{"id":668753,"date":"2022-05-23T21:21:08","date_gmt":"2022-05-23T21:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radiofree.asia\/?guid=0f8994ad4743fdbee19b08b12a5643ac"},"modified":"2022-05-23T21:21:08","modified_gmt":"2022-05-23T21:21:08","slug":"lockheed-martin-gave-over-250k-to-politicians-as-they-discussed-ukraine-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/05\/23\/lockheed-martin-gave-over-250k-to-politicians-as-they-discussed-ukraine-bills\/","title":{"rendered":"Lockheed Martin Gave Over $250k to Politicians as They Discussed Ukraine Bills"},"content":{"rendered":"

As lawmakers in Congress debated <\/span>billions of dollars\u2019 worth<\/span><\/a> of aid to Ukraine, including military aid, major defense contractor Lockheed Martin was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on campaign donations, new disclosures show.<\/span><\/p>\n

As <\/span>reported by <\/span>Insider<\/span><\/i><\/a>, Lockheed Martin\u2019s PAC spent $256,000 in April on donations to members of Congress, a gubernatorial campaign and PACs of both major parties. The company made 147 donations in total to the campaigns of federal lawmakers, including donations to five members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and 27 members of the House Armed Services Committee, <\/span>both of which<\/span><\/a> oversee<\/span><\/a> military and defense spending. <\/span><\/p>\n

Members of those committees who got donations from the company include <\/span>conservative<\/span><\/a> Democratic Senators Mark Kelly (Arizona) and Joe Manchin (West Virginia). House Armed Services Committee chair Rep. Adam Smith (D-Washington) also received a donation from the PAC. Congress discussed over 10 different bills related to Ukraine aid in April.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to <\/span>Insider<\/span><\/i>, the donations and the number of lawmakers represent an unusually large amount of political spending for the company over the past few years. This indicates that Lockheed Martin\u2019s PAC specifically timed the donations in order to coincide with negotiations on aid to Ukraine.<\/span><\/p>\n

Defense contractors stood to <\/span>benefit greatly<\/span><\/a> from those bills, and have already <\/span>seen their stocks rise<\/span><\/a> precipitously since the Russian forces first invaded the country in late February.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last month, lawmakers were discussing a bill that would provide Ukraine about $40 billion in aid. The bill, <\/span>passed by Congress last week<\/span><\/a>, provides $6 billion for Ukrainian military forces, nearly $4 billion to U.S. forces in the region, and $8.7 billion to the Pentagon to replace weapons that it has given Ukraine. About <\/span>$1.1 billion<\/span><\/a> goes toward weapons production in the U.S.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those <\/span>weapons include<\/span><\/a> Javelin anti-tank and <\/span>Stinger<\/span><\/a> anti-aircraft missiles <\/span>made by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon<\/span><\/a> in a joint $309 million contract with the U.S. government \u2014 meaning that, even in just one contract, Lockheed Martin\u2019s hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations has paid off handsomely.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear how much Lockheed Martin will get from the spending, though experts <\/span>say<\/span><\/a> that more than half of foreign military spending typically goes toward defense contractors. These contractors have a strong grip on lawmakers; earlier this month, <\/span>President Joe Biden visited<\/span><\/a> a Lockheed Martin Javelin manufacturing facility <\/span>in a display of<\/span><\/a> the strong relationship between the company and federal lawmakers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lockheed Martin is <\/span>the top<\/span><\/a> defense contractor for the U.S., receiving <\/span>tens of millions<\/span><\/a> of dollars from the Department of Defense and appropriations bills each year, which helps <\/span>pad their profits<\/span><\/a>. The company is also a <\/span>top contributor<\/span><\/a> to lawmakers like Smith, who in turn <\/span>vote against<\/span><\/a> cuts to defense spending.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lawmakers <\/span>also have stock<\/span><\/a> in defense contractors including Lockheed Martin, despite the fact that they <\/span>rule on<\/span><\/a> bills that have <\/span>a direct impact<\/span><\/a> on the company\u2019s profits.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 147 donations came as Congress was debating a package for roughly $40 billion of aid to Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1459,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18303,3545,23864,4058,1386,7421,4,3637,376,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668753"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1459"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668753"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":668944,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668753\/revisions\/668944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}