" longtime friends of the Party and supporters of this administration" Cohen and Elliott Broidy

[muriel_volestrangler]

April 3, 2017

WASHINGTON – Today Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and RNC Finance Chairman Steve Wynn announced additional members of the RNC’s Finance leadership team:

“I am delighted to announce the addition of these longtime friends of the Party and supporters of this administration to our Finance leadership team,” said Chairwoman McDaniel. “Elliott Broidy, Michael Cohen, and Louis DeJoy will serve as National Deputy Finance Chairmen, and Brian Ballard, Bob Grand, Gordon Sondland, Geoff Verhoff, and Ron Weiser will serve as Regional Vice-Chairmen. Together this team will employ their extraordinary talent and understanding of Americans across the country to maintain and build upon our unprecedented fundraising success.”

https://gop.com/rnc-announces-additions-to-rnc-finance-leadership-team/

(I get a '403 Forbidden' HTML error code from the above address, but it's in the Google cache:
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KZlvSy_QErsJ:https://gop.com/rnc-announces-additions-to-rnc-finance-leadership-team/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Michael Cohen: pleads guilty to breaking campaign finance laws, and fraud

Elliott Broidy: probed for alleged influence peddling

Steve Wynn: Gaming agency plans to unveil investigation of Steve Wynn

Brian Ballard:

The private prison company GEO Group paid a Trump-connected lobbying firm $150,000 for seeking to influence the federal government during the second quarter of this year, according to a recent disclosure report to Congress.
...
That came amid fallout over a Trump administration policy to separate children from their parents who entered the country without legal documentation or were seeking asylum. The GEO Group manages detention facilities on behalf of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

GEO Group has paid Ballard Partners a total of $300,000 for lobbying during the first half of 2018, on pace to exceed the $550,000 GEO paid Ballard Partners in 2017 when it boosted its lobbying efforts.

Brian Ballard, a prominent Florida lobbyist who previously represented the Trump Organization there and is a leading fundraiser for the Trump campaign, leads the firm and was listed among the firm’s lobbyists for the GEO Group.

https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/geo-group-helps-boost-lobbying-revenue-ballard-partners

Ballard’s firm has contracts with foreign interests that could yield more than $8 million on top of the $14 million it collected in federal lobbying fees from February 2017 through March this year.

Those clients range from the government of Turkey to the tourism arm of the Maldives, which is working to repair relations with the United States amid international alarm over its crackdown on opposition leaders.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/05/17/lobbyists-ties-donald-trump-mike-pence-make-millions-fees/618765002/

Bob Grand:

BARNES & THORNBURG WILL LOBBY ON BORDER WALL: Here’s an interesting filing: Barnes & Thornburg will lobby for the Modern Group, a manufacturing company based in Beaumont, Texas, and assist them “with Request for Proposal relating to construction of a border wall and associated matters.” One of the lobbyists listed on the filing is Bob Grand, a Barnes & Thornburg partner in Indianapolis who’s close to Vice President Mike Pence and has signed more than a dozen clients this year.

https://www.politico.com/tipsheets/politico-influence/2017/06/09/bob-grand-to-lobby-on-border-wall-220766

Oh, look, he's in the USA Today story too:

The USA TODAY review shows Barnes & Thornburg, where longtime Pence ally Bob Grand serves as managing partner, seeing big growth in the Trump era.

The firm took in nearly $5.5 million in lobbying fees last year — the most it has earned in Washington lobbying in a single year and more than double its lobbying receipts from 2016, according to data compiled by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Clients, ranging from U.S. Steel to the drug industry's trade association, paid $1.6 million to the firm during the first three months of this year, congressional records show.
...
"Does your business go up in some sense?" Grand said about the surge in business. "Yes, because it's a Republican administration."

Geoff Verhoff:

A Broidy-owned security contracting company called Cirnicus, which he acquired in 2015, signed a $200 million contract with the UAE government for defense contracting services, according to a source familiar with the arrangement who spoke with ABC News on the condition of anonymity because of sensitivities surrounding the agreement.

“Circinus is involved with efforts around the world that will enhance our national security and that of our allies and foreign military partners,” Broidy told ABC News in response to questions about the arrangement.

Broidy has never registered as a lobbyist for a foreign government and has accused Qatar of mounting a misinformation campaign about him that, his attorneys have argued, included hacking and altering his private communications.

UAE has also hired Geoff Verhoff of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. A donor to Trump’s campaign presidential transition team, the RNC named Verhoff as a regional vice chairman in April 2017. Verhoff was one of eight individuals named to the RNC’s finance leadership team with Broidy – a group that also included Cohen.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/oil-rich-gulf-nations-spend-millions-trump-insiders/story?id=55444993

[Scarsdale]

1. Drain the swamp?

tRump brought a new swamp with him. The crooked republicans are drawn to HIM like flies to - well - you know. All of this corruption is being exposed. We are lucky they did not choose a "leader" with a functioning BRAIN. tRump is the dumbest of them all. So, now we know just who Mueller is up against. These greedy swine will protect the Orange Mistake to the bitter end, so they can get even richer.

[Achilleaze]

2. The G.O.P. Crime & Treason Machine is hitting a few bumps

but the republicans have russia working overtime to help them in their campaign against honesty, decency, integrity, and loyalty to America. So no doubt repubes will find a way to continue pissing on the USA.

[Roland99]

3. Grifters Of the People

[watoos]

4. Maybe someone should check out Louis DeJoy?

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. I did google the other names - nothing leapt out from news stories for them

Gordon Sondland is now the US ambassador to the EU; he's a hotelier, and seems more like the standard "rich guy with rich friends who organised a lot of donations and got a luxury ambassadorship for it". Which, of course, shouldn't be 'standard', but has gone on for many years, and isn't in the same league as crimes, or lobbying for authoritarian regimes or companies that lock up children for profit.