle Obama to discourage marketing unhealthy foods to children. That year, SKDK also helped for-profit colleges and universities defeat regulations crafted by the Obama administration to discourage widespread fraud in the industry.

SKDK’s corporate client list has brought the firm into many other contentious lobbying battles, including efforts to slash corporate taxes on profits earned in overseas markets, to win approval for the Keystone XL pipeline, and a bid last year by New York real estate interests to defeat new rules to help renters.

Pfizer has been a major client of SKDK.

One of the most pivotal decisions currently under review by White House officials is the question of whether to grant a waiver at the World Trade Organization to allow a temporary suspension of enforcement of intellectual property and patent enforcement for Covid-19 vaccines, which would allow foreign firms to replicate American vaccines at low cost. The initiative is sharply opposed by drug companies, particularly by Pfizer, which has been a major client of SKDK.

Dunn, in a celebratory post-election interview with PRWeek, touted the fact that while she crafted campaign strategy, her firm SKDK designed the campaign’s vote-by-mail effort in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona.

“[I’ll] slowly ease my way back into the agency,” she said. “I had not been doing political campaigns. My practice had been focused on advocacy for nonprofits and I did have some private sector clients. I will return to doing work I love; helping people with good causes effect change.”

That promise didn’t last long. In January, Dunn announced that she would join the administration after all. In an email to colleagues, she wrote that she would be stepping away from SKDK “for client matters but not for overall management issues” while working in the White House. But, she added, there would be careful ethical safeguards, reminding colleagues that “no one at this firm can contact me for help on a client matter while I am inside. Period. No exceptions, no loopholes, no contact.”

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Sen. Joe Manchin expressed support for the World Trade Organization proposal to temporarily suspend enforcement of patent and intellectual property enforcement for Covid-19 medical treatments.

The waiver request, led by India and South Africa and backed by a coalition of countries, would allow more widespread global production and distribution of generic coronavirus vaccines, tests, and treatments.

Asked about the waiver proposal on Thursday, Manchin said it sounded like a good idea.

“I’ve always been a supporter of generics coming on,” said Manchin, speaking to The Intercept on Capitol Hill.

The West Virginia Democrat referenced the fact that the U.S. government financed the research, development, and domestic deployment of coronavirus vaccines. He noted that the drug companies “shouldn’t” generate profits from a product sponsored by taxpayers.

The U.S. government provided $18 billion in subsidies in 2020 through Operation Warp Speed to finance the research and production of coronavirus vaccines, including $1 billion to Moderna and $1.45 billion to Johnson & Johnson. BioNTech, Pfizer’s partner, also licenses National Institute of Health-owned patents developed with government research funding for the use of its vaccine.

“We took all the risk, the United States government, the Treasury, and it should come out in a cheaper form for Americans and for the rest of the world,” said Manchin.

Manchin, a champion of bipartisan policy dealmaking, is the first moderate member of the Senate to join the growing chorus demanding action on generic coronavirus vaccines.

Earlier this month, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., released a letter with 10 other left-leaning senators calling on President Joe Biden to support the waiver request.

“Allowing countries to manufacture locally will expedite access to vaccines and treatment, prevent unnecessary deaths, expedite global vaccination efforts, and facilitate a stronger, faster economic recovery,” the letter said.

The letter was co-signed by Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.; Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc.; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Ed Markey, D-Mass.; Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.; Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; Raphael Warnock, D-Ga.; and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

The waiver has been endorsed by over 60 former heads of state, 100 Nobel Prize winners, and a wide array of public health, organized labor, and human rights organizations.

“Waiving intellectual property rights so developing countries could produce more vaccines would make a big difference in reaching global herd immunity,” wrote Joseph Stiglitz, the co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in economics in 2001, and Lori Wallach, the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, in a column this week for the Washington Post. “Otherwise, the pandemic will rage largely unmitigated among a significant share of the world’s population, resulting in increased deaths and a greater risk that a vaccine-resistant variant puts the world back on lockdown.”

The Biden administration has so far declined to take a position on the waiver request and continued talks with pharmaceutical firms, which have fiercely opposed any waiver of IP rights to address the crisis. On Tuesday, Biden, speaking to reporters, signaled interest in doing more to help the developing world fight Covid-19, particularly India.

“I think we’ll be in a position to be able to share vaccines as well as know-how with other countries who are in real need,” he said. 

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While the drug industry is the most visible special interest group fighting a World Trade Organization proposal to temporarily suspend certain intellectual property rights, it isn’t the only one.

Many industries across the U.S. have expressed alarm over the proposed waiver, which was put forth by a coalition of over 100 countries, led by India and South Africa, and would waive intellectual property rules in order to boost production of vaccines, medical products, and research toward ending the Covid-19 pandemic.

This might seem irrelevant to Hollywood, major publishing companies, and the music industry, but recently released disclosures show that these sectors have mobilized lobbyists to raise concerns with the waiver proposal.

The Motion Picture Association, which represents major movie and television studios, deployed five lobbyists to influence Congress and the White House over the waiver. The Association of American Publishers as well as Universal Music have similarly revealed that they are actively lobbying against it.

Neil Turkewitz, a former Recording Industry Association of America official, blasted the proposal on Twitter, claiming it will harm musicians, performers, and other cultural workers who are already struggling. 

“As COVID has undermined the livelihoods of creators around the [globe emoji], you want to further expand their precarity—in the name of justice?” Turkewitz wrote.

Industry sources say the lobbyists are concerned that the waiver will be too broad in scope and could open the door for increased piracy. But the copyright industry push relates to a provision of the proposal that would waive copyright enforcement for the “prevention, containment and treatment of COVID-19.”

The MPA and AAP did not provide comments to The Intercept. Universal Music referred questions about the issue to the Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group that initially responded to The Intercept’s request but had not provided a statement by the time of publication.

Advocates for temporarily suspending copyright enforcement claim that a truly global response to the pandemic requires open access to knowledge. While most of the public attention has been on vaccines, copyright enforcement also forbids sharing industrial designs used for the manufacturing of ventilators and other medical products crucial to fighting the pandemic. As early as last March, engineers who produced 3D-printed spare parts for ventilators faced warnings from corporate lawyers for potentially infringing on intellectual property and copyright protections.

“The MPA, the music industries really aggressively resist any kind of copyright policy that bends toward access,” said Sean Flynn, director of the information justice and intellectual property program at the American University College of Law.

This is not the first time that Hollywood lobbyists have intervened on a human rights-related treaty to maintain protections for copyrighted products.

In the lead-up to the 2013 Marrakesh VIP Treaty — an international accord to create copyright exceptions that would facilitate adaptations to make works of art accessible for disabled people — MPA lobbyists fought to narrow the treaty’s scope. The lobbyists argued that exceptions should apply for those with “print disabilities” only, therefore removing deaf people as beneficiaries and any audiovisual works from the text. The MPA successfully convinced negotiators to drop movies from the treaty.

Flynn said the current intervention against the Covid-19 waiver proposal again reflects the copyright industry taking a maximalist position. The concern that the waiver is overly broad, he noted, is a deliberate misinterpretation. The proposal currently under debate is simply a statement of principles, which, if accepted, will be followed by a text-drafting phase that sets the waiver’s parameters. Those are unlikely to include entertainment products.

“It’s pretty clear from the proposal statement itself that the intent is not to waive all intellectual property for everything,” Flynn added. “It’s only as needed to promote treatment and prevention of Covid, so access to Netflix videos or access to music DVDs are not necessary.”

In many countries with strict copyright laws, the pandemic has radically reduced access to scientific research. Many publishers restrict the types of use that libraries can offer, so researchers can only consult some publications on an in-person basis.

“In too many countries, researchers lack the rights they need to use the most advanced research methodologies, such as text and data mining, to help find and develop treatments to COVID-19,” noted the Documentary Filmmakers’ Association in a statement supporting the WTO waiver.

Greater access to copyrighted news and research publications could also help solve the public health challenges created by the pandemic. The artificial intelligence firm BlueDot, for example, used data from over 100,000 information sources, including news reports, to identify the spread of a viral outbreak in Wuhan in late December: weeks before the World Health Organization sounded the alarm over a flu-like outbreak in early January. 

BlueDot is based in Canada, a country which, like the United States, has relatively flexible fair use policies. But similar research cannot be done in some Latin American countries, for example, with more stringent copyright laws. Flynn noted that only about a quarter of the world’s copyright laws permit noncommercial text and data mining research.

Tiago Lubiana, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, noted that copyright protections have prevented her from using data mining methods for biomedical research. “If a resource is not explicitly under an open license, I will not be able to use it properly in text mining projects, for fear of legal issues,” she said.

“The research on vaccines is not finished,” added Flynn. “We need new technologies that can be even cheaper to manufacture, and we need an open copyright environment that enables modern forms of research.”

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In a year marked by a coronavirus pandemic that has killed millions, CVS Health financed a wave of political advocacy against measures to control health care costs and increase access.

The health care giant, which owns Aetna health insurance and operates thousands of pharmacies and walk-in clinics around the country, provided $5 million to the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, or PAHCF.

The seven-figure donation from CVS is the largest known contribution to PAHCF, which was formed in 2018 to lobby and advocate against proposals such as Medicare for All, the public option, and similar reforms that have gained growing support in recent years. PAHCF is a 501(c)(4) and is not required to disclose donor information.

Last year, PAHCF swamped voters in Democratic primary states such as South Carolina with ads urging voters to oppose Medicare for All. In states considering the public option, the group hired local lobbyists and aired advertisements designed to discourage state legislators from voting for the plan. And just before the general election, the group again aired ads attacking the public option.

Neither CVS Health nor PAHCF responded to a request for comment. Despite CVS Health’s donation, the company is not listed as a coalition member of PAHCF on the group’s website.

In recent weeks, PAHCF appears to be reprising its role. The group has launched ads that have warned lawmakers against supporting President Joe Biden’s national public option proposal and funneled resources into states to attack state-based proposals for public insurance plans.

Last week, CVS Health chief executive officer Karen S. Lynch co-signed a letter to Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, warning that the drive to enact a public health insurance option would drive health insurance businesses out of the state.

The letter, also signed by the chief executives of Anthem, Cigna, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, and UnitedHealth Group, charged that the effort to lower premiums and expand coverage through a public option “will only further deteriorate the state’s fragile economy.”

The disclosure of the $5 million donation comes as PAHCF has embarked on another round of advertising in the Colorado, Maine, Montana, Connecticut, and the Washington, D.C., markets. The organization also launched an offshoot in Nevada, another state in which legislators are considering a public option proposal.

Last year, PAHCF successfully lobbied to defeat a previous attempt to pass a so-called public option insurance plan in Colorado.

The Colorado program was designed to provide residents with an alternative health insurance plan with premiums that would cost an average of 20 percent less than private insurers. The proposal also contained a number of cost-saving measures, including a requirement that drug companies pass rebates directly to consumers, rather than third-party health care providers or insurers.

The PAHCF ads railed against the proposal, claiming that it would introduce “government-controlled health care” that would insert politicians into decisions that should be left to patients and doctors.

The group, working in concert with the Federation of American Hospitals and the Healthcare Leadership Council, has also lobbied lawmakers directly. Internal documents from the group, previously reported by The Intercept, show that PAHCF and its affiliates directly engaged ghostwriters to author opinion columns, briefed Democratic Party officials on the dangers of embracing health reform, and worked to pressure candidates in the presidential primaries.

But watchdogs such as the Center for Health and Democracy say the group is merely a lobbying front to preserve the profits and market share of private health providers and insurers.

“The story of healthcare in America is about profit-driven corporations versus Americans who need care,” said Wendell Potter, the president of the Center for Health and Democracy.

While the pandemic ravaged the economy and claimed the employer-sponsored health coverage of some 15 million Americans, much of the health care industry thrived. CVS Health collected nearly $13.9 billion in operating income last year. HCA Healthcare, the for-profit hospital chain that also funds PAHCF, paid its chief executive Samuel Hazen $30.4 million last year.

CVS devotes large sums of money on political influence. Last year, the company spent $10.3 million on federal lobbying efforts. The voluntary disclosure that shows the $5 million donation to PAHCF also revealed other donations to political influence groups that do not reveal donor information.

The company donated $1,750,000 to Majority Forward, a group affiliated with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., that supports Senate Democrats and $1,750,000 to One Nation, a group affiliated with Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., that supports Senate Republicans. CVS also made donations to a variety of political organizations, including Third Way, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, Center Forward, and the American Action Forum.

“Make no mistake: As long as their billions in profits are threatened, the front group for the health insurance industry will spend whatever it takes to keep the status quo exactly the way it is,” added Potter.

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