(Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images)
Jeff Ricchetti, the brother of White House counselor Steve Ricchetti, raked in $820,000 in lobbying revenue from January through March, according to lobbying filings released Tuesday. That’s nearly five times more than he earned during the same period last year.
The rapid rise in lobbying revenue indicates that corporate interests believe Ricchetti can help them access the White House, where his brother plays a prominent role advising President Joe Biden and negotiating the terms of the president’s proposed $2.3 trillion infrastructure package.
TC Energy, the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline, made one of the largest payments to Ricchetti’s lobbying firm. The Canadian firm hired Ricchetti on Jan. 15 days before Biden halted the pipeline project and paid him $90,000 through March to lobby Congress and the president’s office on “the safe and efficient transportation of natural gas and liquids energy.”
(Xinhua/ via Getty Images)
Lobbying firms that flourished under former President Donald Trump are hemorrhaging corporate clients now that Joe Biden occupies the White House.
Trump campaigned on a promise to “drain the swamp.” But his election spawned a cottage industry of lobbyists many of whom had not lobbied in Washington before 2017 selling access to the president. After Trump’s defeat, every one of those lobbying firms saw their earnings decline in the first three months of 2021, and some shuttered entirely.
Matthew Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union and a close Trump ally, experienced a massive drop in lobbying revenue. Schlapp’s firm, Cove Strategies, received $180,000 from four clients in the first quarter 2021, according to lobbying filings released Tuesday. That’s down from $420,000 during the same period last year, and $1.1 million in the final three months of 2020, when a client paid Schlapp $750,000 to lobby Trump for a pardon. Two com
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Welcome to the latest edition of Investigative Roundup, highlighting some of the best investigative reporting on healthcare each week.
UVA Health Cancels Patient Lawsuits
The University of Virginia Health System will cancel a massive backlog of court judgments and liens against patients for unpaid bills, according to
Kaiser Health News. The lawsuits go back to the 1990s, and tens of thousands of families may benefit. However, most families who have already paid money to UVA because of lawsuits or liens will not be getting their money back.
The move to wipe out liens that drain home equity years after a hospital visit is extremely rare, scholars of healthcare finance told