Tag: Lockheed Martin

The announcement came well after many other countries had grounded the aircraft. (Just this fall, the company won a $9.2 billion contract to make a new generation of jets for the Air Force.) And its employees, political action committees and other affiliated groups have donated more than $8.4 million in campaign contributions since 2016, giving to Democrats and Republicans in equal measure. The answer is a loophole, cemented in the law in the 1970s, that permits government contractors to set up “separate segregated funds,” or political action committees, to make political contributions using money typically pooled from the contractors’ executives and major shareholders. He noted that if nothing else, it creates “the appearance of the government contractor buying influence despite the contractor contribution ban.” Boeing’s PAC is a “major player” Mr. Fischer said. Boeing correctly reports that the company itself does not directly fund super PACs (which are allowed to raise unlimited amounts of money). The company’s PAC may give up to $5,000 to a candidate’s campaign committee or use its funds for any other “lawful purpose” — which includes unlimited contributions to super PACs or “dark money” nonprofit groups as well. There is also, in effect, another even larger loophole for contractors looking to influence national politicians: the inaugural committee for a president-elect. Because inaugural committees are technically not connected to the political campaign, “all bets are off,” as Mr. Fischer put it. “The public can’t have complete faith that the government’s decisions around the 737 Max 8 were made based on the public’s interests,” Mr. Fischer said.

COLOGNE, Germany – As Germany ponders a suitable successor for the nuclear-capable Tornado aircraft, U.S. government officials are keeping a close eye on the proceedings -- and could have an outsized impact on Germany’s final options. Among the four competing aircraft types, three are American: the Lockheed Martin F-35, as well as variants of Boeing’s F-15 and F-18. But officials at the ministry of defense in Berlin are leaning toward a European aircraft, the Eurofighter Typhoon. Under a NATO agreement dating back to the Cold War, Germany has outfitted its Tornado fleet with a nuclear option, enabling the planes to carry U.S. atomic bombs eastward in case of a major war between the alliance and the former Soviet Union. Reuters reported in June that German officials had sent a letter to Washington asking what it would take to certify the Eurofighter for the nuclear mission. In contrast, certifying U.S. aircraft to carry U.S. atomic bombs flown by German pilots is expected to be a simpler proposition. German officials have declined to discuss the reported Eurofighter inquiry or anything related to the nuclear capabilities of the envisioned Tornado successor aircraft. “The U.S. government is actively engaged with the German Ministry of Defense to identify the requirements for its Tornado replacement program,” spokesman Johnny Michael wrote. But in the age of Trump, these matters could take a very different turn, argues Christian Mölling of the German Council on Foreign Relations. “But right now everything is political between Germany and the United States.” President Trump is known for his desire to inject an economic calculus into all sorts of policy debates, and the U.S. leverage over German-carried American nukes may just turn out to become another opportunity to boost American firms.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., used funds from New PAC, his leadership political action committee, to purchase steak dinners, limo rides, and nearly $15,000 in Boston Celtics basketball games tickets, Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings show. The expenditures were first reported by the Fresno Bee and do not appear to break any federal laws. 2018 quarterly filings for New PAC show a number of more recent luxury expenditures. Other top donors include defense companies Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Co, and California-based dairy, almond and wine industry lobbyists. Calling the publication's staff “the Bee’s band of creeping correspondents,” Dunes criticized recent reporting on a winery in which he's an investor, describing the articles as a “textbook example of fake news.” The Fresno Bee published an editorial in response to the ad, and Joe Kieta, editor of the Fresno Bee, defended the paper's reporting in a statement to ABC News. By law, officeholders cannot use campaign funds for "personal use." However, today, less than half of Leadership PAC money is used to fund political allies; instead, the scathing report concludes, "leadership PACs look more like slush funds to subsidize officeholder luxury lifestyles." The report’s authors noted that lavish trips to Disneyland and beach resorts were written off as ‘fundraising’ and "perpetuate a never-ending fundraising cycle." Over the past five years, leadership PAC bills at the Capitol Hill Club, a Republican social club in Washington, have totaled at least $437,000, the report found. Nunes’ July quarterly filing shows that between April and June of this year, he spent just shy of $20,000 at the club, including a $13,773 tab on June 4th.