Banquet of Greed: Trump Ballroom Donors Feast on Federal Funds and Favors
Follow up to previous posting Trump’s demolition of the White House East Wing is nearly complete – Public Citizen: “The corporate and billionaire donors to Donald Trump’s gaudy ballroom project are beset by conflicts of interest, according to a new Public Citizen report – Banquet of Greed: Trump Ballroom Donors Feast on Federal Funds and Favors. Here are some quick facts from the report:
- Two-thirds of the 24 known corporate donors have recent government contracts for projects, totaling $279 billion over the last five years. Lockheed Martin is the largest of the government contractors, with $191 billion in federal contracts over the last five years.
- Of the 24 corporate donors, 14 are facing federal enforcement actions and/or have had federal enforcement actions suspended by the Trump administration. These include major antitrust actions involving Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and T-Mobile; labor rights cases involving Amazon, Apple, Caterpillar, Google, Lockheed and Meta; and SEC matters involving Coinbase and Ripple.
- The corporate and billionaire funders of the ballroom have spent $1.6 billion on lobbying and campaign contributions over the last five years.
- The companies self-report a stunningly wide array of interests before the federal government, involving everything from taxation to trade policy, battlefield domain awareness to telephone poles, consumer privacy to product liability rules, appropriations to cybersecurity – and much more.
See also Senator Ed Markey questioning whether ACECO followed federal health and safety standards during the demolition, or if it placed its own workers and the public at risk of exposure to asbestos and other hazardous materials. “Damaged asbestos fibers are one of the most hazardous substances that can arise from construction demolition.
Unless their presence is disclosed, individuals have no way of knowing that the air may contain tiny, tasteless and odorless fibers that cause no noticeable irritation but can be deadly. Construction workers on the East Wing site, nearby office workers and tourists, and passersby could now be at heightened risk of developing lung cancer, asbestosis, or mesothelioma from the inhalation of demolition dust.” … “ACECO’s work falls squarely within a network of federal regulations governing demolition, hazardous-material handling, and worker protection.
The Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s (OSHA) asbestos standard requires that employers identify, monitor, and control asbestos exposure in demolition work. And the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) rules require inspection, advance notice, and approved abatement or containment procedures before demolition of a structure containing asbestos.”
Simpson Thacher Becomes Latest Surrender, Firm Joins Trump’s International House Of Tariffs
Follow up to previous postings – How Trump’s crackdown on law firms is undermining legal defenses for the vulnerable and What if the Big Law Firms Hadn’t Caved to Trump?, see also Above the Law: “Back in August, the New York Times reported that Kirkland and Paul Weiss (along with Skadden) — firms who had cut deals with the administration in exchange for pro bono payola — had done work for Trump’s Commerce Department. Democratic lawmakers quickly fired off inquiries because giving the government free services would violate the Anti-Deficiency Act, and direct work for the administration would contradict the firms’ prior representations that any free legal work would be limited to a relatively benign list of charitable causes. The firms respondedwithout actually answering those concerns, instead reiterating that they can choose their clients and believe they’re not doing anything wrong. Now, it seems, Simpson Thacher has joined up with Trump’s Commerce Department.
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett is handling work for the U.S. Commerce Department, a department official confirmed on Wednesday. The New York firm is the latest Big Law firm that reached a pro bono deal with President Donald Trump this year to commit to do work on behalf of the U.S. government. Simpson Thacher has already started working for the department, but the firm and the U.S. government are working to finalize an agreement for the firm’s work. “We are working with the firm and finalizing terms at the moment,” a department official said…”
Trump Cybersecurity Policy Is Indistinguishable From A Foreign Attack
TechDirt: “Last year almost a dozen major U.S. ISPs were the victim of a massive, historic intrusion by Chinese hackers who managed to spy on public U.S. officials for more than a year.
The “Salt Typhoon” hack was so severe, the intruders spent much of the last year rooting around the ISP networks even after discovery. AT&T and Verizon, two of the compromised companies, apparently didn’t think it was worth informing subscribers any of this happened. Many of the attack vectors were based on simple things like telecom administrators failing to change default passwords on sensitive hardware entry points.
The hack, caused in part by our mindless deregulation and lax oversight of telecom monopolies, only saw a tiny fraction of the press and public attention reserved for our multi-year, mass hyperventilation about TikTokprivacy and security.
But on their way out the door, Biden FCC officials did try to implement some very basic cybersecurity safeguards, requiring that telecoms try to do a better job securing their networks and informing customers of breaches. Enter the Trump FCC under Brendan Carr, which is now rescinding that entire effort because lobbyists at AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Charter told them to:
“The Federal Communications Commission will vote in November to repeal a ruling that requires telecom providers to secure their networks, acting on a request from the biggest lobby groups representing Internet providers.”
In a folksy Halloween blog post, Carr tries to pretend this somehow improvescybersecurity. According to Carr, ISPs pinky swore that everything is fine now, and frames obvious regulatory capture as the agency being more “agile”:
“Following extensive FCC engagement with carriers, the item announces the substantial steps that providers have taken to strengthen their cybersecurity defenses. In doing so, we will also reverse an eleventh hour CALEA declaratory ruling reached by the prior FCC—a decision that both exceeded the agency’s authority and did not present an effective or agile response to the relevant cybersecurity threats. So, we’re correcting course.”
Let me be clear about something: the Biden rules were the absolute baseline for oversight of telecom, basically requiring that ISPs do the absolute bare minimum when it comes to securing their networks, while being transparent with the public about when there’s been a major hack. This stuff was the bare minimum, and the U.S. is too corrupt to even do that…”