Exclusive: Chamber Receives At Least $885,000 From Over 80 Foreign Companies In Disclosed Donations

[ProSense]

Exclusive: Chamber Receives At Least $885,000 From Over 80 Foreign Companies In Disclosed Donations Alone

Last week, ThinkProgress published an exclusive story about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s foreign fundraising operation. We noted the Chamber raises money from foreign-owned businesses for its 501(c)(6) entity, the same account that finances its unprecedented $75 million dollar partisan attack ad campaign. While the Chamber is notoriously secretive, the thrust of our story involved the disclosure of fundraising documents U.S. Chamber staffers had been distributing to solicit foreign (even state-owned) companies to donate directly to the Chamber’s 501(c)(6).

We documented three different ways the Chamber fundraises from foreign corporations: (1) An internal fundraising program called “Business Councils” used to solicit direct, largely foreign contributions to the Chamber, (2) Direct contributions from foreign multinationals like BP, Siemens, and Shell Oil, and (3) From the Chamber’s network of AmCham affiliates, which are foreign chambers of the Chamber composed of American and foreign companies. The Chamber quickly acknowledged that it receives direct, foreign money, but simply replied, “We are not obligated to discuss our internal procedures.” Instead of providing any documentation or proof to demonstrate foreign money is not being used for electioneering purposes, the Chamber launched an aggressive media strategy to first, attack ThinkProgress with petty name-calling and second, to confuse the media by highlighting the Chamber’s relatively minor AmCham fundraising, which the Chamber says (also without documentation) totals “approximately $100,000” from all 115 international AmCham chapters. The Chamber and the media largely ignored ThinkProgress’ revelation about the Chamber’s direct foreign fundraising to its 501(c)(6) used for attack ads.

Yesterday, the Chamber’s chief lobbyist Bruce Josten, who has been spoon-feeding much of the media distortions about our report, went on Fox News (whose parent company donated $1 million to the Chamber recently for its ad campaign) to again try to dilute the issue by dissembling about the Chamber’s fundraising and membership. “We have probably 60 or so foreign multi-national companies in our membership that we have had for decades, many of which have been in the United States for half a century or a century,” said Josten.

The Chamber is being deceptive. In addition to multinational members of the Chamber headquartered abroad (like BP, Shell Oil, and Siemens), a new ThinkProgress investigation has identified at least 83 other foreign companies that actively donate to the Chamber’s 501(c)(6). Below is a chart detailing the annual dues foreign corporations have indicated that they give directly to the Chamber (using information that is publicly available from the Business Council applications and the Chamber’s own websites):

<..>

Nishith Desai Associates Mumbai, India $15,000
Novartis Basel, Switzerland $15,000
Oberoi Group Dehli,India $7,500
Patni Americas Mumbai, India $15,000
Punj Lloyd Gurgaon, India $15,000
QuEST Global Singapore $7,500
Ranbaxy, Inc. Gurgaon, India $7,500
Reliance Industries Mumbai, India $15,000
Reliance Communications Navi Mumbai, India $7,500
Rolta Mumbai, India $7,500
Sanofi-Aventis Paris, France $7,500
SKP Crossborder Consulting Mumbai, India $7,500
SNC Lavalin Montreal, Canada $7,500
State Bank of India Mumbai, India $15,000
Sun Life Financial Toronto, Canada $7,500
Tata Group Mumbai, India $15,000
Tatva Legal India $15,000
Urenco Investments Slough, UK $7,500
Trilegal India $7,500
Walchandnagar Industries Mumbai, India $7,500
Welspun Mumbai, India $7,500
Wipro Bangalore, India $15,000
TAIB Bank* Dubai $20,000
Aluminum Bahrain B.S.C Kingdom of Bahrain $10,000
Bahrain Financial Harbour Holding Company Kingdom of Bahrain $10,000
Gulf Air Kingdom of Bahrain $10,000
Midal Cables Kingdom of Bahrain $10,000
The Nass Group Kingdom of Bahrain $10,000
Bahrain Maritime & Mercantile International Kingdom of Bahrain $5,000

<...>

Again, all of these annual dues are collected in the same 501(c)(6) the Chamber is using to run partisan attack ads. The data above reflects information from public sources, and the Chamber likely has many more foreign corporations as dues-paying members — but refuses to divulge any of the funders for their ad campaign. Unfortunately, many reporters in the traditional press covered the Chamber story, but missed the entire point of our reporting. Most reporters (from the New York Times, McClatchy, the Associated Press, etc.) never contacted ThinkProgress, instead opting to only interview Chamber officials.
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[AtomicKitten]

1. That would be different than Karl Rove's insistence that ZERO $ comes from foreign sources.

:rofl:

Thanks for posting this. K&R

[Parker CA]

2. Kick and Rec for more details that need exposure.

[ProSense]

3. FT editorial defending the Chamber of Commerce

Obama’s diversion

<...>

Recently Mr Obama has again been summoning the ghost of foreign influence by suggesting that the US Chamber of Commerce – a non-profit business lobby spending millions on campaign ads mostly supporting Republican candidates – uses overseas contributions to fund its election efforts. The Chamber denies this and the White House has offered no evidence that the insinuations are true.

Mr Obama has gone about this in an uncharacteristically clumsy way. Crying wolf over imagined foreign threats distracts from the very real damage homegrown money wreaks on US elections. The effect of Citizens United, the case that incurred the president’s wrath, is still more symbolic than direct. Unlimited anonymous donations to non-profits were already legal. But the court’s reasoning – that corporations enjoy the same right to free speech as citizens – has emboldened donors.

The accelerating growth of fundraising operations hidden from the light of day – and predominantly benefiting Republicans in this election – is well-documented. The corrupting effect on US politics is undeniable. But the US campaign finance disaster needs more fundamental overhaul than Mr Obama’s scaremongering, which exemplifies the Democrats’ strategy of substituting ad hominem attacks for a vigorous defence of their record.

The US electorate deserves better. Not only because the country faces big and hard decisions – on the economy, on foreign affairs, on the deficit – that are being ignored amid recriminations between the parties. But also because the Democrats have much to be proud of: a crisis response that made the recession less bad than it could have been and a health reform better than most expected. These policies are now unpopular with voters. Little wonder when Democrats prefer diversionary tactics to the courage of convictions.

link

If anyone doubts the Chamber and Rove aren't worried about the allegations, they're not paying attention. All the media shills are in full defense. The interesting thing is that given the baseless, crazy accusations by the Republicans thus far, not one of them has generated this amount of rebuttals in commentary and editorials.


The first comment to editorial:

The longer no one refutes the White House argument with real information the stronger the argument becomes; hence, the FT just reinforces the argument by offering no evidence.

[simmonsj811]

4. kick!!!!

K&R :kick:

[Born_A_Truman]

5. CoC of what country?

Makes you wonder!