Meet the lobbyists, donors and bundlers behind Hillary’s $157 million juggernaut

[FreakinDJ]

But she has struggled to answer questions about her ties to Wall Street, telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper Wednesday night she accepted $675,000 in speaking fees from one investment bank because “that’s what they offered” and that financial firms are not giving her “very much money now.” In fact, as new campaign disclosure reports filed this week reveal, Clinton has been fueled by millions from a network of well-connected Washington lobbyists, Wall Street bundlers and billionaire donors.

Here is a Yahoo News guide to some of the key players in Clinton’s $157 million campaign:


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A savvy political operative who was once chief of staff to Democratic Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, Elmendorf now runs Subject Matter, a go-to Democratic lobbying firm for corporate interests, raking more than $10 million in fees last year. Among its top clients: Wall Street banks (Goldman Sachs and Citigroup), the casino industry (the American Gaming Association), telecoms (Verizon and Time Warner), tech firms (Facebook and Microsoft), agribusiness (Monsanto) and the NFL.


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The superlobbyist brother of John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, he runs Podesta Group — a powerhouse firm for defense contractors (Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Bechtel), pharmaceutical and health insurance giants (Merck and Blue Cross-Blue Shield) and banking and private equity firms (Well Fargo, Credit Suisse Group, KKR). Podesta has used his D.C. mansion, famously decorated with expensive modern art, to host a Clinton fundraiser (offering fine Italian cooking by him and his brother) as well as a book party for Clinton super-PAC attack dog David Brock (co-hosted by Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias and Clinton email pal Sidney Blumenthal.) Another branch of Podesta’s portfolio: foreign governments, including several — Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Burma and the Maldives — accused by the State Department of human rights abuses. A new senior partner working on the firm’s new $1.68 million a year Saudi account: David Adams, former assistant secretary for legislative affairs while Clinton was secretary of state.



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The stylish ex-wife of Tony Podesta, who battled with him over the expensive art in their home during a messy divorce, she runs her own rival firm, Heather Podesta & Partners. It raked in $7.5 million last year lobbying for MacAndrews & Forbes (the Wall Street investment firm owned by billionaire Ronald Perelman) as well as Marathon Oil, the Cigna Corp. and the National Pork Producers Council, among others. But one of her new clients has raised the most eyebrows: the National Cannabis Industry Association, making her the pot lobbyist in chief on Capitol Hill.



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Sullivan is the former DNC finance chair who first got attention as the supervisor of John Huang, the fundraiser convicted of campaign finance violations during Bill Clinton’s 1996 reelection. Sullivan, who is Clinton’s most prolific Lobbyist bundler, now is a partner at Capitol Counsel, which specializes in protecting tax breaks for private equity and real estate investment firms (Blackstone, Beacon Capitol Partners and the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts.) Other big clients include the PhRMA, the drug industry’s lobbying arm, and two of its leading members (Roche Holdings and Amgen.) Sullivan recently dropped one of his clients, a firm that electronically monitors prison inmates, after Clinton met with a racial justice group and said she would not take money from lobbyists for private prison companies. Sullivan’s partner at his lobbying firm, David Jones, another longtime Democratic fundraiser, has bundled another $386,000.


https://www.yahoo.com/politics/hillarys-financial-armada-233033648.html

[Warren Stupidity]

1. Jugger-not.