Private Funding of Government

D.C. Circuit Surprise Filing: Speaker McCarthy “Fully Supports” Pelosi Campaign to Shield Docs Re Use of Donor-Provided Investigative “Staff”

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GAO wrote yesterday about the D.C. Circuit ordering new Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy to state his view on whether the House should be free from public scrutiny of (i.e., continue to keep secret) the machinations behind the importation of donor-provided ‘ringer’ staff — off the books and in violation of House rules, incidentally —  to plot and execute the House Oversight Committee’s targeting of political opponents.

The importance of the public’s right to know was heightened once it became clear last year the House ethics bodies had swept the complaints about these revelations under the carpet.

In its Order, the Court also invited Speaker McCarthy to reconsider the sweeping anti-transparency position of his predecessor, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as journalist Rob Schilling indicated to the Court seemed highly likely given Mr. McCarthy’s public statements about increasing transparency and undoing her aggressive litigation stances.

As GAO noted in its post, doing so would also fulfill numerous other key promises made by Mr. McCarthy in finally attaining the support of colleagues to become Speaker.

Not only did McCarthy say the following about one committee’s notorious overreach, vowing to release the pertinent record because, well, serious allegations were made and the public deserve to know if the facts bear those charges out:

“You have spent a year and a half and millions of taxpayers’ dollars conducting this investigation. It is imperative that all information collected be preserved not just for institutional prerogatives but for transparency to the American people… The American people have a right to know that the allegations you have made are supported by the facts.”

Mr. McCarthy also pledged in a statement, “The House will no longer be taking hyper-politicized stances in amicus curiae or in litigation…The American people elected this majority to hold this administration accountable and to protect this institution.”

“Mr. McCarthy didn’t say what sorts of cases the House would get involved in under his new approach, but new GOP committee chairs have laid out an expansive oversight agenda that will likely involve repeated clashes over access to documents and witnesses from the Biden administration.”

So imagine GAO’s surprise yesterday when Speaker McCarthy filed a motion with the Court affirming he “fully support[s]” his predecessor’s arguments keeping this ugly episode from public scrutiny under the Common Law Right of Access to federal records.

The new leadership claims a desire to reform the House’s stance in litigation and activism, and to be more transparent. It appears this does not extend to its stance in litigation seeking to bring about such transparency over certain parties bringing in donor-provided activists to run investigations (plainly in violation of the self-governing body’s rules).

DC Circuit Invites New Speaker to Reverse Pelosi Position on Secrecy re Oversight Abuses

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Savvy readers will remember journalist Rob Schilling’s investigation into the weaponization of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. That Committee appeared, under its prior leadership, to be accepting “in kind” contributions from wealthy donors — boasted of by everyone from George Soros’s and Pierre Omidyar’s activist groups to the in-kind “staff” and Subcommittee Chair Ro Khanna (in seesaw fashion) — which coincided with the threat of subpoenas to the targets of these donors’ political ire.

Ugly precedent, that. The term Weaponization of the Federal Government comes to mind.

Schilling sought records from the House and its officers which would have shed light on the degree to which outside actors using outside funding had engineered and/or helped execute the agenda of a Congressional Committee. When he was denied access to those records, he filed suit in the US District Court against the House and its Speaker (at the time, Nancy Pelosi), seeking access under the Common Law Right of Access, which empowers citizens to review government records and activities. He later amended the Complaint to include the Committee.

“You have spent a year and a half and millions of taxpayers’ dollars conducting this investigation. It is imperative that all information collected be preserved not just for institutional prerogatives but for transparency to the American people… The American people have a right to know that the allegations you have made are supported by the facts.”

The District Court dismissed Schilling’s suit, ruling that Congress was absolutely immune from suits under the Common Law Right of Access despite decisions dating back to the 1970s which suggest otherwise. Schilling appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court. There, the (soon to be outgoing-) Speaker Pelosi quickly filed a Motion for Summary Affirmance, seeking to deny Mr. Schilling the chance to even brief his claims in the ordinary way that all appeals are handled.

As Schilling noted in his opposition, this seemed to be a rush effort to avoid the prospect of Pelosi’s successor possibly having another view on whether such behavior should be free from the disinfectant of sunlight. After all, Kevin McCarthy had promised increased transparency, and even offered more pointed and highly relevant comments. For example, he wrote in November 2022 to the January 6 Committee that:

While the sentiments were directed at another committee, they could not be more perfect for this occasion.

Days later, Speaker Pelosi’s term in office ended and Speaker Kevin McCarthy took office. Now, the D.C. Circuit has agreed that possibly the new Speaker has a different view of transparency in the legislative branch than did his predecessor in office. This week, when ordering that Kevin McCarthy be substituted as a Defendant in this case, the Court further ordered that he must file a Motion by February 24 setting forth his view of how the issue should be handled going forward.

This serves up to Speaker McCarthy another opportunity to fulfill his promises, right one of the last Congress’s most egregious violations of norms and abuses of position, and ensure transparency in the people’s House in the face of overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing. Government Accountability & Oversight looks forward to reading what Mr. McCarthy has to say when he files his brief next month.

Fake Hearings? Boulder City Council Records Suggest Another ‘Public-Private Partnership’ with Activists

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UPDATE: Exemplar Documents Loaded

UPDATE: Documents loaded (some Word docs follow separately, with interesting Properties)

GAO has documented the seemingly inarguable outsourcing of congressional oversight to donors, and their unelected donees, that reared its head in Washington, DC during the (mercifully concluding) 117th Congress.

Recently, GAO reviewed public records obtained by Energy Policy Advocates which suggest this is becoming a real thing outside the beltway, too. Consider the Boulder (CO) City Council, again in the context of climate and again specifically to try and give a boost to climate litigation (curious: is this widespread or just a climate industry thing?).

 

 

 

 

There is lots more in the somewhat buggy document (which we are attempting to shrink and post in full), affirming what transpired and further illuminating this practice.

The first thing that leaps out, after the obvious deployment of government by and for activists, is the reappearance of players from the ‘climate’ tort bar’s recruitment of Florida municipalities.

Because, well, of course.

 

GAO is continuing to wrestle with the document’s idiosyncrasies. We will return with items offering particular insights about how this governmental body came to be used this way, as we encounter them.

UPDATE:

GAO has loaded some select documents showing how these uses of government come about, as it deals with the original’s issues.

UPDATE: The totality of the PDF’d emails are here. Additional Word docs attached to those emails are here — some of them, like this, and this, have properties further showing the role of outside activists in producing nominally official output; xlsx docs attached to the emails are here, here and here.

 

Emails, Wayback Machine Gem Confirms: DiCaprio, Other Private Funders of Governmental Climate Litigation Paid Millions to “Climate” Lawyers Via Pass-through Charity

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New revelations solve mystery whether wealthy donors are actually paying millions for lawyers to file massive “climate” lawsuits, despite contracts with taxpayer-clients set to pay same lawyers scores of millions as “contingency fee” out of clients’ alleged damages

‘Double-dipping’ at play? What did these generous politicians know and when did they know it?

Archived web post shows DiCaprio Foundation at first boasted of gift to foundation promoting green policies, a pass-through organization whose IRS filings reported curious payments to law firm behind litigation

Those IRS filings seem to have obscured the true purpose but Emails obtained in litigation confirm the what the millions were for

This Spring, GAO broke the story, laid out in records ordered by a court to be released in the California Public Records Act litigation Government Accountability & Oversight v. Regents, that Leonardo DiCaprio and at least one green Republican donor (and quite possibly another, influential Republican donor Andrew Sabin) had privately financed the wave of “climate nuisance” litigation brought on behalf of governmental entities by the law firm Sher Edling, LLP.

That revelation received no attention, despite reflecting a possible revolution in the legal industry. This seems about to change. Here is background on why.

Some of the DiCaprio, et al.,-funded “climate” lawsuits were dealt setbacks in court, hen judges ruled that the suits were an effort to influence federal environmental policy. This led the lawyers and plaintiffs to change tack and insist the cases are really purely local, consumer protection matters. Yet it appears that despite the lawyers’ change in rhetoric and claims to the courts, the same pass-through charity was quietly paying millions of dollars to the law firm bringing the case.

IRS filings and archived internet records appear to reveal that the same privately-financed project remained behind this litigation despite its ostensible change in focus, suggesting nothing had changed but the packaging. As defendants in the Minnesota lawsuit pointed out when removing that suit to federal court:

While purportedly brought under state law and in the name of consumer protection, this lawsuit by the State of Minnesota, acting through its attorney general (the “Attorney General”), is the culmination of a multi-year plan concocted by plaintiffs’ attorneys, climate activists, and special interests to force a political and regulatory agenda that has not otherwise materialized through the decisions of the political branches of the federal government. While the Attorney General is entitled to disagree with particular statements about climate and energy policy, he is not entitled to use state power to suppress speech and deter free association as part of a coordinated campaign to change federal climate and energy policy.

Indeed. And remarkably, at the same time the charity behind this politically-charged spate of lawsuits was also reporting to the IRS that an extraordinary series of “charitable grants” to the law firm were for environmental causes, the law firm receiving the grants was telling courts that its cases related to consumer protection and had no bearing on federal energy or environmental policy.

The same Minnesota defendants’ pleading raised the prospect that the governmental lawsuits were actually being privately financed. What made this prospect ever more of interest to the federal taxpayer, as one law professor noted in Forbes, was the fact of politicians awarding Sher Edling massive ‘contingency fee’ agreements to file these suits on behalf of the governmental clients — i.e., on behalf of their taxpayers — such as San Francisco, Oakland, New York City, Baltimore, Annapolis and Anne Arundel County (MD), Minnesota, and numerous others.

Contingency fee agreements pay substantial portions of any verdict or settlement that might eventually be reached to compensate the government plaintiffs for their ostensible damages to lawyers. These agreements allow lawyers to collect a portion of their clients damages supposedly because of the risk the lawyers take in handling the suits with a chance of no compensation, and investing their time in ventures that may never pay off.. And the wording of the agreements and related records obtained under open records requests leave no room to doubt that that fee is the compensation for the work.

This is especially curious, because documents now suggest that these attorneys may have been receiving payment from Hollywood donors for the same work that they ultimately also sought payment for from governmental clients.

Not one but two emails released in GAO v. Regents affirmed that “Terry [Tamminen]’s group” — at the time, Tamminen was CEO of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation — and green Republican donor and benefactor of law schools assisting the climate cases (Harvard, UCLA) Dan Emmett are “strong supporters” of the Sher Edling litigation. And their colleague in several environmentalist and supporting academic enterprises, Sabin, was targeted to possibly also help fund the assault.

In one of these emails, we see a forwarded email from the “head[] of this new organization behind the lawsuits” — Sher Edling, LLP’s non-lawyer, public- and donor-relations guy Chuck Savitt — who called the funding source for the climate suits “the Collective Action Fund”.

That term was new to GAO, which now sees the phrase also used by the Hewlett Foundation in announcing a gift to a New Venture Fund “Collective Action Fund For Accountability, Resilience, And Adaptation.” That fund also claimed it was supporting such litigation, and so seemed a safe bet to be what Savitt was referring to. That Fund received, e.g., $3 million from the MacArthur Fund in 2020 for three years of work.

It seems Savitt was in fact referring to a different “collective action fund” also underwriting the campaign (read on). Either way, the dollars are really piling up to pay for lawyers millions of dollars to file “contingency fee” lawsuits!

As GAO noted when the DiCaprio revelation first emerged in this document production, one particularly noteworthy aspect is that the firm’s contingency agreements promise up to tens and tens of millions of dollars more per case in the event they prevail or settle. After all, the firms run the risk of not being paid. Or so it seems that at least some of the taxpayer-plaintiffs likely assumed when promising enormous “contingency fee” payments.

GAO pointed out that something called Resources Legacy Fund’s (RLF) IRS filings offered an odd mélange of reasons why it gave a private, for-profit tort firm millions of dollars in charitable grants, none of which reasons suggested what the emails show was the grants’ purpose: filing lawsuits (on behalf of clients who also contracted with the firm to pay tens of millions of dollars from supposed taxpayer damages if they scored big).

These reasons as the campaign was getting organized and the first few suits filed were: “land or marine conservation” (2017) ($432,129), “advancing healthy communities” (2018) ($1,319,625) then, apparently having run out of euphemisms, “land or marine conservation, promotion of education and/or healthy communities” (2019) ($1.1 million).

However, while the GAO v. Regents production, by proving a “Collective Action Fund” was privately, quietly financing the Sher Edling climate lawsuits — massive ‘contingency fee’ pacts to pay for the work, notwithstanding  — there remained some ambiguity whether the millions given Sher Edling in charitable grants by RLF were in fact for the climate litigation.

The emails helpfully suggested one take a look at the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. Stashed away on the Wayback Machine we see a 2017 post confirming that this Collective Action Fund does go into RLF’s pot that is paying the tort firm for the climate nuisance suits, as discussed in the emails.

This post happens to be from the first such LDF page available on Wayback, dated September 30, 2017. It was removed sometime after May 2021. LDF has since merged with other groups into an “environmental powerhouse” called Earth Alliance.

Given this, GAO raises again obvious questions raised by the revelation that the firm is being paid millions of dollars to prosecute government litigation for which, so far as the public record suggests, it was to be paid but only be paid tens and tens of millions of dollars (per client) if it won or settled:

Did the law firm disclose to its clients, e.g., Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, that it was already being paid to conduct this litigation?

That is, did the MN Legislative Advisory Commission know this when it approved the Ellison/Sher Edling contract, in its role as a good-government watchdog? If not, possibly Professor Krauss could update his thoughts on these arrangements.

Did the Michael Bloomberg-provided attorney in Minnesota (not to mention others in e.g., DC, RI and elsewhere), know this when she waived Sher Edling, LLP attorneys in to represent the state in its case, promising compliance with Minnesota rules of professional conduct? (GAO’s attorney readers may recall Rule 1.8(f) of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, adopted in plaintiff-states like Minnesota and Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia among other jurisdictions. It would be very surprising indeed if we do not hear more on that later.)

But if the firm did make this disclosure of the private financing for Minnesota’s litigation to Ellison, then taxpayers (and the Legislative Advisory Commission) might wonder whether Ellison informed the Commission of the full financial arrangements when he sought approval for his Sher Edling contingency fee contract. Because that disclosure doesn’t appear in the materials released under Minnesota’s open records law (scroll about 70% of the way down).

Curioser and curioser.

‘Titanic’ Revelation: DiCaprio Nabs Starring Role in Private Financing of Government ‘Climate’ Lawsuits

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Is this among the millions that foundations are providing to a ‘contingency fee’ tort firm? Did tort firm disclose to politician clients? Did politicians disclose to legislatures and taxpayers?

In 2020, information surfaced in IRS Forms 990 filed by the non-profit Resources Legacy Fund (“RLF”) suggesting that the ‘climate nuisance’ and ‘consumer fraud’ lawsuits filed by Sher Edling, LLP on behalf of progressive attorneys general officials and local governments, were being privately financed to the tune of millions of dollars.

“Charitable grants” of millions of dollars to a plaintiff’s tort firm are certainly unusual. This was particularly curious given the politicians hired Sher Edling with contingency fee contracts promising them tens of millions in the event they prevail, because the governments couldn’t afford to pay the firm and the firm took the risk in making the investment in the cases unsure of a payday.

“Deception may make for a good story on the big screen, but this new evidence raises some very troubling questions outside of Hollywood. Are well-heeled donors secretly funding government litigation by attorneys who are also seeking a second, multi-million dollar payday from the taxpayers?”

One law professor, Michael Krauss of George Mason University, raised questions about the arrangement, in Forbes.com. Indeed, if the money given to the law firm at the same time the lawsuits began being filed was for those lawsuits, then the non-profit obscured that fact with misleading language. The grants were officially reported as supporting “land or marine conservation” (2017) ($432,129), then as “advancing healthy communities” (2018) ($1,319,625) then, apparently having run out of euphemisms, as supporting “land or marine conservation, promotion of education and/or healthy communities” (2019) ($1.1 million).

Nonetheless, emails just obtained by Government Accountability & Oversight in open records litigation in California after a two-year legal battle at least confirm that private parties were in fact “serious supporters” underwriting the litigation (and presumably still are). These include Leonardo DiCaprio who, a review of his foundation’s IRS filings suggest, routed his group’s funding through at least one other organization.

So, Terry [Tamminen]’s group — at the time Tamminen was CEO of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation — and Dan Emmett are “strong supporters” of the Sher Edling litigation. And their colleague om several environmentalist enterprises, major Republican ‘green’ donor Andy Sabin was targeted to possibly help fund the assault, too.

It is possible that the “serious support” for “the nuisance litigation” was funneled into RLF’s $3 million that has so far been reported. However, Emmett’s foundation’s 990s (and his word choice) suggest this was personal money or, if it was from his own foundation, then that money too may have been routed through at least one other organization. Likely conduits for that latter task, from the various 990s, include Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and Sustainable Markets Foundation, even the University of California.

This new revelation raises further, serious ethical as well as public policy questions. Among them: what’s with the contingency fee pacts promising lawyers a substantial share of a claimed hundreds of millions of dollars in supposed losses by the taxpayers in the plaintiff jurisdictions when the firm isn’t, in fact, taking the suggested risk/investing on its own lots of uncompensated time on a suit that may never pay? Do the clients and the taxpayers they represent know about this?

Notably, there is no indication from these records or other such correspondence obtained under open records laws that this “serious support” is litigation finance for a stake, just donors ponying up to finance the cases as a cause.

Consider Minnesota. There, the firm’s contract had to be approved by a Legislative Advisory Commission as a good government measure. The Minnesota AG’s contract with Sher Edling states, in toto, re compensation for the work: More

Democracy Dies in Dark-Moneyness: Soros Funding Behind Off-Books Congressional “Staff” to Investigate Political Opponents of Climate Agenda

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Following up on this story, and related complaints filed with congressional ethics watchdog offices, courtesy of Capital Research Center’s intrepid Hayden Ludwig we now see that the money behind privately financed congressional investigative staff is coming from none other than George Soros’s Open Society ventures.

Specifically, it appears that $300,000 went from Soros’ c4 (Open Society Policy Institute) to 1630 Fund for Co-Equal Action, with the grant tag, “to support work to enhance congressional effectiveness and oversight”.

Another $282,2000 went to the Hill-support operation courtesy of “eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s Democracy Fund Voice in 2019 to ‘provide information and advice that helps members of Congress advance policies and conduct effective oversight.’”

As we now know, thanks to those two ethics complaints and yesterday’s common public right of access lawsuit for records filed against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, et al., that means providing off-books congressional investigators to augment professional staff, improperly for any Member or office which partakes, to pursue private party, political opponents.

Which is a donor-dangle to Members to violate not only House Rules but federal law, should they bite. Which House Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Ro Khanna has confessed to doing. As all laid out in those complaints. One recipient of which, the House Inspector General, immediately waved off as not being his job. Even though it seems to fall pretty cleanly within his remit of investigating management of House resources.

Democracy dies in dark-moneyness, etc.

Note that this money came via Arabella’s c4 umbrella group — a hard core political entity, not some arguably nonpartisan c3 “charity” or public education institution.  For a slew of quotes and critiques of the 1630 Fund c4 by WaPo, Politico et al. see CRC’s compilation here.
So, we now know that partisan financing of prosecutorial or quasi-judicial activities goes beyond just Soros prosecutors, above-board and legal, or Michael Bloomberg’s scheme planting privately hired activist prosecutors to pursue his agenda through state attorneys general offices which falls into a much grayer area. It extends to off-books congressional staff, who represent a facial violation (by Members who partake) of House Rules and federal law.

This operation — hiding in plain sight courtesy of a New York Times rollout piece so clumsily incurious that it never considered the propriety or even legality of what it nonetheless confesses is revolutionary, a “unique approach” now being tried in apparent response to the election of Donald Trump as President — is a pulse-check for the institution of journalism. But, even though it’s people we like, pushing idea we agree with?  It represents a test of principle for the Republican congressional minority, “Dark Money” scold Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, and any elected congressional Democrats who would like to demonstrate their rhetoric about good governance is remotely sincere.

Records Lawsuit Filed Against House Leadership Re: Use of Donor-Provided Consultants as Congressional Investigative Staff

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Today, award-winning independent journalist Rob Schilling filed a lawsuit against Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the Clerk and Chief Administrator of the House of Representatives to exercise the public’s common law right of access to records. Specifically, Schilling’s suit seeks certain described emails, and any Skype and similar recordings and logs, pertaining to the use by two committee chairs of donor-provided consultants as professional staff to perform official business.

This follows the revelation that Congress also had joined in a practice, initiated by Democratic governors and attorneys general with the assistance of major donors after the election of Donald Trump as President, of using privately funded staff to perform official business to advance the “climate” agenda. Public records show budgets for tens of millions of dollars of in-kind gifts to governors in the form of non-employee climate “staff” and media consultants, and that progressive state attorneys general took in donor-hired and -provided prosecutors.

Now, it appears that the House Committee on Oversight & Reform is using donor-provided consultants as staff to guide what Environment Subcommittee Chairman Ro Khanna told activists to expect will be a “year-long” investigation of private parties, already expanded, for political speech that Rep. Khanna believes has frustrated attempts to legislate the agenda.

Scapegoating congressional failures is not a constitutionally permissible use of Congress’s investigative powers — with or without the financial assistance of activist donors. While the constitutionality of this “year-long” investigation is not yet at hand, Schilling was one of two parties filing two complaints with congressional ethics watchdogs over this work, the Inspector General of the House and the Office of Congressional Ethics.

As the complaints noted, the gray area exploited by some governors and AGs is not present here: House Rules and federal law prohibit private financing of the performance of official House business, in-kind or otherwise.

This new congressional investigation began with oil company executives in October but, according to past behavior and recent hints, seems likely to extend soon to others the “climate” industry views as having impeded its desires. A previous AGs’ campaign noted in today’s suit led to subpoenas to over 100 think tanks, scientists, and others also in the name of pursuing energy companies for purported climate-related sins. This blew up on the AGs when the targets challenged the obvious violation of private individuals’ First Amendment rights, thanks to the   subpoena battle fought by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The AG leading that charge retreated. However, many of the same AG offices involved in that scheme then brought on attorneys privately hired and placed in their offices by a group created by billionaire climate activist Michael Bloomberg, which offices then resumed the investigations. It has thus become clear that none of these abuses of power, in the name of enormous payouts and massive new governmental authority, were ever truly abandoned.

If anything, they have expanded. The complaint also notes the prospect that the Committee objective is to engineer criminal referrals to the U.S. Department of Justice, in aid of a Biden-Harris campaign promise to engage DoJ on behalf of the climate industry in its lawsuits against private industry. Indeed, the Oversight Chairmen told activists they were eyeing perjury charges against witnesses…a week before any testimony was taken or any questions posed.

Further, however, prompting Schilling’s requests was Committee leadership also letting slip that it had brought in consultants to help guide the campaign, describing them in a way strongly indicating — thanks both to the New York Times and the group itself — use of a group funded by Arabella Advisors, the “mothership” behind a Democratic “Dark money juggernaut.”

The suit notes that this expansion of donor-provided climate “staff” comes after previous revelations of a $50 million per year budget request for off-books climate staff for progressive governors by 2020. Then came Bloomberg’s millions to staff up AGs to, e.g., push climate prosecutions that — with ever-changing rationales but a constant demand for hundreds of billions of dollars to be politically distributed — appear to be little more than shakedowns.

Now the spawn of both disgraces prowls the halls of Congress, and in this case there is no room to excuse the behavior which on its face violates 31 U.S. Code § 1342, House Rules and ethics requirements/prohibitions (House Rule XXIV and official House interpretations thereof).

Fortunately, the NYT launched the outside consultants’ effort, hiding it in plain sight with a promotional piece that, tellingly, made no inquiry into what skeptical voices — let alone House Rules or federal law — say about what the Timesnonetheless admits (if with understatement) is a “unique approach”. That same article, and the consultants’ website admissions, now tie the hands of the Members of Congress who brought in outside parties on the basis, indeed the confession, that the House did not grant them the level of professional staff the “climate” movement feels it should have to use the power of government to pursue political opponents.

Those opponents have apparently frustrated the “climate” movement beyond the point of caring about rules, a matter which House Inspector General has already declined to examine, about which the Congressional Office on Ethics which has a complaint, and the House Committee on Administration. The latter’s Ranking Minority Member Rodney Davis has already stirred to action out of his own frustration with what he views as coverup by the House leadership.

For now, Schilling’s common law right of access suit seeks to exercise the public’s right to know about this metastasizing of off-books private staffing to Congress, again (as was the case with the AGs) for adjudicative/quasi-judicial matters against private, political opponents.

 

Plaintiff Robert Schilling hosts The Schilling Show radio program broadcast on Newsradio 1070 and 98.9 FM WINA in Central Virginia, and the founder and editor of a news, analysis, and commentary web site, SchillingShow.com, whose reporting and investigative journalism has been awarded multiple times by the Associated Press and the Virginia Association of Broadcasters, including two “Superior Awards for Best Investigative Reporting” from the Associated Press.

GAO Board Member Matthew D. Hardin filed suit for Schilling, following requests for the records made in November and December 2021, which all of the named defendants ignored.

House Inspector General Suggests Complainants Make Complaint Someone Else’s Problem

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Following up on this item noting two complaints were filed with offices of jurisdiction over potential misuses of congressional resources, the House Inspector General informed independent journalist Rob Schilling that it would be preferable if another office did the work.

As the complaint noted, however

Dear Inspector General Ptasienski,

We write pursuant to Res. 423, the House Administration Reform Resolution of 1992 amending the Rules of the House of Representatives. As noted by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) (https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IF11024.pdf) (emphases added):

The House IG is authorized to accept alleged violations of law or misconduct by House employees and to investigate … acceptance of gratuities, mismanagement and waste of funds, conflicts of interest, abuse of authority, theft or abuse of government property, computer crimes, purchase card fraud, improper use of House resources, and violations related to administration of the House. Should the IG receive information outside of its authority, it is to refer the information to other House entities (e.g., the House Ethics Committee), or noncongressional entities (e.g., the Department of Veterans Affairs), as appropriate.

Further detail making plain this matter is indeed under the IG’s purview includes the following:

Pursuant to House Rule II, clause 6, the House IG has five main duties:

(1) provide audit, investigative, and advisory services to the House and joint entities in a manner consistent with government-wide standards;

(2) inform the officers or other officials who are the subject of an audit of the results of that audit and suggesting appropriate curative actions;

…

(5) report to the Committee on Ethics information involving possible violations by a Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House of any rule of the House or of any law applicable to the performance of official duties or the discharge of official responsibilities that may require referral to the appropriate Federal or State authorities under clause 3(a)(3) of rule XI.

On January 4, 2001, the rules package for the 107th Congress (2001-2002) provided the Committee on House Administration with policy direction and oversight over the Inspector General [H.Res. 5, §2(g)].

The Office of the Inspector General was created in the wake of scandals involving mismanagement of House resources. In the event that issues it investigates lead to the proper referral, by the IG, to another body of jurisdiction, the IG is to refer the matter there. Its IG is appointed jointly with leaders of both caucuses. However, that does not ensure the Office is interested in pursuing leadership, at least of one caucus according to this experience. In this matter, the IG instead referred these complainants to refer the matter elsewhere on their own, with no IG fingerprints, despite the prima facie case of violations 31 U.S. Code § 1342, House Rules  and ethics requirements/prohibitions (House Rule XXIV and official House interpretations thereof.

Once again, it appears that the answer to the question, who will guard the guardian? is, well, someone else.

Complaints Filed with Congressional Watchdogs Over Use of Donor-Provided Consultants as Congressional Investigative Staff

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Last week, Government Accountability & Oversight joined award-winning independent journalist Rob Schilling in filing two complaints with congressional ethics watchdogs over the use by congressional offices of donor-provided professional staff to perform official business. This practice of using privately funded staff to perform official business to advance the “climate” agenda has exploded throughout the country, at the state level, since 2017. It has dedicated tens of millions of dollars to gifting governors with non-employee climate “staff” and media consultants, and progressive state attorneys general with prosecutors. House rules, however, prohibit private financing of the performance of official House business, in-kind or otherwise.

The complaints were filed with the Inspector General of the House and the Office of Congressional Ethics, prompted by revelations that the House Committee on Oversight & Reform is apparently using donor-provided staff as “consultants” to guide what Environment Subcommittee Chairman Ro Khanna told activists to expect will be a “year-long” investigation of private parties for political speech that, he feels, has frustrated attempts to legislate the agenda.

Just a few short years ago progressive state attorneys general cooperated on a plan to not only subpoena energy companies over “climate change,” but also to subpoena over 100 think tanks, scientists, and others in the name of pursuing energy companies for purported climate-related sins. The latter blew up on the AGs when the targets challenged the obvious violation of private individuals’ First Amendment rights. Yet many of the same AG offices involved in that scheme then brought on attorneys privately hired and placed in their offices by a group created by billionaire climate activist Michael Bloomberg, who then resumed the investigations.

This new congressional investigation reflects an escalation and expansion of both abuses, to advance the leadership’s and their funders’ “climate” policy agenda which voters reject time and time again including just recently in the U.S. Congress. It began with oil company executives in October but, according to past behavior and recent hints, will soon move on to others the “climate” industry views as having impeded their desires.

As detailed in the complaints, public comments and records affirm that the Oversight Committee brought in donor-provided consultants to perform the duties of professional staff to help execute this “year-long” investigation which, decades of SCOTUS precedent including two key McCarthy-era cases, indicate is unconstitutional, privately financed or not, is unconstitutional.

However, that fight is not yet at hand. For now, the issue is the metastasizing of off-books private staffing to Congress, again (as was the case with the AGs) for adjudicative/quasi-judicial matters. Further, it seems highly likely that the objective is to engineer criminal referrals to the U.S. Department of Justice, in part in satisfaction of a Biden-Harris campaign promise. Indeed, these Chairmen told activists they were eyeing perjury charges against witnesses… a week before any testimony was taken or any questions posed.

More confessory, committee leadership also let slip that it had brought in consultants to help guide the campaign, describing them in a way strongly indicating — thanks both to the New York Times and the group itself — use of a group funded by Arabella Advisors, the “mothership” behind a Democratic “Dark money juggernaut.”

The complaints detail how this expanded use of donor-provided “staff” follows a previously revealed budget of $50 million per year for off-books climate staff for progressive governors by 2020. Then came Bloomberg’s millions to staff up AGs to, e.g., push climate prosecutions that — with ever-changing rationales but a constant demand for hundreds of billions of dollars to be distributed to political constituencies — appear to be little more than shakedowns.

Both moves followed the 2015-16 AG subpoena battle launched against the Competitive Enterprise Institute and 100 other groups, scientists and other private parties for pretty much all of their records. This, too, began with open pursuit of energy companies but was soon directed at policy advocates. The AG leading that earlier charge retreated when CEI fought back. However, it has become clear that none of these abuses of power, in the name of enormous payouts and massive new governmental authority, were ever truly abandoned.

Now the spawn of both disgraces prowls the halls of Congress, and in this case there is no room to excuse the behavior which on its face violates House Rules and ethics requirements/prohibitions (House Rule XXIV and official House interpretations thereof).

Fortunately, the outside consultants launched their effort with a NYT promotional piece hiding the effort in plain sight, yet tellingly without a single mention of what any skeptical voices, let alone the House Rules, say about it. That same article, and the consultants’ website admissions, now hang the Members of Congress who brought in outside parties on the basis, indeed the confession, that the House did not grant them the level of professional staff the “climate” movement feels it should have to use the power of government to pursue political opponents.

Those opponents have apparently frustrated the “climate” movement beyond the point of caring about rules. When the media covers for you repeatedly, it is almost understandable how one might feel the ability to get away with anything. However, this matter now rests with the House Inspector General, Congressional Office on Ethics, and the House Committee on Administration, whose Ranking Minority Member Rodney Davis has already stirred to action out of his own frustration with what he views as coverup by the House leadership.

 

Government Accountability & Oversight is a 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to transparency in government at the local, state and federal levels.

Journalist Robert Schilling hosts The Schilling Show radio program broadcast on Newsradio 1070 and 98.9 FM WINA in Central Virginia, and the founder and editor of a news, analysis, and commentary web site, SchillingShow.com, whose reporting and investigative journalism has been awarded multiple times by the Associated Press and the Virginia Association of Broadcasters, including two “Superior Awards for Best Investigative Reporting” from the Associated Press.