Key committees in each houses of Congress are riddled with cozy ties to Big Tech — and conflicts of interest could undercut a looming antitrust crackdown on Google and Apple, two watchdog groups warned.
Last month, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees were ripped by antitrust hawks after they passed a spending package that included a $45 million cut to the projected budget of the Justice Department’s antitrust arm – with Big Tech critics Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) amongst those that called for it to be reversed.
Multiple members of the powerful panels have received campaign contributions from or are personally invested in Big Tech firms, based on a joint report set to be released Tuesday by the Revolving Door Project and Fight For The Future.
The antitrust watchdogs also called out Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who sets the ground agenda and has two daughters who work for tech firms. Schumer has taken “greater than $780,000 in campaign contributions from the sector, greater than almost any member of Congress,” based on the report.
Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) has received greater than $1 million from Big Tech firms or their employees during her profession, and vice chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) has received greater than $44,000 in campaign funds from tech since 2019 and alongside her husband owns as much as $550,000 in tech stocks.
“Unfortunately, at the same time as they’re intervening to chop funding for antitrust enforcement against Big Tech and other corporate giants, [the lawmakers] and their staff are creating wealth, collecting campaign contributions, and constructing their corporate networks from those exact same firms—putting their professionalism and even their ethics unsure,” the report said.
On the House side, Appropriations Committee Chair Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) has taken greater than $42,000 from Big Tech sources, while top-ranking Democrat Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) has received greater than $8,000.
The report also identified greater than three dozen “revolving door” staffers with ties to the Appropriations committees or their members who’ve currently or formerly worked as lobbyists for Big Tech — either by taking policy gigs at firms or joining friendly proxy groups.
“Big Tech plants their very own lobbyists in staff positions on Appropriations and other powerful committees, and in budget-related government positions,” the report said.
In other cases, Congressional staffers attended lavish Big Tech-funded trips to conferences and policy summits, where they were “wined and dined” while being bombarded by the industry’s talking points.
In a single instance, Maryana Sawaged, a legislative aide for Murray, took a three-day trip to Silicon Valley that was funded by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, an influential Big Tech-funded think tank, based on disclosures.
Sawaged purportedly stayed on the swanky Wild Palms Hotel in Sunnyvale and “joined dozens of Congressional legislative and policy staffers” in attending a policy summit, which included a discussion of “Google’s perspective” on potential artificial intelligence regulations, the report said.
Considered one of the lawmakers singled out for criticism was Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), whose senior staffers have purportedly took “trip after trip” funded by Big Tech to ritzy locales comparable to Aspen and Las Vegas dating back to 2016.
Schatz, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Commerce subcommittee, has also received $150,000 in campaign money from Big Tech sources since 2013, based on the report.
Commerce subcommittee chief Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), has taken money from firms under antitrust scrutiny, including $10,000 from Meta.
The appropriations package capped the DOJ antitrust division’s budget at $233 million – a rise of $8 million in comparison with the previous yr, but still down from a previously estimated $278 million for fiscal 2024 – by limiting what it may well collect from pre-merger filing fees. The antitrust team has long relied on the fees to fund its operations.
The cap was enacted despite the passage in December 2022 of a bipartisan measure called the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act, which was meant to extend fees and supply more funding for the DOJ’s antitrust arm.
A Collins spokesperson said the senator “not own any shares of stock in individual firms, and he or she has never owned any shares of stock. Her investments such as her IRA are in mutual funds.”
Her husband, Tom Daffron, has “no involvement in the acquisition or sale of any of the stocks in his diversified portfolio” and the “investment decisions are made exclusively by a third-party advisor without consultation with him.”
“Senator Collins played no role within the negotiations over the budget for the Department of Justice, including its Antitrust Division,” the spokesperson added.
A Schumer representative declined to comment. Representatives for Murray, Granger, DeLauro, Schatz and Shaheen didn’t return requests for comment.
After facing pressure from fellow lawmakers and others, Shaheen vowed last month to reverse the bounds placed on fee collections within the fiscal 2025 budget. The White House has also submitted a proposed budget for fiscal 2025 that might deliver a $63 million boost to the DOJ’s antitrust division, Bloomberg reported.
As The Post has reported, Apple is within the midst of a serious charm offensive on Capitol Hill, which has included record federal lobbying spending and at the very least 12 White House visits by CEO Tim Cook since President Biden took office in 2021.
Last month, multiple sources raised concerns about Apple’s tight relationship with the Biden administration given the Congressional effort to gut funding for the DOJ’s antitrust wing.
The DOJ recently sued Apple for allegedly using anticompetitive business practices to make sure the dominance of its iPhone.
Individually, the DOJ is within the midst of a historic lawsuit that goals to interrupt up Google’s online search business.
A federal judge is anticipated to rule on whether Google has maintain an illegal monopoly later this yr.
