Shawn Henry, the president of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, has stirred controversy with his recent testimony, casting new doubts on the integrity of investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Henry’s statements, given under oath, have prompted scrutiny regarding whether key players, including Special Counsel Robert Mueller and various intelligence officials, may have misled the public about the extent of Russian involvement.

Henry’s testimony, released publicly, asserts that while CrowdStrike’s analysis did not disprove the possibility of Russian hacking, it highlighted significant uncertainties in the evidence presented by the Obama administration, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and other parties. Critics, including former intelligence official Ray McGovern, argue that the use of CrowdStrike—a firm with a controversial history in cybersecurity investigations—undermines the credibility of the federal probe.

The spotlight on CrowdStrike’s role has intensified after allegations that the company had previously made dubious claims, such as asserting that Russian hackers were responsible for damaging a Ukrainian artillery application, which led to heavy losses for Ukraine in its conflict with pro-Russian separatists. This claim was later retracted, further casting doubt on CrowdStrike’s reliability.

The implications of Henry’s testimony are significant. The reliance on CrowdStrike’s findings by the DNC and the Clinton campaign has raised questions about whether the federal investigation into Russian interference was compromised from its inception. Critics argue that the decision to rely on a private firm, rather than the FBI, to investigate the hacking of DNC emails, reflects poor judgment and potential conflicts of interest.

This controversy stands in contrast to how mainstream media outlets have reported the situation. While some, like Fox News, have emphasized the revelations about CrowdStrike’s questionable credibility, others have continued to assert the severity of Russian interference and its impact on the election. The ongoing debate highlights a broader divide in how the media and political figures interpret and present the evidence surrounding Russian activities and their influence on U.S. politics.

As the discourse around these issues evolves, the focus remains on understanding the full extent of Russian involvement and the accuracy of the claims made by various parties throughout the investigation. The debate continues to shape public perception and political discourse, underscoring the complexity and contentiousness of the topic.

The evolving narrative around CrowdStrike and its role in the investigation reflects broader tensions in the discourse on Russian interference and election integrity. The scrutiny of CrowdStrike’s involvement reveals deeper questions about the reliability of information and the influence of private firms in high-stakes political investigations.

Tuesday’s court filing argues that UnitedHealth repeatedly ignored findings from its own auditors that risk scores were often inflated, as well as warnings by officials from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that the firm was responsible for ensuring the billings it submitted were accurate.

UnitedHealth argued that it had done nothing wrong, and said it would aggressively contest the case.

“We are confident our company and our employees complied with the government’s Medicare Advantage program rules, and we have been transparent with CMS about our approach under its unclear policies,” UnitedHealth spokesman Matt Burns said in a statement.

Burns went on to say that the Justice Department “fundamentally misunderstands or is deliberately ignoring how the Medicare Advantage program works. We reject these claims and will contest them vigorously.”

A spokesman for CMS, which has recently faced congressional criticism for lax oversight of the program, declined comment.

Central to the government’s case is UnitedHealth’s aggressive effort, starting in 2005, to review millions of patient records to search for missed revenue. These reviews often uncovered payment errors, sometimes too much and sometimes too little. The Justice Department contends that UnitedHealth typically notified Medicare only when it was owed money.

UnitedHealth “turned a blind eye to the negative results of those reviews showing hundreds of thousands of unsupported diagnoses that it had previously submitted to Medicare,” according to the suit.

Justice lawyers also argue that UnitedHealth executives knew as far back as 2007 that they could not produce medical records to validate about one in three medical conditions Medicare paid UnitedHealth’s California plans to cover. In 2009, federal auditors found about half the diagnoses were invalid at one of its plans.

The lawsuit cites more than a dozen examples of undocumented medical conditions, from chronic hepatitis to spinal cord injuries. At one medical group, auditors reviewed records of 126 patients diagnosed with spinal injuries. Only two were verified, according to the complaint.

The Justice Department contends that invalid diagnoses can cause huge losses to Medicare. For instance, UnitedHealth allegedly failed to notify the government of at least 100,000 diagnoses it knew were unsupported based on reviews in 2011 and 2012. Those cases alone generated $190 million in overpayments, according to the suit.

While Medicare Advantage has grown in popularity and now treats nearly 1 in 3 elderly and disabled Medicare patients, its inner workings have remained largely opaque.

CMS officials for years have refused to make public financial audits of Medicare Advantage insurers, even as they have released similar reviews of payments made to doctors, hospitals and other medical suppliers participating in traditional Medicare.

But Medicare Advantage audits obtained by the Center for Public Integrity through a court order in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit show that payment errors — typically overpayments — are common.

All but two of 37 Medicare Advantage plans examined in a 2007 audit were overpaid — often by thousands of dollars per patient. Overall, just 60 percent of the medical conditions health plans were paid to cover could be verified. The 2007 audits are the only ones that have been made public.

CMS officials are conducting more of these audits, called Risk Adjustment Data Validation, or RADV. But results are years overdue.

This story was produced by Kaiser Health News, a nonprofit health newsroom whose stories appear in news outlets nationwide, is an editorially independent part of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

South Carolina state Rep. Rick Quinn used his public office as a multimillion-dollar money funnel that enriched his family’s powerful political empire while doing the bidding of shadowy corporate interests in the Legislature, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Misconduct charges handed down as part of the ongoing Statehouse corruption probe paint a picture of influence and greed involving a key cog in one of the state’s oldest and more durable political machines.

Quinn, a Lexington Republican, is accused of failing to report more than $4.5 million that unidentified groups had paid to companies operated by him and his father, embattled political consultant Richard Quinn. He then improperly lobbied on their behalf, using his businesses and public office to influence government actions involving those groups, the indictment stated.

The scope of Quinn’s alleged conduct is his entire legislative career, from January 1999 to April 15, and includes his 2006 run for state treasurer.

Quinn, 51, also is accused of using his position to improperly steer $271,881 in Republican House Caucus funds to family businesses in which he had a financial interest. He funneled campaign cash to his and his father’s companies, as well, the indictment states.

Quinn is the fourth lawmaker snared in the ongoing corruption probe led by 1st Circuit Solicitor David Pascoe. His fate had been the subject of much speculation since news surfaced last year that he and his father had been named in a State Law Enforcement Division report detailing leads in the investigation.

House Speaker Jay Lucas, a fellow Republican, quickly moved Tuesday to suspend Quinn from office until the matter is resolved.

Quinn’s father is a kingmaker in South Carolina politics, with a vast stable of clients and tentacles throughout state government. His firm represents more than 25 lawmakers, a couple of large state agencies and a quartet of the state’s biggest corporations.

The younger Quinn also works as a campaign consultant and owns Mail Marketing Strategies, a Columbia-based direct-mail company that does work for politicians.

Rick Quinn is charged with one count of common law misconduct in office and one count of statutory misconduct in office. The first charge carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and an undetermined fine; the other, up to one year in prison and a $1,000 fine.

Quinn issued a written statement saying he has done nothing wrong and will ask for a speedy trial to resolve the case as quickly as possible.

“After nearly four years of investigation, Mr. Pascoe has accused me of conduct that the supervisory authorities said was legal and proper,” he stated. “I have conducted myself in an honorable manner, and I look forward to clearing my family’s good name.”

Quinn said the investigation has been unfair to him and his family, and he blamed his indictment on a political feud between Pascoe and Attorney General Alan Wilson, who last year tried to derail the special prosecutor’s probe. Quinn said Pascoe is “a partisan Democrat” who covets Wilson’s job.

“It is my belief that this public fight between them is the real motivation since I have worked for the Attorney General’s past political campaigns,” Quinn stated.

Citing the ongoing investigation, Pascoe declined to comment on the statement or Quinn’s indictment.

According to the indictment, Quinn routed business from the House Republican Caucus’s campaign and operating accounts to three companies in which he had a financial stake: First Impressions Inc., a business run by his father as Richard Quinn & Associates; Mail Marketing Strategies; and The Copy Shop. He served as House majority leader from 1999 to 2004, giving him considerable influence over the caucus and its members.

During this time, Quinn allegedly failed to disclose contributions and expenditures made to and from the caucus’ operating account, which were “improperly used for campaign purposes,” the indictment stated. He also used his position to drum up business for Mail Marketing Strategies from other lawmakers, the document said.

Quinn also is accused of filing fraudulent campaign disclosures and improperly benefiting from campaign donations by steering those funds to his and his father’s firms.

The Post and Courier and the Center for Public Integrity first raised questions about Quinn’s use of campaign donations in the 2015 series “Capitol Gains,” which detailed how weak ethics laws allow South Carolina lawmakers to use their campaign war chests as personal ATM machines.

The tunnel was one of two at the Energy Department’s Hanford reservation used as dumping grounds from 1960 to 2000 for radioactive machine parts, vessels, and other equipment. It was, in short, a tangible expression of the department’s policy of covering over some of its nuclear bomb-making detritus and effectively pretending it isn’t there.

The neglect followed a blunt warning 26 years ago from the State of Washington — cited in a 1991 Energy Department contractor’s report — that the tunnels were not a safe repository and that the wastes should be moved elsewhere.

Under an agreement overseen by a federal court in eastern Washington, the department was supposed to start crafting a way to deal with the tunnel’s lethal dangers by September 2015, but it missed the deadline and promised to do it later this year as part of an overall agreement with the state and the Environmental Protection Agency to push back completion of the site’s overall cleanup from 2024 to 2042. (Hanford remains the most toxic site in America and the government’s most costly environmental cleanup task.)

“The Department of Energy has been aware for years that the…tunnels were a risk. They told the other agencies in charge of overseeing Hanford that it wasn’t a risk,” said Dan Serres, conservation director at Columbia Riverkeeper, an advocacy group in Washington state that has a seat on an Energy Department advisory panel about the site. “DOE assured the others that there was no immediate risk of a collapse like the one that happened.”

Asked for comment on the reports, and on the Energy Department’s failure to respond to the warnings, a spokesman in Washington did not respond. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said in a statement on May 11, after the hole had been filled in, however that “thankfully, the system worked as it should and all are safe.” He promised the department would “identify and implement longer-term measures to further reduce risks.”

The tunnel with the collapsed roof was built in 1956 over a rail spur that extended 350 feet south from the east end of the complex’s massive factory for making plutonium, a key sparkplug for America’s nuclear weapons. Managers at the plant initially sought to use it as a storage locker for radioactive materials, and so they shored it up with creosoted railroad ties, and piled eight feet of dirt on top.

Within a few years, however, they started using it to store contaminated plant equipment. The tunnel was filled and sealed in 1964, and a second, parallel, and much longer tunnel was built next to it. That one was filled with radioactive equipment contaminated with plutonium, americium, cesium and strontium as the site’s bomb-making factory was dismantled. It was sealed in 2000.

It is unclear when contractors running the plant first became concerned that gamma radiation, which changes the molecular structure of wood cell walls, would significantly weaken the first tunnel’s timbers. As early as 1971 the integrity of the wood was checked and determined to be sound. The 1980 study said however that said the wood’s strength had deteriorated to 64.5 percent of its original strength. It predicted that the structure should be sound until at least 1982, by which time the authors anticipated it would be cleaned out.

A September, 1990, Department of Energy dangerous waste permit application for the two storage tunnels revealed that some of the parts stored inside were spewing radioactivity at the rate of 5 rem to 25 rem per hour. Since occupational health guidelines for workers in DOE plants limit workers to exposures of 50 rem a year, these would be serious exposures.

Washington state’s ecology department has now ordered the DOE to find the cause of the breach and take steps to fortify the tunnel. Citing its state toxic waste authorities, it gave the Energy Department until July 1 to assess the structural soundness of both tunnels, and until Oct. 1 to propose changes to its state-issued hazardous waste permit that involve strengthening the tunnels, according to the latest change to the DOE’s hazardous waste permit.

Dole, the only former Republican presidential nominee who endorsed Trump before the GOP convention last summer, is a savvy Washington insider who most recently attracted notice for his lobbying on behalf of Taiwan. Dole’s efforts led to a stunning call between Trump and Taiwan’s president, angering China.

Dole’s retainer for the Taiwan work, which includes direct lobbying, is $25,000 a month, per federal disclosures. 

Both Epstein and Jalil said in emails that the point of their work is to promote an “open, productive” discussion with a goal of improving the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Epstein’s disclosures show he is receiving $138,000 for three months of work.

“The Congolese people, their safety and human rights can only improve if the United States takes an active and engaging role in the largest country in Africa,” said Jalil, who has so far received $45,000, according to filings.  

Jalil, who’s only current lobbying client is Mer Security, said he joined Trump’s campaign as a liaison to the House of Representatives in early spring of 2016 “and was part of a very small, loyal, and dedicated team in Washington.” Trump has been critical of Washington’s lobbying and influence industry, and in January, he issued an executive order banning administration officials from ever lobbying on behalf of a foreign government.   

Nonetheless, some Trump alumni have pursued lobbying work — former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, most notably.

Seeking access to U.S. politicians

Mer Security said in its disclosure filings that it had agreed to advise Congolese officials on U.S. policy and political concerns regarding African security issues.

It will also advise the country’s government on the appointment of a special envoy to the United States and “strategic planning to the envoy’s engagement in bilateral diplomacy with the United States.”

A special Democratic Republic of Congo envoy is expected to visit Washington in June, according to the filings.

In describing its work on behalf of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mer Security’s tells the Department of Justice that it has “agreed to generate interest in and participation at meetings of senior U.S. administration officials and key policy makers in various congressional committees.”

The Democratic Republic of Congo has experienced significant political turmoil in recent months.

America First Policies

Group type: 501(c)(4) nonprofit

Why it matters: America First Policies grew out of Trump’s political operation. Headed by Brad Parscale, who ran the digital and data portion of Trump’s campaign, and featuring a coterie of former aides, it was meant to serve as a quasi-independent outside group providing support for the president’s initiatives. Parscale has said America First Policies had raised around $25 million. The group initially kept a low profile while some strategists and donors departed and rival groups launched. But in late March, it picked up Katie Walsh, a former deputy White House chief of staff, and in April, it created a $3 million ad campaign to support Republican members of Congress who backed a health care proposal.

Great America Alliance and Great America PAC

Group types: Great America Alliance is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit and Great America PAC is a hybrid super PAC.

Why they matter: Both groups are run by Republican political operatives Eric Beach and Ed Rollins. Two prominent Republican supporters of the president are co-chairmen of the nonprofit: former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. The super PAC, for its part, spent roughly $23.6 million supporting Trump’s candidacy during the 2016 election cycle, according to federal records, and recently sent out a fundraising solicitation based on Trump’s military strike in Syria. Great America PAC has this year spent more than $765,000 on messaging supporting Trump and his 2020 re-election campaign.

45Committee and Future45

Group types: 501(c)(4) nonprofit and super PAC

Why they matter: The 45Committee nonprofit is closely linked to Future45, a super PAC connected to the Ricketts family, the owners of the Chicago Cubs. According to federal campaign finance data tracked by the Center for Responsive Politics, the nonprofit spent $21.3 million supporting Trump’s presidential bid last year. The Future45 super PAC separately spent nearly $24.3 million on the presidential race, nearly all in opposition to Democrat Hillary Clinton. In 2017, the 45Committee has spent millions of dollars on ads promoting Trump cabinet picks.

Rebuilding America Now

Group type: super PAC

Why it matters: Primarily an anti-Hillary Clinton attack dog in 2016, this super PAC’s biggest donor was Linda McMahon, the former professional wrestling executive and two-time U.S. Senate candidate who’s now Trump’s Small Business Administration administrator. Has been largely dormant in 2017.

Of those who favor limits, the vast majority — four out of five people — say presidential campaigns should last for one year or less, the poll indicates.

Democrats are most likely to want president campaign limitations, although most Republicans and independents want them, too. “Too long” was the most common answer poll respondents gave when asked to briefly describe Election 2016. “Long,” “crazy” and “bad” followed.

Trump supporters ‘increasingly engaged’

Election 2016 sure seemed to last forever.

But consider this: It took until mid-spring 2015 — about 27 months after President Barack Obama’s second inauguration — for political groups such as super PACs to collectively spend $1 million promoting or opposing the gaggle of Democrats and Republicans running to replace Obama.

Following Trump’s inauguration in January, political groups crossed the same spending threshold in a mere three-and-a-half months.

Driving Election 2020’s ultra-early spending are Great America PAC and Committee to Defend the President, a pair of “hybrid” super PACs that share the same treasurer, political consultant and election lawyer Dan Backer.

On Monday, the groups officially spent $1 million during Election 2020 on a variety of pro-Trump communications and related items ranging from TV, radio and digital advertisements to robocalls and direct mail to renting the email addresses of prospective supports and donors, FEC records show.

By Tuesday, that spending figure had ballooned to $1.32 million.

So, why?

“Our supporters demand we defend the president from day one, and that’s what we are doing,” said Ted Harvey, a former Colorado state senator and chairman of Committee to Defend the President.

But aren’t people sick of non-stop campaign ads?

“We haven’t heard that,” said Eric Beach, a longtime Republican political operative and co-chairman of Great America PAC. “In fact, Trump’s supporters — our community — is increasingly engaged given the nasty, vitriolic, unamerican attacks by liberals and unfair media coverage.”

Trump administration officials declined to comment on the groups’ pro-Trump spending sprees or the Trump campaign’s own activities this year.

Questions about spending by outside groups “should all be directed to the super PACs,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders wrote in an email.

Great news for our investigative journalism: The Webby Awards today named the Center for Public Integrity a finalist for best political news blog or website in the nation.

The Webby Awards presents two honors in every category — a winner selected by judges and a winner selected by online voters. If you agree the Center for Public Integrity deserves honors for our political coverage, vote for us in the “People’s Voice” segment of the contest.

Cast your ballot by clicking here.

In the best political news blog or website category, the Center for Public Integrity is competing against PBS’s “Campaign Connection,” The Intercept, FactCheck.org and Code and Theory.

The Nation, the New Republic and the Washington Post‘s “The Fix” blog received honorable mentions.

All Webby Award winners will be announced on April 25.

Established in 1996, the Webby Awards honor excellence on the Internet and are presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Today’s announcement marks the second time the Center for Public Integrity’s political coverage has been nominated for a Webby Award — it was last nominated in 2014.

During Election 2016, the Center for Public Integrity’s federal politics team published dozens of groundbreaking articles and investigations as part of its federal politics team’s “Buying of the President” project.

“Who’s Calling the Shots in State Politics,” a project of the Center for Public Integrity’s states politics team, routinely exposed the powerful special interests that drive elections and policy in statehouses from coast to coast.

The Center for Public Integrity, which won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism, is nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative newsroom based in Washington, D.C.

Its mission: To serve democracy by revealing abuses of power, corruption and betrayal of public trust by powerful public and private institutions, using the tools of investigative journalism.

They include coal executives Christopher Cline, founder of coal company Foresight Reserves LLC, and J Clifford Forrest, president of Rosebud Mining Company — each gave $1 million.

Also contributing $1 million each: Hushang Ansary, a longtime oil executive and businessman, and his wife, Shahla Ansary.

Inaugural committee donors who gave at least $1 million were invited to a long list of exclusive events over the inauguration weekend, including dinners with the vice president and president and a luncheon with “select Cabinet appointees” and “select House and Senate leadership” — the same people making policy decisions that govern their businesses.

Trump is “blurring the lines between commercial oil interests and the state,” said Cassady Craighill, a spokeswoman for Greenpeace USA, an environmental organization.

Craighill said Trump’s decision to appoint former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state is an example of big oil companies’ influence over the federal government.

Spokespeople for both Chevron and ExxonMobil described their inauguration contributions as a good will effort to work with the new presidential administration and as something they do routinely.

Chevron, for example, donated $1 million to Obama’s second inauguration — more than the company gave to Trump.

And ExxonMobil spokesman Alan Jeffers said the $3.44 million the company spent on lobbying efforts during the first three months of 2017 is “reflective of the large number of issues impacting ExxonMobil’s business.”

ExxonMobil isn’t alone in its broad lobbying efforts. Oil and gas interests lobbied on topics ranging from energy to transportation and tax reform.

For example, BP contributed $500,000 to Trump’s inauguration, and it also spent $1.7 million during the first three months of the year lobbying in part on “issues related to arctic oil and gas development.”

In other words, the FEC can’t really do much to shut down these groups, even if they do have the mailing address of a state prison, as is the case with Pesce’s PAC.

(Update: 10:51 a.m., April 7, 2017: The FEC on April 6 sent Pesce a letter asking him to verify the accuracy of his “Impeach the Assole” PAC filing. The letter reminds Pesce that it’s illegal to “knowingly and willfully” make a “materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation to a federal government agency” and asks him either verify the accuracy of his PAC filing, amend any false information or withdraw the filing. Pesce has until May 6 to respond.)

In 2004, Pesce stole $93,534 from a woman by falsely presenting himself as a commodities trader, according to a DuPage County, Illinois, press release. Pesce pleaded guilty to theft by deception but fled before he was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison.

Police arrested Pesce in 2014. He began serving his sentence in Taylorville in 2015, according to Illinois Department of Corrections records.

Illinois Department of Corrections spokeswoman Nicole Wilson said inmates are permitted to receive money electronically. And while Illinois corrections law prohibits inmates from “engaging in an unauthorized business venture,” it’s silent on the specific issue of inmates forming political committees.

Pesce “would be wholly responsible for complying with any laws and regulations governing political action committees,” Wilson said.

One potential problem for Pesce: the banking address he lists for one of his PACs does not correspond to that of a bank at all. Instead, it’s a Motel 6 in suburban Chicago.

The FEC forms he submitted included a notice that PAC filings with “false, erroneous, or incomplete information” are subject to civil and/or criminal penalties.

This article was co-published by TIME, NBC News, Public Radio International, the Buffalo News and Philly.com.

‘Burdensome new regulatory regime’

During the most recent fiscal year, the government entered into or modified contracts with nearly 70,000 companies or their subsidiaries to deliver hundreds of thousands of distinct goods and services.

To figure out which companies to hire, agencies begin by posting solicitations, usually on FedBizOpps.gov, where registered contractors can sift through opportunities. When an agency puts out a solicitation, dozens of companies might submit proposals. Each one, in theory, should be vetted to ensure it is a cost-conscious, responsible seller.

Federal guidelines offer some clues along these lines: How solid are the company’s finances? How did it perform on previous contracts, if any? Businesses that fall into certain categories — including small, veteran and minority-owned enterprises — may be given preference.

When contracting officers need to research a company’s history, they can access the Past Performance Information Retrieval System, or PPIRS. But the information kept in the database doesn’t include contractor compliance with labor laws. And some of the data PPIRS pulls in from other databases like the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System or FAPIIS, is not reliable.

The 2013 Senate report, for example, found that energy company BP had no misconduct entries in FAPIIS related to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig explosion, which killed 11 workers and sullied the Gulf of Mexico with 4 million barrels of crude oil. The accident prompted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ban BP from all federal contracts for 16 months, but the ban wasn’t reflected in the database.

The Office of Federal Procurement Policy, which oversees contracting standards, issued a memo in 2013 calling for staff to submit company performance reviews more often. It found that such reviews were entered less than 30 percent of the time at some agencies, leaving the government “vulnerable to poor acquisition outcomes in the future.”

Obama’s executive order expanded procurement guidelines to include a review of would-be contractors’ labor records. The subsequent Labor Department rule required contracting staff to consider a company’s history of compliance with 14 labor laws. Among them were the Fair Labor Standards Act, which covers wages; the Occupational Safety and Health Act; and laws forbidding discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion and disability, to name a few. The rule required any company seeking a contract to check a box to indicate whether it had blemishes on its record, going back three years.

The vehicle for the rule’s undoing by Congress was the rarely used Congressional Review Act, through which recently finalized regulations can be dismantled by simple majorities in the House and Senate. The act prohibits federal agencies from crafting similar rules in the future unless authorized to do so by Congress.

Even without the short-lived regulation, companies that break the law on a federal job can be debarred or suspended from receiving further contracts. Last year, the Labor Department debarred 49 firms.

“The [Obama] executive order was not intended to deny a contractor an award, or to send them to suspending and debarring; it was about getting them into compliance,” said Lafe Solomon, who joined the Labor Department in 2014 to develop what became the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule. Specialists would help agencies decide how to address violations by contractors. Companies with more serious violations would be allowed to develop corrective plans.

Among the 939 written comments on the rule sent to the Labor Department were letters of support from groups such as the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and individuals such as William Clegg, who used to work for a halfway house under contract with the federal government in Greensboro, North Carolina.

“If I hadn’t been living with my mother, I would have been sleeping on the street with what I was getting paid and would have been forced to go on public assistance,” Clegg wrote. “How safe do you think our communities [will be] when we can’t pay a living wage to those that assist with our safety?”

But the rule was wildly unpopular with many contractors and their trade associations. Associated General Contractors of America, for example, denounced an early version as “unfounded, unnecessary, unworkable and unlawful.”

The AGC’s regulatory counsel, Jimmy Christianson, elaborated in an interview. The government, he said, should improve its own contractor vetting instead of laying the burden on companies.

“You’re the federal government,” Christianson said. “You’re the ones that are citing the contractors, don’t you have the information? Why does the contractor have to report it? Isn’t that kind of a joke?”

Two other trade groups went further than AGC. In October, Associated Builders and Contractors and the National Association of Security Companies sued the Labor Department and other agencies responsible for the rule’s implementation weeks before its first phase was to kick in. The groups called the rule unlawful, saying contractors could be penalized for cases that had been settled with no admissions of guilt or were still being contested.

“A cumbersome and burdensome new regulatory regime is being created to implement this misguided executive policy, which … violates the rights of government contractors, at considerable cost and with no benefits to taxpayers,” the complaint said.

A federal district court in Texas agreed that the groups had a strong case. The night before the rule was to have gone into effect, Judge Marcia Crone, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2003, enjoined most of its requirements, though one aspect was preserved: paycheck transparency. Employers that received contracts after January 1 had to give employees breakdowns of their pay rates and benefits so they could monitor their own paychecks for accuracy.

On the Senate floor March 6, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., urged her colleagues not to side with vested interests and vote for a resolution that would spell near-certain doom for the rule. “Instead of creating jobs or raising wages, they’re trying to make it easier for the companies that get big-time, taxpayer-funded government contracts to steal wages from their employees and injure their workers without admitting responsibility,” she said.

But the political muscle of government contractors is hard to overestimate.

In fiscal year 2016, the defense industry, which did $297.5 billion in business with the government, collectively spent $126 million on lobbying and gave almost $13 million to candidates for federal office — 59 percent to Republicans and 41 percent to Democrats, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The construction industry, whose contracting totaled $28.6 billion, spent $52.2 million on lobbying and gave $32.6 million to candidates for federal office – 67 percent to Republicans and 33 percent to Democrats.

Investigative Reporters & Editors, founded in 1975, is a nonprofit national organization dedicated to training and supporting journalists who pursue investigative stories.

“Panama Papers” also received the O’Brien Fellowship Award for Impact in Public Service Journalism from the American Society of News Editors. Judges in that contest said the project was honored “because of the breadth of its reporting, the strength of the partnership that yielded this effort and the global impact that resulted.”

(Update, April 7, 2017, 9:47 a.m.: The White House Correspondents’ Association recognized the project with an honorable mention in its annual journalism awards, as well.)

These latest prizes marked the sixth, seventh and eighth major American journalism awards for “Panama Papers,” which was published last spring. The international consortium was a project of the Center for Public Integrity when the Panama Papers series was published but has since spun off into a separate entity.

The Government Accountability Institute, a conservative investigative research group run by conservative writer Peter Schweizer, received roughly $1.7 million.

Schweizer is the author of “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.” Bannon helped found the group, which the Washington Post reported paid Bannon $376,000 over four years for serving on its board, even as he ran Breitbart News.

Rebekah Mercer chairs Reclaim New York, a watchdog group that received $1.25 million.

The Heritage Foundation received $500,000, the same amount it has received annually since 2013. The Citizens United Foundation received $250,000.At the time, it was headed by David Bossie, who later became Trump’s deputy campaign manager.

The Mercer Family Foundation also gave $500,000 to the Center for Union Facts. The anti-union group is one of a series of nonprofits run by public relations executive Rick Berman, once dubbed “Dr. Evil” in a segment of television newsmagazine “60 Minutes.”

Success Academy Charter Schools, a chain of New York charter schools, received $500,000 in 2015. The Mercer foundation gave the schools $550,000 in 2014.

Success Academy’s CEO, Eva Moskowitz, met with Trump after his election in November and was reportedly a candidate to be Trump’s secretary of education. Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and advisor, toured a Success Academy school in November.

The Center for Public Integrity news developer Chris Zubak-Skees contributed to this story.

This story was co-published by Salon.

The Center for Public Integrity has won an Edward R. Murrow Regional Award for its collaboration with Retro Report on a documentary about deployment of police in schools.

The 12-minute piece, “Unraveling Zero Tolerance,” examines the roots and evolution of using police in schools, and the controversial consequences. Touted as critical to fending off school shootings, drug dealers and disorder, zero tolerance policies morphed over time into a blizzard of student suspensions and arrests for minor indiscretions, many of them involving manhandling of kids by over-aggressive cops. Now some are wondering whether the zero tolerance ‘solution’ is turning out to be worse than the problem it was designed to address.

Retro Report is a nonprofit documentary project that looks back at major news events or controversies through the lens of history, examining how legislative or societal reactions played out after the headlines faded.

The Center’s work on “Unraveling Zero Tolerance” was done by reporter Susan Ferriss, who has investigated harsh school discipline policies and school policing extensively.

Tax Foundation: Not what it seems?

The other big player, the Tax Foundation, is a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that researches state and federal tax policies, and meets with lawmakers, citizens, and journalists to provide expert advice on tax policy. The group’s mission is to “improve lives through smarter tax policy,” according to the foundation’s website.

Smarter tax policy, the foundation argues, includes making the tax code easier for people to understand and creating rules that don’t penalize individuals or businesses for earning more money or profits, two things that create jobs and economic growth, the group claims.

Ted Boettner, executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy, a member of the liberal State Priorities Partnership, which researches how tax policies affect lower income families, said most people don’t fully understand how much the Tax Foundation influences state tax laws.

West Virginia considered a bill this year that would have introduced a flat income tax of 2.5 percent, which would decrease further if certain triggers are met. The bill would have also increased the sales tax from 6 percent to 8 percent, including reinstating a tax on groceries, and increasing taxes on electronic cigarettes, beer and soft drinks, levies that disproportionately hurt the poor.

Boettner said the Tax Foundation’s research is marketed as balanced, but in the end advocates conservative policies that push tax cuts for the wealthy while raising them for lower-income families.

In February, both Boettner and Tax Foundation policy analyst Jared Walczak presented tax plans to the state’s Select Committee on Tax Reform at West Virginia’s Statehouse in Charleston. Boettner told lawmakers that a worker making $26,000 a year would pay $946 more, an 82 percent increase, under the tax bill, according to the Charleston Gazette-Mail. He urged lawmakers to keep the state’s earned-income-tax credit to soften the financial blow on lower income families.

Walczak called the West Virginia tax proposal “groundbreaking,” and that “sometimes a state needs to consider bolder moves,” the Gazette-Mail reported.

The Tax Foundation has pushed for what critics charge are wealthy-friendly tax policies in other states. The group’s analysts encouraged lawmakers in Maine to consider a flat tax, told Minnesota legislators they should repeal the state’s estate tax, and urged lawmakers in Nebraska to lower its top state income tax rate.

The policies are similar to those of the groups who fund the Tax Foundation. Nine out of the foundation’s top 10 nonprofit donors support numerous conservative and libertarian causes such as limited government and low taxes, and accounted for a total of $1.1 million in grants between 2010 and 2015, according to the Center for Public Integrity’s search of the latest available IRS tax documents. None of the Tax Foundation’s top donors were liberal groups or organizations that represent lower income groups.

The Charles Koch Foundation and its sister organization the Charles Koch Institute together were the Tax Foundation’s second-largest donor, giving $488,131 between 2012 and 2015, according to the Center’s investigation. The John Templeton Foundation gave $189,000 in 2014. Templeton supports many conservative causes such as the anti-tax group FreedomWorks and the Atlas Network, whose vision is to create “a world where limited governments defend the rule of law, private property and free markets.”

The Earhart Foundation, a large funder of conservative think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Atlas Network, gave $148,000 to the Tax Foundation from 2010 to 2013. And the Chase Foundation of Virginia, which funds right-wing political and free-market groups, gave $75,000 from 2010 to 2015, according to the Center’s analysis.

“I don’t know if you consider them nonpartisan,” said Derwood Chase Jr., president of the Chase Foundation of Virginia, when asked about the group’s financial support of the Tax Foundation. “I don’t always agree with some of their positions. We are supporting them for their information.”

The Templeton Foundation declined to comment for this story. The Koch and Earhart foundations and the Atlas Network did not return calls requesting comment.

John Buhl, media relations manager for the Tax Foundation, declined to discuss the foundation’s donors in detail, but said no one grantee contributes more than 12 percent of the group’s overall operating funding.

“We support a tax code that’s simpler, more transparent, more neutral and promotes economic growth,” Buhl said. “Some people say that characterizes us as center-right or conservative, but we think it’s something all Americans support.”

Others see it differently.

The Tax Foundation is one of the leading proponents of tax cuts that disproportionately favor the wealthy over low-income families, said Meg Wiehe, director of programs at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal tax policy group that receives much of its financial support from the Ford Foundation, the left-leaning Bauman Foundation and Coydog Foundation, which supports Planned Parenthood.

In 2014, a landmark Center investigation detailing controversial denials of black lung benefits to coal miners — “Breathless and Burdened: Dying from Black Lung, Buried by Law and Medicine” — won in the category of investigative reporting. The year-long investigation illuminated how doctors and lawyers working at the behest of the coal industry helped defeat benefit claims of coal miners who were sick and dying of black lung disease.

The Pulitzer is the latest in a slew of awards honoring the Panama Papers project.

Others include the George Polk Award for financial journalism, two prizes in the 2016 Investigative Reporters and Editors Awards the O’Brien Fellowship Award for Impact in Public Service Journalism from the American Society of News Editors and a recognition by the White House Correspondents’ Association with an honorable mention.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists was a project of the Center for Public Integrity when the Panama Papers series was published last year. It has since spun off into a separate entity.

The Gold Medal for Public Service went to the New York Daily News and ProPublica. Other winners included the East Bay Times, the Charleston Gazette Mail, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Founded in 1989, the Center for Public Integrity is one of the oldest and largest nonprofit news organizations in the country. Its newsroom is comprised of reporters, editors and computer-aided reporting experts who dig deep and deliver national and international investigative journalism of enduring significance.

Masterson: It’s something election officials hear about all the time. I can tell you my experience in Ohio. When we dug into that. It was virtually non-existent. But to the extent that election officials could, they looked at their processes, looked at ways they could both educate the public on the process to serve voters. It is my opinion, in the vast majority of jurisdictions today in America, it is easier to vote today than it has ever been. We have more days of early voting, more resources available like online registration, more outreach to voters in the form of voter information tools that they know when they can vote, where they can vote, what’s on their ballot. They are all enfranchising matters that election officials across the country have taken. The election community as a whole has really embraced this discussion to say: How can we work to serve voters better? It’s as easy to vote today as it’s ever been.

Center for Public Integrity: You’ve been chairperson for several weeks now since taking over. Talk about some of your top-line goals for the next year.

Masterson: We’re focusing on three main areas moving forward. One is helping election officials both maintain and upgrade the election technology infrastructure. Election officials across the country have aging equipment and are either looking to upgrade or switch out that equipment. And, so, we’re providing a variety of resources to help them do that. That’s everything from requests for purchase that other jurisdictions are putting out across the country with a guide — 10 tips on purchasing new election technology that we have for them to use — and then talking to them about what’s available for them out there and what serves their needs. Voters are looking to vote in ways that fit into their everyday lives. Two: accessibility. Not just in the traditional serving voters with disabilities, which has been a focus for the EAC since it started. But it also means serving voters with language needs. We’re going to have a language summit coming out in the summer to really help those jurisdictions have some resources and some best practices on how to serve these voters who have language assistance needs. And then three: There is this conversation about critical [voting] infrastructure. For election officials, details matter. Any change, and new process, is uncertainty for them. We’re really trying to help cope with that uncertainty by facilitating a dialogue about giving them the resources they need.

Center for Public Integrity: Is your job more difficult in that there are some people on Capitol Hill who would like to see the EAC, as an independent organization, either go away or be wrapped into the Federal Election Commission? How does that affect the work you just described, if at all?

Masterson: Obviously, we’re aware of it, but honestly, it doesn’t impact us. We remain focused on serving the state and local election officials that we work with and making sure that they have the resources available to them. We’re coming off the conversation on Tuesday about critical infrastructure. We’re coming off the most interesting presidential election certainly any of us have ever seen and election officials have real needs and real questions about the security of the systems, the integrity of the process, so we’re working directly with them, as we have all along, to get them the resources they need to serve them well.

Center for Public Integrity: You and your colleagues have recently been to Capitol Hill. What happened?

Masterson: Senators had some questions for us about the security of the process and the steps the EAC took last year to help secure the process. We’re happy to inform them, talk to them, about the work we do, and the great work the election officials do across the country.

The Center for Public Integrity has won the National Press Foundation’s 2016 Thomas L. Stokes Award for Best Energy Writing for its investigation into the nation’s worst fossil fuel polluters.

The heart of the winning entry was a project titled “America’s Super Polluters.” NPF judges said of the project, which is part of the Center for Public Integrity’s overall “Carbon Wars” coverage:

“CPI combined two databases to create a list of the worst of the worst polluters, producing a data-driven investigation exposing government laxity, coal industry indifference and the human toll on workers and communities. Methodically filing 50 state FOIA requests, the Center also unmasked state-level regulatory cutbacks at a time many areas seek to rein in pollution.”

The Center’s exhaustive coverage of energy and environmental issues previously won the Stokes Award in 2011 and 2014.

Honorable mention went to E&E News for “Dead Seas.” NPF judges said it is “a compelling classic explainer that shows how missteps and misjudgments turned the salt lakes of the West into toxic dust bowls.”

The winning entry, “Carbon Wars,” included stories “America’s Super Polluters,” “Get someone up here. We’re all dying” and “State cutbacks, recalcitrance hinder Clean Air Act enforcement.”

The authors included Jamie Smith Hopkins, Jim Morris and Jie Jenny Zou. The striking graphic that accompanied the ‘Super Polluters’ piece was created by Chris Zubak-Skees.

“The project was a remarkable piece of work,” said Center CEO John Dunbar. “The combination of the compelling narratives with the enormously useful and popular interactive feature made the package incredibly valuable to those who live in these at-risk communities.”

The Center partnered on America’s Super Polluters with Gannett and Weather.com, the latter of which produced a documentary based on the story. The Center partnered on the “Get someone up here. We’re all dying” story with Al Jazeera English, which produced a film version as part of its “Fault Lines” documentary series.

The Stokes Award was established in the spring of 1959 by friends and admirers of the late Thomas L. Stokes, the syndicated Washington columnist on national affairs. It is given annually for the best writing “in the independent spirit of Tom Stokes” on subjects of interest to him, including energy, natural resources and the environment.

This year’s judges were Rod Kuckro, a reporter for Energy & Environment Publishing; Ronnie Greene, Washington enterprise editor for Reuters; and Tom Davidson, senior director at Gannett Product. The judges noted the strength of the 49 entries for the Stokes award this year.

The primary mission of the National Press Foundation is to increase journalists’ knowledge of complex issues in order to improve public understanding. The nonprofit foundation recognizes and encourages excellence in journalism through its awards and programs.

The Congressional Leadership Fund’s ad blitz has been particularly scathing, with one spot panning Ossoff for his college glee club stylings and dressing up as Star Wars’ Han Solo. The super PAC is funded in large part by GOP megadonors such as billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam Adelson; Houston Texans owner Robert McNair and fossil fuel giants Chevron and Devon Energy.

So far, Ossoff has raised far more money than any of his 11 Republican opponents. In fact, he’s raised more than all of them put together.

But outside organizations have rushed in to make up the difference: about 65 percent of all non-candidate money spent so far — $5.8 million —has gone toward opposing Ossoff.

“This is a new experience for Georgia,” said Amy Morton, chairman of the Better Georgia, a nonprofit. “Georgians aren’t used to this saturated political environment.”

Even though Georgia’s 6^th district has traditionally been safely Republican, Ossoff — a 30-year-old documentary filmmaker, small business owner and national security staffer for Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Georgia — is making a serious bid to win without a runoff election, a feat that would require him to get more than 50 percent of the vote Tuesday. Polls show him within striking distance of that mark.

His campaign message reflects the race’s national tinge: “Make Trump Furious.” And a big chunk of his own $8.3 million campaign war chest comes from people who don’t live in the Peach State.

About $4 out of every $5 dollars Ossoff’s own campaign has raised from big-dollar donors — those giving more than $200 — come from outside of Georgia, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of federal campaign finance records. That’s a sign of the high stakes the race has for Democrats nationwide who are eager for a win.

William Pearce, a California professor who gave Ossoff $240, said he’s hoping his contribution helps counteract megadonors who give outside groups seven-figure checks.

“I wish all politics were truly local, where local money would go to local elections, but that’s just not the system that campaign finance laws have given us,” Pearce said.

Ossoff has also raised $5.6 million from small-dollar contributors who aren’t required to publicly disclose their names or addresses.

Keenan Pontoni, Ossoff’s campaign manager, said that the average contribution to Ossoff’s campaign for a small-dollar donation is $42. Pontoni sees this average as proof of Ossoff’s grassroots support base.

In contrast Republican candidates are relying more heavily on home-grown donations, but they’re getting far fewer.

For example, just 23 percent of Republican candidate Karen Handel’s big-dollar contributions — more than $200 per donor — came from out-of-state sources, but she’s only raised $421,000. About 44 percent of the big-dollar donations Republican candidate Bob Gray received came from outside the state – he’s raised just over $230,000.

The Republicans, though, are getting far more outside help. The Congressional Leadership Fund and the National Republican Congressional Committee, both headquartered in Washington, D. C., have funneled millions into Georgia, mostly in the form of television advertisements to either boost a candidate they like or malign one they don’t.

“The NRCC has invested in this race because we intend to keep the seat out of Jon Ossoff’s hands,” NRCC spokeswoman Maddie Anderson said.

The NRCC’s partisan counterpart, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, hasn’t spent money on TV ads or other pro-Ossoff messaging, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Nevertheless, the DCCC has been firing off a string of Georgia 6^th-themed fundraising messages to supporters, such as one Monday with a subject line that whines: “kiss all hope goodbye.” The message reads: “It’s going to take a tremendous wave of grassroots support to fund the resources we’re rushing to Georgia TONIGHT. Will you pitch in $1 before midnight to defeat Republicans in Georgia and nationwide?”

A DCCC representative did not return requests for comment.

The Government Accountability Office, the watchdog arm of Congress, has sharply criticized CMS for its failure to ferret out overcharges and in April 2016 called for “fundamental improvements” in audits of Medicare Advantage plans. GAO also found that CMS has spent about $117 million on Medicare Advantage audits, but recouped just under $14 million overall.

Medicare Advantage plans have been the target of at least a half-dozen whistleblower lawsuits alleging patterns of overbilling and fraud. In March, the Justice Department joined one such suit against insurance giant UnitedHealth Group. The suit alleges that the health plan submitted claims for underpayments to the government, but ignored examples in which it had received too much money.

The audits disclosing the $128 million in overpayments to health plans were part of a cache of confidential CMS documents released through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Center for Public Integrity.

The CMS records identify the companies chosen for the initial Medicare Advantage audits as a Florida Humana plan, a Washington state subsidiary of United Healthcare called PacifiCare, an Aetna plan in New Jersey and an Independence Blue Cross plan in the Philadelphia area. The fifth one focused on a Lovelace Medicare plan in New Mexico, which has since been acquired by Blue Cross.

In the audits, CMS repeatedly found that the health plans couldn’t document their patients were as sick as the insurer had claimed.

For example, auditors couldn’t confirm that one-third of the diseases the health plans had been paid to treat actually existed, mostly because patient records lacked “sufficient documentation of a diagnosis.”

Overall, Medicare paid the wrong amount for nearly two-thirds of patients whose records were examined; all five plans were far more likely to charge too much than too little. For 1 in 5 patients, the overcharges were $5,000 or more for the year, according to the audits.

America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group, has denied that Medicare Advantage plans overcharge. The group argued in a June 2016 position paper that the auditing method used by CMS was “not yet stable and reliable.” The group also said that conducting audits “could disrupt the care being provided by plans that are working hard to meet the needs of their enrollees.”

Grassley cited reports by the Center for Public Integrity that improper payments to Medicare Advantage plans cost taxpayers as much as $70 billion from 2008 to 2013. He said that CMS’ estimate that it had overpaid the five health plans $128 million “appears low and could very well be just the tip of the iceberg.”

Kaiser Health News, a nonprofit health newsroom whose stories appear in news outlets nationwide, is an editorially independent part of the Kaiser Family Foundation. Schulte, formerly of the Center for Public Integrity, is now a senior correspondent at Kaiser Health News.

There’s little doubt from the budget offered last month that Donald Trump wants to take the government in some radically different directions than that of his predecessor in the Oval Office, Barack Obama. Trump’s initial blueprint for fiscal year 2018 calls for massive increases in military spending and immigration enforcement, along with hefty reductions in foreign aid, environmental protection and a grab bag of social programs.

But beyond the headlines, deep in the agate type of their respective budget proposals, are areas in which the two Presidents of wildly differing ideologies actually agree — to a point. A Center of Public Integrity review found some 15 programs that both chief executives targeted for trims, albeit often to different degrees. More such programs may emerge when Trump presents a detailed budget plan in May.

No doubt some would argue that the programs highlighted here must have problems if both Trump and Obama are calling for cuts. But these line items also demonstrate how difficult it is to cut anything in Washington, as every initiative has some constituency of its own, a constituency certain to howl at the prospect of less money, never mind outright elimination. For some programs the mere fact they still exist is evidence of that, as Trump would hardly be calling for elimination now if Obama had succeeded in zeroing them out.

Behind these numbers is also evidence that crafting a budget at all has become a herculean task in the nation’s capital. Our comparisons below start with Obama’s proposals for fiscal year 2017, but virtually none of these were ever enacted because almost no appropriations bills were completed. Instead, a series of continuing resolutions has essentially frozen most 2016 budget levels in place.

But even as an academic exercise, it’s illuminating to see which programs neither Trump nor Obama was apparently an unabashed fan of. So here they are:

The next most-generous companies listed are Quicken Loans ($750,000), Wynn Resorts ($729,217), Chevron ($525,000), American Financial Group ($500,000), Intel ($500,000) JPMorgan Chase and Co. ($500,000), Citgo Petroleum ($500,000), oil comapny BP Corporation of North America ($500,000), casino developer and Ultimate Fighting Championship parent Fertitta Entertainment ($500,000), Manhattan real estate investment firm Tahl Propp ($500,000) and the MacAndrews and Forbes Group ($500,000), which owns military contractor AM General, among other companies.

And other six-figure contributors include: General Motors ($498,650), Impala Asset Management ($325,000), Coca-Cola ($300,638), Murray Energy Corporation ($300,000), real estate investment firm The Witkoff Group ($300,000), Pilot Travel Centers LLC ($300,000), Google (285,000), Ford Motor Company ($250,000), Liberty Media Corporation ($250,000), Charter Communications ($250,000), Nextera Energy ($250,000), Pepsi ($250,000), Comcast Corp. ($250,000), United Parcel Service ($250,000), IBC Bank ($250,000) healthcare company Centene ($250,000), engineering outfit Fluor Corporation ($250,000) Florida retirement mecca The Villages ($250,000), beer giant Anheuser Busch ($250,000), the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians ($250,000), power and coal plant developer White Stallion Energy LLC ($175,000), Wal-Mart ($150,000), Consol Energy Inc. ($150,000) and dental company Managed Care of North America ($135,000).

Health insurers Anthem, MetLife and The Travelers Indemnity Company each contributed $100,000. Also giving $100,000: Verizon, Qualcomm, energy giant Southern Co., oil company Valero, Anadarko Petroleum, the United States Sugar Corporation, defense contractor Northrop Grumman, food company Chiquita Brands and — play ball! — the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, the FEC disclosure indicates. Visa and accounting firm Ernst & Young each chipped in $50,000.

“The amount of funds raised for the inaugural celebration allowed the President to give the American people, those both at home and visiting Washington, a chance to experience the incredible moment in our democracy where we witness the peaceful transition of power, a cornerstone of American democracy,” inauguration committee Chairman Tom Barrack said in a statement.

Other less-than-household names nevertheless also offered up significant cash.

MILLField Global Strategies, a Washington, D.C.-based firm that advertises “representing an international array of private and public entities to the world’s most influential governments and sectors,” gave Trump’s inaugural committee $125,000.

Ryan LLC, a Dallas-based tax firm that boasts of “liberating our clients from the burden of being overtaxed,” gave more than twice that — $275,000.

Public relations firm Off the Record Strategies, led by George W. Bush White House alumnus Mark Pfeifle, sent an on-the-record $50,000 to the Trump inauguration.

Frog Fitness Inc. of Texas, which claims to have developed the “single most effective total body training device ever invented,” donated $25,000. So, too, did Apollo Education Group, which owns the for-profit University of Phoenix, payday lender Checks Into Cash Inc. the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and law and lobbying firm Mintz Levin.

Also contributing $25,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee on Jan. 6 was the Affleck-Middleton Project, a production company Oscar Award-winning actor and producer Casey Affleck formed in 2014 with John Powers Middleton. 

On Friday night, the White House began releasing financial disclosures for scores of key employees — including familiar names such as Press Secretary Sean Spicer, Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway and Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon.

Reporters from dozens of news organizations, including the Associated Press, the New York Times, ProPublica and the Washington Post, then compiled and reported on the documents, which the White House released one-by-one.

The Center for Public Integrity compiled data from those disclosures into a searchable, sortable database, which provide a window into the wealth, assets and business interests of many of the people closest to President Donald Trump. The Center for Public Integrity’s news developer, Chris Zubak-Skees, extracted these details from more than 90 reports, released in PDF format, using a software tool he created.

You can search or download the database for yourself.

Within the disclosures are new details on Bannon’s web of financial ties to billionaire Republican megadonor Robert Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah.

The Center for Public Integrity first published a graphic showing such ties in October, but Zubak-Skees has updated the graphic to show more connections.

This story is a collaboration between Kaiser Health News and the Center for Public Integrity. 

The Justice Department has joined a California whistleblower’s lawsuit that accuses insurance giant UnitedHealth Group of fraud in its popular Medicare Advantage health plans.

Justice officials filed legal papers to intervene in the suit, first brought by whistleblower James Swoben in 2009, on Friday in federal court in Los Angeles. On Monday, they sought a court order to combine Swoben’s case with that of another whistleblower.

Swoben has accused the insurer of “gaming” the Medicare Advantage payment system by “making patients look sicker than they are,” said his attorney, William K. Hanagami. Hanagami said the combined cases could prove to be among the “larger frauds” ever against Medicare, with damages that he speculates could top $1 billion.

UnitedHealth spokesman Matt Burns denied any wrongdoing by the company. “We are honored to serve millions of seniors through Medicare Advantage, proud of the access to quality health care we provided, and confident we complied with program rules,” he wrote in an email.

Matt Burns also said that “litigating against Medicare Advantage plans to create new rules through the courts will not fix widely acknowledged government policy shortcomings or help Medicare Advantage members and is wrong.”

Medicare Advantage is a popular alternative to traditional Medicare. The privately run health plans have enrolled more than 18 million elderly and people with disabilities — about a third of those eligible for Medicare — at a cost to taxpayers of more than $150 billion a year.

Although the plans generally enjoy strong support in Congress, they have been the target of at least a half-dozen whistleblower lawsuits alleging patterns of overbilling and fraud. In most of the prior cases, Justice Department officials have decided not to intervene, which often limits the financial recovery by the government and also by whistleblowers, who can be awarded a portion of recovered funds. A decision to intervene means that the Justice Department is taking over investigating the case, greatly raising the stakes.

“This is a very big development and sends a strong signal that the Trump administration is very serious when it comes to fighting fraud in the health care arena,” says Patrick Burns, associate director of Taxpayers Against Fraud in Washington, a nonprofit supported by whistleblowers and their lawyers. He says the “winners here are going to be American taxpayers.”

Patrick Burns also contends that the cases against UnitedHealth could potentially exceed $1 billion in damages, which would place them among the top two or three whistleblower-prompted cases on record.

“This is not one company engaged in episodic bad behavior, but a lucrative business plan that appears to be national in scope,” Patrick Burns says.

O’Keefe said Project Veritas’ lawyer, Benjamin Barr, is submitting complaints and requests for investigation to the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the FEC.

O’Keefe provided the Center for Public Integrity with copies of the letters from Barr to the Department of Justice and the Federal Election Commission. The letters state the creators of the PAC “fraudulently misrepresented themselves to be James O’Keefe and Project Veritas” in “an effort to damage their reputation and goodwill through such fabrication.”

In 2010, O’Keefe and three others allegedly pretended to be telephone workers in an unsuccessful effort to gain access to the New Orleans offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat. O’Keefe pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor criminal charge of entering a federal office under false pretenses in connection with the incident.

O’Keefe first made national news in 2009 after he posed as a pimp and secretly recorded employees at liberal community service organization ACORN allegedly advising him on how to set up a prostitution ring. The video galvanized opposition to ACORN, and by 2010, the group had disbanded.

The FEC, meanwhile, has increasingly struggled to manage a flood of fake filings.

Last year, faced with increasing numbers of filings involving obviously fictitious figures, including Darth Vader, Katniss Everdeen and even God, the agency decided to act. It sent out stern letters asking filers to verify their information. For those that failed to do so, the agency said it would withdraw the filings.

Anyone filing false information could face FEC fines or even criminal penalties, although the government has traditionally been reluctant to put resources into such cases.

A nonprofit group such as Project Veritas, which is organized as a charity under section 501(c)(3) of federal tax code, is also prohibited by law from sponsoring a federal PAC.

Judith Ingram, a spokeswoman for the FEC, said the agency can’t comment on any particular filing or committee “due to the potential of enforcement matters to come before the Commission.”

President Trump’s Air Force Secretary nominee, Heather Wilson, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 30 that she had consulted honorably for four U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories years ago, even though she never produced a detailed written accounting of how she had spent her time while earning $20,000 a month.

Wilson, a former Air Force pilot and House lawmaker who now runs the South Dakota School of Mines, was questioned closely about her work for the laboratories and her billing practices by two Democratic Senators on the committee, following the Center for Public Integrity’s disclosure that she had frustrated laboratory accountants by refusing to detail what she had done.

Wilson, who had just left Congress in 2009, said she was working for the labs’ directors, that she had complied with the terms of her contracts, and that they were satisfied she had done a good job, suggesting that should be the end of the story.

But the questions arose because the Energy Department and the Justice Department in 2013 and 2014 concluded that the labs had improperly billed the government for her work, and forced them to return the federal funds they had been paid as a result. One laboratory, run by the Sandia Corporation, paid $4.7 million to settle a complaint that Wilson’s work was aimed at helping the labs win new federal contracts, a task that is not supposed to be paid for by federal dollars.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a former attorney general in his home state, asked a series of pointed questions about how Wilson’s approach might work at the Air Force, which spends more than $167 billion a year, much of it on contractors that bill the government for their labors.

Waving a copy of a bill she sent to one of the labs, which listed only the dollar amount she expected to be paid, the senator said “there is no way of knowing from this invoice what you did.”

“I’m asking you as a potential secretary of the Air Force whether you will hold contractors to a higher standard than is indicated by this document,” Blumenthal said. “Isn’t this a bad example — leadership is by example, the best leadership is by good example — of how billing and invoice submission should be conducted?” He also entered into the hearing’s written record invoices showing two occasions when Wilson had billed two separate nuclear weapon contractors for attending a single meeting.

Wilson replied, “Sir, the United States of America deserved my best work, and that’s what they got.” In government work, “we should expect contractors to comply with the contracts which they signed. In this case, I did.”

Drafts of Wilson’s contracts contained a standard clause requiring that she detail her tasks and accomplishments, but the clause was removed from the copy she signed, according to internal reports by investigators at the Energy Department’s Office of Inspector General.

The irregular arrangement, which contradicted federal acquisition guidelines for subcontractors, made contractor officials and Energy Department personnel uneasy, according to internal government documents obtained by the Center under the Freedom of Information Act. One of the contract officers said it was the only contract with such provisions that had ever crossed his desk.

When Wilson was asked by the committee’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island — a former Army captain, private attorney, and state lawmaker — whether she intentionally negotiated contract language with the weapon firms that exempted her from federal acquisition guidelines, Wilson said, “I don’t recall.” But she said she did recall discussing with their senior executives what she would be doing for the labs.

In one of the letters to the Senate Armed Services Committee, POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian questioned whether Wilson could objectively oversee the massive amount of work Lockheed Martin does for the Air Force, considering her past work for the company’s subsidiary at Sandia. Lockheed holds more contracts than any other Air Force contractor.

Brian also urged leaders of the committee to seek assurances from Wilson that she’d be more forthcoming with oversight agencies as Air Force secretary than she was as a paid consultant, when she insisted on withholding details of her work from the entities paying for it at taxpayer expense.

“POGO believes Ms. Wilson should be questioned about her past employment and that the Committee should ensure she commits to an open and transparent relationship with oversight bodies,” Brian wrote. She suggested that the committee ask Wilson why she engaged in business development for Sandia when her contract explicitly forbade it, why she insisted on keeping secret what she was doing, and whether she was aware that government funds were the source of her paychecks.

“Why should taxpayers trust you with their money?” Brian said the lawmakers should ask. “Ms. Wilson should not be confirmed until she has adequately provided the answers to these questions and proven that she does not have a conflict of interest.”

The ethics consortium’s letter drew a harder line.

“As leading organizations promoting ethics and accountability, we strongly urge you to vote against the nomination of Heather Wilson to be Secretary of the Air Force,” the letter said, citing “Wilson’s questionable actions on behalf of the largest contractor for the Air Force” as “a compelling case for not approving her nomination.”

When President Trump announced Wilson as his choice to head the Air Force on Jan. 23, he said, “Her distinguished military service, high level of knowledge, and success in so many different fields gives me great confidence that she will lead our nation’s Air Force with the greatest competence and integrity.”

McCaskill’s letters to Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Insys Therapeutics, Mylan and Depomed specifically ask for information about any payments the companies made to 17 third-party advocacy groups — including the Pain Care Forum, a little-known but powerful coalition of drug companies and nonprofit groups highlighted in the Politics of Pain series.

At least 13 of the other advocacy groups mentioned in her letters have belonged to that coalition organized by the chief lobbyist for OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma, according to the Center for Public Integrity and AP’s review of its membership directories.

The AP/Center for Public Integrity series found that members of the Pain Care Forum met with some of the highest-ranking health officials in the federal government, while quietly working to influence proposed regulations on opioids and promote legislation and reports on the problem of untreated pain.

The drug companies and allied groups adopted a 50-state strategy to help kill or weaken measures aimed at stemming the tide of prescription opioids. The series found they spent more than $880 million nationwide on lobbying and campaign contributions from 2006 through 2015 — more than eight times what the influential gun lobby recorded for similar activities during that same period.

“This epidemic is the direct result of a calculated sales and marketing strategy major opioid manufacturers have allegedly pursued over the past 20 years to expand their market share and increase dependency on powerful — and often deadly — painkillers,” McCaskill wrote.

McCaskill is the ranking Democratic lawmaker on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. The Republican chairman, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, did not sign the letters seeking the information from the drug manufacturers, but was sent copies of them.

Purdue did not respond to the Center for Public Integrity’s request for comment Tuesday. But Bob Josephson, a spokesman for Purdue, told USA Today that the company was reviewing McCaskill’s letter and planned to respond accordingly.

Spokespeople for Depomed and Janssen Pharmaceuticals told the Center they planned to respond, as well.

“We believe that we have acted appropriately, responsibly and in the best interests of patients regarding our opioid pain medications, which are FDA-approved and carry FDA-mandated warnings about the known risks of the medications on every product label,” said Jessica Castles Smith, a spokesperson for Janssen Pharmaceuticals.

Mylan’s Nina Devlin said her company hopes the senator expands her interest to include the top 10 suppliers of opioid drugs to the U.S. market, noting that Mylan ranked as the 17th largest supplier of opioids sold in the U.S. in 2016 and represented approximately 1 percent of the domestic opioid market. “Despite being a small player in this area, we are committed to helping find solutions to the issue of opioid abuse and misuse,” she said.

Insys did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The AP contributed.

The grant announcement continues a run of significant recognition for the Center’s work. In recent days, five separate Center investigations have been honored as part of three prestigious journalism competitions.

The Center was a winner in three categories of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers “Best in Business” competition, while taking a first place and a second place prize in the Association of Health Care Journalists’ awards for excellence and a first prize in the Overseas Press Club Awards.

In the business journalism contest, the Center was a winner in the international category for smaller publications for “Rape, murder, famine — and $2.1 million for K Street PR,” which detailed how Washington spinmeisters earned huge paychecks to help one of the world’s most murderous governments polish its image on Capitol Hill.

The Center also won the technology category for smaller publications with “Rich people have access to high-speed Internet; many poor people still don’t.” The multimedia project showed that there is still a deep divide in America regarding access to high-speed Internet connections.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ “Panama Papers” project took top prize in the banking/finance category for large publications. In the Overseas Press Club contest, the “Panama Papers” investigation won the The Malcolm Forbes Award for best international business news reporting in newspapers, news service or digital.

The press club award marked the Panama Papers project’s sixth major American journalism prize. ICIJ was a project of the Center for Public Integrity when the series was written but the two organizations have since separated.

In the health journalism contest, a Center for Public Integrity collaboration with The Associated Press — The “Politics of Pain” — was awarded first place in the health policy category. The project investigated the politics behind the ongoing opioid epidemic with a unique look at how drug makers and their allies sought to thwart steps intended to combat opioid abuse.

Another Center for Public Integrity investigation, on the insurance industry’s ties to state regulators, was awarded second place in the business category. The insurance project, “Drink, dinners, junkets and jobs: how the insurance industry courts state commissioners,” illustrated the cozy relationships, revolving doors and financial connections between regulators and industry.

To support the Center for Public Integrity and independent nonprofit investigative journalism, please visit www.publicintegrity.org

The SEC filing also said Diamond S Shipping vessels aren’t necessarily prohibited from calling in locales where sanctions and embargoes apply. In the filing, the company said it believed it was in compliance with all applicable sanctions, embargoes, laws and regulations.

In a statement to the Center for Public Integrity, the company said its “charter agreements expressly require compliance with all applicable laws, specifically prohibit trading in violation of applicable U.S. or EU sanctions.” The company added that isn’t aware of any instances when its charterers have violated any applicable laws.

Strange bedfellows?

Diamond S Shipping, to be sure, does represent only a small part of Ross’ wealth.

Ross, 79, is sometimes known as the “king of bankruptcy” for his history of investing in ailing companies. And he stands out, even on Trump’s gold-leafed roster of wealthy Cabinet members, as a business titan at least as successful as Trump himself.

Although Ross agreed to divest the vast majority of his assets to take the job heading commerce, the financial disclosure he filed with federal regulators lists numerous opaque offshore entities that make it nearly impossible to independently ascertain all the underlying assets and all his business partners.

The Commerce Department traditionally plays a role in trade negotiations, handling trade enforcement and promoting U.S. exports, among a grab bag of other duties that includes administering the U.S. Census and conducting oceanic research.

As Trump’s Commerce secretary, Ross will have an even larger role in shaping U.S. trade policy than usual.

“Mr. Ross not only has negotiated some very good deals over his lifetime, he’s also the person who worked closely with the president-elect on crafting his trade policy,” Jason Miller, a Trump transition spokesman, said in December. “Mr. Ross will be playing a big role in any trade particulars in this administration.”

In response to questions during his confirmation hearing about his role on trade policy, Ross said he expects to work collaboratively with the yet-to-be-confirmed U.S. trade representative, traditionally the administration’s lead person on trade, and Peter Navarro, the director of the National Trade Council. Together, they will work “to bring all the intellectual resources and experience that we can” to trade policy, Ross said.

Ross said renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement would be a priority.

But among all the investments Trump’s commerce secretary could hold, an interest in a transoceanic shipping company is perhaps the most incongruous given Trump’s decidedly protectionist trade agenda.

Trump regularly bashes a handful of foreign countries as enemies of America’s financial or national security interests.

In a 2015 book released during his presidential campaign, Trump wrote: “There are people who wish I wouldn’t refer to China as our enemy. But that’s exactly what they are.”

China, Trump continues, has cost the U.S. tens of thousands of jobs. Ross himself has called China “the most protectionist of the large countries” and signaled during his confirmation hearing that he would push China on free trade.

“We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs,” Trump declared in his inaugural speech.

President Trump’s proposed budget for 2018 isn’t following public sentiment, a new survey finds.

The survey, by the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation (PPC), found that while Trump has proposed a $54 billion boost to federal spending for the military, a majority of Americans prefer a cut of $41 billion. While Trump has proposed a $2.8 billion increase for homeland security, a majority of Americans favor a $2 billion cut.

Altogether, the survey looked at the 10 top areas of spending in Trump’s “Budget Blueprint” and found a gap of $139.6 billion between what the majority of the public would spend and what Trump has proposed.

Steven Kull, PPC’s director, said he was surprised both by the extent of the gap and the fact that Trump’s proposals were at odds with the preferences of both Republicans and Democrats. In general, those who identified themselves as Republicans were more likely to favor cutting some of the spending that Trump has proposed to cut, but on a raft of areas where Trump proposed large reductions, members of his party preferred to cut less.

On military spending, for example, where Trump’s proposal is $94.4 billion away from the majority’s position, a majority of GOP respondents said they wished to keep the so-called “base” or main defense budget at the current level, although they favored cutting $5 billion in spending from a budget for “overseas contingency operations,” specifically in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A majority of Democrats said they favored cutting $76 billion from the base military budget and $15 billion from spending in Afghanistan and Iraq — a $91 billion total cut for defense and a $144.4 billion gap with Trump’s budget. If enacted, Trump’s plan would boost military spending by a total of $54 billion.

The new study is consistent with previous poll results, suggesting that Americans’ budget preferences haven’t shifted that much, even after last year’s rancorous and divisive election. A survey released in March 2016 by Voice of the People, which is affiliated with the University of Maryland and sponsors PPC surveys, found a majority of respondents preferred taking the base defense budget down to about $497 billion from its 2015 level of about $509 billion.

Those results, in turn, were strikingly similar to the conclusions of a 2012 survey by the Center for Public Integrity, PPC, and the Stimson Center, a nonprofit policy study group in Washington, D.C. When respondents were asked in that survey what they would do with Obama’s base defense budget, the majority favored cutting it by at least $65 billion, from $562 billion down to $497 billion.

Asked for comment on the new survey results, a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget did not immediately reply.

The survey by PPC sampled more than 1800 registered voters online. They were given a rough outline of the federal budget for 2017 and exposed to a short series of statements — which PPC said were vetted for fairness by opposing groups — about the pros and cons of raising or shrinking the deficit, enlarging or shrinking the size of government, and making public as opposed to private capital investments. Then they were offered the chance to change the budget, keeping in mind the total impact of the changes on the deficit.

The numbers it cited as majority preferences were the means of the preferred budget tallies chosen by the respondents, as long as the mean was supported by more than 50 percent. If fewer than that supported the mean, then the survey cited the next closest number supported by the majority.

Trump’s budget for 2018 would take base defense spending to $603 billion. But Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, want to spend much more. They have jointly proposed a base defense budget of $640 billion.

None of these figures include about $65 billion in additional military spending planned for “overseas contingency operations” in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

Trump’s budget also would add $1.4 billion in extra funds to produce and maintain America’s nuclear warheads. But a majority of all groups — Republicans, Democrats, and Independents — supported keeping that budget where it is now.

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Center for Public Integrity investigations involving the opioid crisis, state insurance commissioners, South Sudan, broadband access and offshore corporations have been honored in recent days by prestigious journalism competitions.

The Center was a winner in three categories of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers “Best in Business” competition, while taking a first place and a second place prize in the Association of Health Care Journalists’ awards for excellence.

“These wins showcased several deep-dive, investigative projects that covered a host of issues,” said John Dunbar, the Center’s chief executive officer. “The awards show it’s possible to write about complex topics in clear and compelling ways.”

In the business journalism contest, the Center was a winner in the international category for smaller publications for “Rape, murder, famine — and $2.1 million for K Street PR,” which detailed how Washington spinmeisters earned huge paychecks to help one of the world’s most murderous governments polish its image on Capitol Hill.

Judges noted that Erin Quinn’s story was enlivened “by featuring a former Sudanese ‘Lost Boy’ who called the fees received by K Street firms ‘blood money.’” The piece was edited by Gordon Witkin and John Dunbar.

The Center also won the technology category for smaller publications with “Rich people have access to high-speed Internet; many poor people still don’t.” The multimedia project showed that there is still a deep divide in America regarding access to high-speed Internet connections.

Judges commented that the “incredibly informative” package was “well-researched… enlightening and, at times, shocking.” The main story was written by Allan Holmes, with data reporting and visualizations by Ben Wieder and Chris Zubak-Skees. A companion video was produced by Eleanor Bell Fox. Gordon Witkin edited the package.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ “Panama Papers” project took top prize in the banking/finance category for large publications. Judges said the investigation represented “exceptional journalism on a topic of international importance.”

The business award marked the Panama Papers project’s fifth major American journalism prize. ICIJ was a project of the Center for Public Integrity when the series was written but has since separated.

The contest awarded prizes across 65 categories. Among other winners: Bloomberg News, Fortune and the Wall Street Journal. Honorees will be celebrated on April 29 at the business editors and writers’ annual convention in Seattle.  

President Donald Trump has proposed to boost federal spending on the production of nuclear weapons by more than $1 billion in 2018 while slashing or eliminating spending on many federal programs related to diplomacy, foreign aid, and social needs, in a budget proposal that reflects the first tangible expression of his defense priorities.

The $1.4 billion budget increase for the National Nuclear Security Administration amounts to just a small fraction of the overall $54 billion boost he requested over the military’s roughly $639 billion 2017 budget, but it is a proportionally higher increase (11 percent) than the Defense Department itself would get (8 percent), signaling that he and his advisers feel the U.S. nuclear weapons program deserves special treatment.

The 64-page budget document released by the White House on March 16 — and entitled “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again” — contained only a few sentences about the proposal, which would give the NNSA a total of $14.3 billion in fiscal year 2018. But the blueprint said the new spending would support “the goals of moving toward a responsive nuclear infrastructure and advancing the existing program of record for warhead life extension programs.”

That language refers to an existing effort to modernize three types of warheads, so they can be deployed with bombers, submarine-launched missiles, and land-based missiles, some of which will themselves be modernized in years to come. That warhead work is well under way, although the budget document suggested it had been slowed by Obama-era defense spending caps. Some independent experts have cautioned, however, that the speed of the work is limited mostly by its sheer complexity, rather than by fund shortages, and expressed doubt that it could be accelerated.

Trump’s budget proposal also says the additional NNSA funds would address its “critical infrastructure maintenance” needs — which is Washington-speak for everything from laboratories and test tracks to office buildings — which NNSA director Frank Klotz has pegged in public statements at roughly $3.7 billion. That tally includes both nuclear weapons-related work and nonnuclear work related to the cleanup of wastes from past weapons production activities.

Much of the agency’s infrastructure is “antiquated,” having been built during the Cold War, Klotz told a well-timed hearing before the House Armed Services Committee’s oversight and investigations subcommittee just a few hours after the proposed budget was released. “NNSA is presently busier than we have been for many, many years” but “operations are subject to increasing risk” due to spending shortfalls.

When Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) asked Klotz to provide more detail about how the new funds would be expended, however, he declined to answer. In a written statement, the Department of Energy — of which the NNSA is a part — said the current proposal represents only an overview, and that further details will be divulged in May.

Many in Washington say that Congress is unlikely to approve Trump’s budget. Nonetheless, the special status Trump has assigned to nuclear weapons work is exemplified by the fact that even as the NNSA’s budget would expand under his proposal, the rest of the Energy Department’s budget would decline by around 20 percent, or $1.7 billion.

Gone would be the department’s weatherization, gas mileage, and clean energy programs. The Office of Science, which supports research into new technologies and basic physics as well as climate change, would be cut by nearly twenty percent. Elsewhere in the government, the State Department would get a 28 percent budget cut, funds for U.N. peacekeeping would be scaled back, humanitarian aid would be focused on fewer nations, and all federal spending for the U.S. Institute of Peace would disappear.

The Quinns also were featured in “Capitol Gains,” the 2015 series produced by The Post and Courier and The Center for Public Integrity. That series explored how South Carolina’s loophole-ridden campaign finance system and ethics laws allow state lawmakers to use campaign war chests like personal ATM machines and profit from government connections.

The Post and Courier reported this week that Statehouse probe investigators have obtained a copy of an audit that alleges the Quinns helped orchestrate Henry McMaster’s 2000 re-election as S.C. GOP party chairman by funneling money from their political firms into the party’s empty bank account. McMaster, a longtime client of Richard Quinn, became governor in January after Nikki Haley resigned to become United Nations ambassador.

(Update, March 17, 2017, 1:23 p.m.: When reached by phone Friday afternoon, Richard Quinn declined to speak specifically about Courson’s indictment — or the report of his firm’s inclusion in a 2004 audit of the SC Republican Party.

“All I can say is that the allegations are false,” he said. “Beyond that I don’t have any other comment right now.”

His son did not return calls seeking comment.)

Courson, a fellow Quinn client, has a long history in South Carolina Republican politics going back to the days when Strom Thurmond was one of the state’s two U.S. senators in Washington. He was elected to the state Senate in 1985 and served as Senate President Pro Tempore from 2012 to 2014. He currently serves as chairman of the Senate Education Committee. He represents parts of Richland and Lexington counties and is one of the Senate’s senior members.

Courson’s indictment came as a surprise to many who considered the 32-year senator a genteel politician with a sterling reputation. He received a career award from government watchdog Common Cause in 2013 for his work on ethics reform legislation.

Courson often chats about baseball and history. He is proud of being among South Carolina’s Republican pioneers who eventually would lead to the party’s control of the Statehouse and state congressional delegation, showing off mementos from Republican national conventions dating back to 1976 that decorate his Statehouse office walls. Courson, who is senior vice president at the Keenan & Suggs insurance firm, prides himself as something of a gentleman in the sometimes rough-and-tumble world of South Carolina Statehouse politics.

In 2014, he didn’t challenge powerful Republican Sen. Hugh Leatherman, who rose to take Courson’s job as senate leader — a move that another senator called a “hit.” Courson did not want an ugly fight among senators who could not refuse Leatherman because he had control over the state budget.

Ironically, Leatherman and Courson share the same political consultant — Quinn.

The move against Courson marks the third set of indictments handed down in the ongoing investigation and also puts the Quinns firmly in the crosshairs of Pascoe’s probe.

The probe has been going on for several years. In 2014, former House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, pleaded guilty to improperly using campaign money to reimburse himself for personal expenses, including trips he took in his private plane. As part of his plea agreement, Harrell agreed to cooperate in any investigation of the Statehouse.

In December, Rep. Jim Merrill, R-Daniel Island, was indicted on 30 charges of ethics and misconduct violations, that Pascoe alleges show a pattern that Merrill accepted or solicited more then $1 million from groups with Statehouse legislation at stake during his 15-year career in Columbia.

Post and Courier reporters Tony Bartelme and Maya Prabhu contributed to this report. 

A version of this story was published in The Post and Courier.

Office of Government Ethics officials confirmed that four meetings with McGahn ultimately materialized, including one in person. In addition to McGahn, a former Federal Election Commission chairman who is now Trump’s top lawyer, Jones Day attorney Ann Donaldson took part. Jones Day, a private law firm where McGahn was a partner before going to the White House, provided Trump with legal counsel during his campaign.

In a statement, the White House described the meetings as “routine.”

The Office of Government Ethics and Trump, whose high-level political nominees often face significant ethics and financial divestment challenges, at first had no contact at all, routine or otherwise.

After Trump won the White House, Trump’s transition team all but ignored the Office of Government Ethics’ attempts at communication. Shaub at one point lamented that his office had “lost contact with the Trump-Pence transition” and that reaching McGahn was “proving to be difficult.”

Then the ethics office — a small, independent agency charged with preventing conflicts of interest in the executive branch — went Twitter-ballistic in a decidedly Trumpian fashion. Armed with interjections and exclamation points, the typically straitlaced @OfficeGovEthics account mock-praised the incoming president for divesting his business empire — something Trump didn’t actually do.

Had hackers commandeered the Office of Government Ethics’ accounts?

No. The tweets proved authentic, ordered up in late November by Shaub himself in hopes of steering Trump toward divestment.

The Office of Government Ethics meetings with the Trump transition team began soon after.

FEC Vice Chairwoman Caroline Hunter, a Republican, concurred: “If Congress wants to hear from us, we’ll do whatever it takes to prepare, and we’ll be happy to answer their questions.”

Walther might, however, have a few questions of his own for Congress, which has all but ignored an annual legislative wish list the FEC’s commissioners send members.

Walther says he’s particularly interested in senators justifying their failure to file their campaign finance reports electronically, a move that’s estimated to save taxpayers about $500,000 yearly. Unlike presidential and House candidates, Senate candidates continue filing their official reports on paper.

Congressional oversight hearings on the FEC would also be “an opportunity for the agency to state, for the record, the positive things it’s doing,” said former FEC Chairman Scott Thomas, a Democrat who today is a partner at law firm Blank Rome LLP. Thomas quickly noted that members of Congress will nevertheless want to know “what the heck is going on there in terms of hiring up and low staff morale.”

High points for the agency include a long-awaited, soon-to-be-completed website redesign and the move to a new, more efficient agency headquarters.

A hearing is also an opportunity for Congress to reassert its oversight of the FEC — something that in recent years has been “very uneven,” said Michael Toner, a former Republican chairman of the FEC and current partner at law firm Wiley Rein LLP.

“It keeps you on your toes and make you a better commissioner when you have public accountability,” Toner said.

Given the FEC’s troubles, why has Congress not conducted an FEC oversight hearing since early this decade?

“It’s their job to look at us in Congress,” Loudermilk said, “so you sometimes don’t have a lot of us wanting to go after them.”

The Senate voted Monday to kill an Obama administration rule aimed at curbing labor violations among government contractors. Two years in the making, the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule was targeted by Republican lawmakers 10 days after Donald Trump’s inauguration. The House voted to excise it on Feb. 2, and Trump can seal its fate with his signature.

Before the Senate vote – 49-48, along party lines – the White House issued a statement saying the rule “would bog down Federal procurement with unnecessary and burdensome processes that would result in delays, and decreased competition for Federal government contracts.”

Issued in August by the U.S. Department of Labor, the rule requires would-be contractors to disclose wage or safety violations during the previous three years.  The vehicle for its undoing by Congress was the rarely used Congressional Review Act, through which recently finalized regulations can be dismantled by simple majorities in the House and Senate. The act prohibits federal agencies from crafting similar rules unless authorized to do so by lawmakers.

Lafe Solomon, a retired Labor Department senior advisor who helped develop the regulation, said Congress’s discarding of it constitutes a loss for American workers. “Workplaces will be less safe and workers certainly run the risk of not getting paid fairly,” he said.

The rule stemmed from a 2014 executive order issued months after a report by Senate Democrats revealed that almost 30 percent of the worst violators of wage and worker-safety laws from 2007 to 2012 had received  government contracts. Eighteen contractors were assessed fines that fell within the top 100 issued by the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration during that period. Thirty-two were hit with back-wage assessments that were among the top 100 levied by the department’s Wage and Hour Division.

“Unfortunately, this report demonstrates that the officials responsible for determining if a prospective contractor is a responsible entity prior to awarding a contract lack access to information on labor violations and lack the tools to evaluate the severity or repeated nature of these types of violations,” wrote Democratic staff members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The findings echoed those of the Government Accountability Office in 1995 and 2010.  In 2016, the progressive think tank Demos estimated that employees of federal contractors lose $1.6 billion to $2.5 billion each year from minimum-wage violations alone.

Contractors employ about a quarter of the American workforce. According to the U.S. Treasury, the government spent about $471 billion on contracts last year.

Though contracting agencies already consider companies’ past performance – which may include compliance with labor laws – in weighing bids, that information isn’t easily accessible across the government.

The rule dictates that any company seeking a contract worth more than $500,000 disclose violations – including cases pending with the Labor Department or other federal agencies, going back three years – of 14 different labor laws. Those without any blemishes on their record would check a box saying so.

Another provision is paycheck transparency – employers would have to let workers know precisely what they’re owed, theoretically enabling them monitor their own paystubs for accuracy. Employees alleging workplace discrimination or sexual assault would have the right to seek redress in court rather than be forced into arbitration.

The award judges noted that the project “exposed offshore hideaways tied to mega-banks, corporate bribery scandals, drug kingpins, arms traffickers and a network of people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin that shuffled as much as $2 billion around the world.”  Judges also noted that since the probe, “governments and corporations in 79 countries have opened at least 150 inquiries, audits or investigations.”

Along with the recognition comes prize money of $10,000. The Scripps Howard Awards celebrate excellence in journalism in a total of 17 categories, with prize money totaling $180,000. The Scripps Howard Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the E. W. Scripps Company. Other winners in this year’s contest included ProPublica, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Houston Chronicle, The Oregonian and the East Bay Times.

The Panama Papers series has previously been honored with an Editor & Publisher award, a Polk award and a Barlett & Steele award.

Fact-finding mission or junket?

Some lawmakers are bewildered that the groups that paid for their trips are now swept up in Turkey’s current political turmoil.

“I can’t imagine what they would have wanted out of the North Dakota state Legislature,” said former North Dakota state Rep. Ben Hanson, a Democrat who went on a trip sponsored by a Gulen group in 2013 with six other lawmakers from his state. North Dakota does not currently allow charter schools and has few ties to the Middle East.

“It seemed like their group was trying to educate people and trying to bridge relations, and that seemed like a positive thing in and of itself,” he added.

The Center for Public Integrity attempted to contact the legislators it identified as having gone on the trips. Of the 34 lawmakers willing to comment, most spoke of their trips positively. Many said their trips were packed with educational information and meetings with Turkish businessmen or officials and were not pleasure tours. While some, like Moxley in Kansas, defended Gulen’s followers, others said they didn’t know what to make of recent events in Turkey.

“That’s above my pay grade,” said Roger Katz, a Republican in the Maine Senate who traveled to Turkey.

Some said they had no idea the sponsors of the trips were even part of the Gulen movement. To be sure, many of the trips occurred before the movement became an enemy of the Turkish state.

“The people I was associated with were devout Muslims and, I thought, the nicest people,” said Harry Kennedy, a former Democratic state senator in Missouri who went to Turkey in 2008. “But we really didn’t talk much about international politics.”

Lawmakers who have gone on the trips also have praised the experience as a way to dispel myths about Muslims in a post-9/11 world. But not every trip participant walked away with the same conclusions. New Mexico state Sen. George Munoz said he left his trip early.

“I thought it was interesting to see another culture and government, but there were some things that were deeply wrong,” the Democrat said. “There’s a reason our country chose Christianity.”

Gulen-movement groups are not the only ones paying for foreign travel by state lawmakers who have no power over foreign affairs. The government of Taiwan has sponsored trips for state lawmakers, and various Jewish nonprofits have taken state legislators to Israel.

But the Gulen movement’s efforts are extensive. For years, Gulen’s followers have been making friends in the United States by offering receptions, awards dinners and the subsidized trips — and not just for state lawmakers.

A 2015 USA Today investigation found the Gulen movement organized 200 trips for members of Congress and their staff.

One Gulen movement member estimated that more than 7,000 Gulen-movement-sponsored trips for North Americans occurred between 2003 and 2010, at an estimated cost of $17.5 million. The trips included mayors, university professors, journalists and other community leaders from across the United States.

The Center for Public Integrity’s review of lawmakers’ disclosures show that the Gulen-movement groups shelled out between $1,000 and $7,047 per trip.

Some lawmakers’ spouses also came along for the subsidized journeys, which often included visits to major Turkish historical sites such as the Hagia Sophia, a cruise on the Bosphorus Strait, shopping, as well as tours of Gulen-linked institutions such as Zaman, a daily newspaper, or private schools run by the movement.

Though some lawmakers paid for the cost of their flights to the country, expenses such as hotels, meals and tours were frequently covered by Gulen-movement nonprofits, which run on generous donations from Gulen’s followers, experts said. In addition, local Turkish followers of Gulen often donated funds specifically for the trips and then hosted the travelers in their homes for dinners or joined them for tours.

While federal lawmakers’ trips are governed by strict rules and must be disclosed, state regulations and their interpretations vary. Many states that regulate lawmaker gifts and travel include exceptions for educational trips, and none ban subsidized travel for legislators outright, according to Ethan Wilson, an ethics expert at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

For example, Colorado bans gifts for lawmakers above $50, but the state’s ethics commission ruled that the Turkey trips fall under the definition of “fact-finding missions,” which are allowed.

And though some Kansas legislators reported their trips in financial disclosures, at least two did not. They told the Center for Public Integrity that the state ethics commission told them it wasn’t required, though the director of the commission said hotel stays worth more than $500 should be disclosed.

North Dakota does not have any rules barring such trips, nor does it even require them to be disclosed.

Still, lawmakers should scrutinize perks offered to them carefully, said Mike Palmer, an ethics consultant who has worked on ethics codes for municipalities and government agencies. Certain groups like federal contracting officers have strict bans on gifts for good reason, he said.

“There’s a balance there between receiving education and being lobbied,” Palmer said. “What one would ask is: ‘Why are they providing this? Why is this person taking me to lunch? What’s in it for them?’”

A contract arranged at the top

According to the investigators’ notes, Wilson wasn’t pressed further by the labs to detail her work because her contract had been blessed by the labs’ top officials. At the time, Los Alamos was reeling from a $300 million budget cut handed down by the Congress that Wilson had just left, a contracting official told investigators during an interview on Oct. 11, 2012. Los Alamos’ managers also understood Wilson had consulting arrangements with intelligence agencies in Washington that they hoped would give the lab new work, according to the investigator’s notes.

 “The director wanted an agreement with Ms. Wilson,” another Los Alamos contract administrator told investigators on Oct. 22, 2012. He was referring to then-director Michael Anastasio, who left his position in June 2011. Several telephoned requests for Anastasio’s comment were not returned.

Similarly, a manager for the contractors that operate Sandia said during an interview on Nov. 15, 2012 that Sandia eyed Wilson immediately as a prospective consultant after she lost a Senate primary the summer before she left Congress. “Ms. Wilson had contacts with people at the highest levels of government” and would be a valuable asset to “assist with strategic planning” by the corporation’s top executives, who were the “end-users” of her services, the manager said.

Sandia also wanted her to set up a national speakers program, which she did. But the contracts with Wilson were done without competition, and “it appeared that there were a number of resources that could have provided these services at a lower cost to the government,” a contracting official at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), who was responsible for helping oversee Sandia’s work, told investigators during an interview on Jan. 29, 2013. A Los Alamos contracting official who called the deal “weak” similarly said “there were people readily available that could provide the same type of advice as Ms. Wilson.”

At Los Alamos, Wilson’s invoices were supposed to pass through three levels of inspection. However, the language of her work agreement prohibited one of the clerks assigned with that task from contacting Wilson directly. Another clerk tasked with ensuring that Wilson earned her paycheck told investigators she accepted “informal” descriptions of Wilson’s work over the phone. And a manager at Los Alamos responsible for administering Wilson’s contract admitted he had been “lax” by stopping his reviews of her invoices after the first two or three months.

In fact, the manager expressed surprise when he learned from investigators that Wilson’s work for Los Alamos had gone on for 19 months and cost the lab — and consequently the government — $190,000, without required documentation of the work that had been done.

When Wilson’s contracts crossed their desks, some NNSA officials immediately eyed them with suspicion, given how soon they came after she left Congress. One NNSA official working in the agency’s oversight office at Los Alamos shared his impression with investigators “that after Ms. Wilson lost the election she reached into the Treasury for a money grab,” according to a copy of the investigator’s interview notes. Another NNSA official “wondered if this agreement was a ‘soft landing’” for the ex-congresswoman, who had supported the labs’ funding during her congressional tenure.

No monthly tasks specified

The investigators found multiple signs of contract irregularities. A paragraph requiring that all work result in clear “deliverables” appeared in a draft of her work orders, but was removed from the versions she signed. No concrete month-to-month tasks were spelled out in the Los Alamos deal, because the lab’s global and national security divisions refused to endorse any.

One of the NNSA auditors at Los Alamos who approved the wording of these contracts told investigators that “he felt he was pressured” into doing so by more senior officials there “pushing the contract,” and that he feared retaliation if he did not. The claim was not substantiated by the inspector general, however.

Ironically, Wilson’s contracts explicitly stated that she “shall not engage in any activity specifically related to obtaining, retaining, or facilitating business or business opportunities for the respective National Laboratories” — evidently because those are non-reimbursable expenses.

“Despite these prohibitions, our examination of relevant documentation at both Sandia and Los Alamos tend to indicate such activities,” the investigators’ summary said. For example, “At Los Alamos… [Wilson’s firm] arranged meetings with and/or site visits by senior Federal officials who had the ability to impact both funding and future work at the Laboratory in the intelligence area.”

At the same time, Wilson “failed to produce any actual reports,” one of the lead investigators of the Sandia contract said.

In an email to the Center in 2015, Wilson denied she ever directly lobbied on behalf of Sandia. “And I did not contact any federal official – Congressional or Executive – to try to extend the Sandia contract,” Wilson wrote. However, she did not respond to questions about her work for Los Alamos or discuss the issue of drumming up new business for the labs under their existing contracts.

When Wilson announced her second run for the U.S. Senate in 2011, her work with Sandia and Los Alamos was terminated. However, Sandia kept a no-fee agreement with Ms. Wilson “in order for her to keep her clearance,” the same Sandia manager who said Wilson was hired for her high-level political connections told investigators. The arrangement gave Wilson access to classified government secrets for the duration of her candidacy in an election that she ultimately lost to Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee where Wilson faces confirmation.

Sandia spokesperson Heather Clark said Wilson’s clearance through the lab remained active until 2013, when it was transferred to the Department of Energy. Clark called Sandia’s no-fee contract for purposes of keeping Wilson’s clearance active “rare,” but said “Sandia was not seeking to gain any favors.”

“Sandia knows clearances take a long time to reinstate,” Clark said. “In the interest of government efficiency and cost savings for taxpayers, we used this no-fee contract so she could keep her clearance.”

Overseeing federal work by a former client

If confirmed as Air Force Secretary, Wilson would be responsible for negotiating contracts with and holding accountable some of the same contractors that employed her as a consultant. Sandia Corp., the wholly-owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin that operates Sandia National Laboratory, paid Wilson $226,378 between January 2009 and March 2011.

Wilson’s work for Sandia began Jan. 4, 2009, one day after she left Congress, where she spent 10 years representing a district including Albuquerque, New Mexico. Records from a separate 2014 probe by the inspector general’s office showed Wilson coached lab executives that they could extend their contract to run the lab by telling Washington decision-makers that “competition is not in the best interest of the government.” In August 2015 Sandia reached a settlement with the Justice Department over its use of federal funds to finance her work that called for its payment to the government of $4.7 million, but admitted no wrongdoing.

Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a consortium consisting of Bechtel, BWXT Government Group, URS (since acquired by AECOM) and the University of California that operates Los Alamos National Laboratory, paid Wilson $195,717.52 between August 2009 and February 2011. Wilson also received approximately $30,000 from the contractors that ran the Nevada National Security Site and Oak Ridge National Laboratory during that time.

Trump announced Wilson as his choice for Air Force secretary on Jan. 23. Wilson hasn’t submitted the required pre-confirmation financial disclosure to the Office of Government Ethics. Her confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee has not yet been scheduled.

The Center for Public Integrity officially announced the spinoff of The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) today.

 “We’re intensely proud of the success of the consortium and also proud to have birthed it, nurtured it and sustained it for nearly two decades,”  said John Dunbar, chief executive officer of the Center for Public Integrity. “We wish them nothing but continued success.”

The ICIJ has tremendous momentum and its leaders believe it is ready to capitalize on its record of global collaboration and grow independently.

“As we begin this new chapter, we remain grateful to the Center for Public Integrity for its 19 years of collaboration and its ongoing support as we make this transition,” said Gerard Ryle, director of ICIJ. “We believe this new structure will allow us to extend our global reach and impact even farther and build on the lessons we’ve learned and the successes we’ve enjoyed.”

ICIJ was the creation of the Center’s founder, Charles Lewis. The ICIJ reached new heights in 2016 with the worldwide reverberations from the Panama Papers investigation, which it coordinated across a network of more than 400 journalists around the world. The effort recently won a George Polk award for financial journalism.

The spinoff received board approval earlier this month and the separation was finalized Friday, February 24, 2017. The Center’s board of directors decided that enabling the ICIJ to chart its own course will allow it to pursue new opportunities and options for funding and continue to pursue its crucial work.

“We wish Gerard and the consortium the best of luck in their independent adventure, and we at the Center look forward to creating other such great enterprises in the future,” said Scott Siegler, Center board co-chairman.

Begun in 1997 as an effort to expand the Center’s model of watchdog journalism worldwide, the ICIJ has developed into an unprecedented international network of reporters and media organizations, culminating in some of the largest and most complex journalistic collaborations in history.

The Center for Public Integrity has been a pioneer in the field of non-partisan, nonprofit investigative journalism since its founding 27 years ago by Lewis, an investigative journalist and former producer for 60 Minutes.

The organization won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism in 2014 for its Breathless and Burdened investigation and has been a leader in tracking the influence of money in politics, adding teams on the environment, national security, economics and technology.

Traffic pollution spikes close to roads, a health hazard for nearby school students and anyone who spends time in those areas. Exposure increases the risk of problems, ranging from asthma attacks to heart disease. To find out if your school or another location of interest falls within 500 feet of a busy route (marked in red and orange), search below.

Journalism has changed a lot since the Center for Public Integrity first opened its doors in 1989, but our mission has not: We aim to preserve democracy by revealing abuses of power, corruption and betrayal of the public trust.

We are one of the nation’s oldest nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative journalism organizations, but we can’t be everywhere. We need concerned citizens to lead us to stories of waste, fraud, abuse, corruption and malfeasance of all kinds.

If you have a story for us, you can always reach our reporters and editors through email or contact our tips line at tips@publicintegrity.org — or simply dial us at 202-466-1300.

But for more sensitive information, or when you want to blow a whistle on government misdeeds, you may want to remain anonymous while providing us with leads, data and documents we can use to both tell your story and verify and illuminate it through our own independent reporting. For such cases, we urge you to be extra-cautious and use one of these methods to reach us.

SecureDrop

SecureDrop is an open-source data submission system developed by the Freedom of the Press Foundation to protect whistleblowers and to encourage more whistleblowing. You can find information here about how to reach the Center for Public Integrity this way to securely and anonymously leak documents. Even we won’t know who you are, unless you want to tell us.

Download this source guide for more information on using SecureDrop.

You may also reach us the old fashioned way by simply sending material to our mailing address, but without including your return address:

The Center for Public Integrity
910 17th Street, NW, Suite 700
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USA

For an added layer of security, we recommend using a neighborhood mailbox instead of a post office when mailing your envelope.

Transition effort led by nonprofit group

For the transition, candidates set up separate nonprofit entities under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code.

Those entities are permitted to accept contributions in increments of $5,000 or less, but because they also accept public money for transition expenses, must disclose the names of contributors to the public.

That report, filed with the General Services Administration, was due Feb. 19. The GSA released it today, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed this week by the Center for Public Integrity.

The document includes contributor names, dates and amounts. But — unlike standard campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission — Trump’s transition funder list does not include contributors’ addresses, employers or occupations, making it more difficult to verify the identities of contributors.

The report didn’t include a detailed listing of expenditures, but included a summary table breaking expenses into categories that showed the transition nonprofit spent the bulk of the money on payroll and tax expenses, travel and relocation expenses, and legal and consulting expenses.

Trump and some of his closest advisers personally participated in transition fundraisers.

Trump personally headlined a December gathering in New York City that reportedly drew nearly 1,000 people and raised at least $4 million, and his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, spoke at one in Buffalo, New York.

Pence, who headed the transition effort, has said fundraising was so successful, the transition will return 20 percent of the taxpayer funds allocated to it to the government.

Congress set aside $13.3 million to cover pre-election transition expenses for both major party candidates, as well as roughly $7 million in post-election support, according to the Center for Presidential Transition.

For comparison: President Barack Obama raised about $4 million for his transition after being elected in 2008, according to the nonpartisan Center for Presidential Transition, part of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service.

That transition cost a total of about $9.3 million, in part funded by public dollars. Obama also rejected donations from federal lobbyists, labor unions, corporations and political committees.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Trump transition report.

This story was co-published with NBC News and Public Radio International.

The fundraising gulf over the DGA can be attributed in part to RGA support from a number of high-profile billionaires and millionaires, including hedge fund bosses Paul Singer and Kenneth Griffin, and shipping supply company owner Richard Uihlein. The largest donor to the RGA in 2016, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, donated more than the top six donors to the DGA combined.

Many longtime donors gave big to the RGA amid the 2014 election bid of Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner — including Rauner-backer Griffin — and could be gearing up for his next battle in 2018. The RGA had donated $8.25 million to his first bid compared with the $4.96 million the DGA gave to then-Gov. Pat Quinn’s campaign.

Last year Rauner himself donated $250,000 to the RGA, his largest donation ever to the group and the largest donation by far from a politician in 2016.

“It’s a way of saying, if you’re going to play, you better bring your wallet,” said Kent Redfield, emeritus professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Springfield.

Redfield said some Illinois Democrats are aiming to recruit a wealthy opponent for Rauner. Developer Chris Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy, and venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune, are said to be considering bids.

Without the same level of support from multi-millionaires, the DGA depends on money from national labor organizations. Last year many of the large donations came from labor unions, including the Teamsters, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the United Food and Commercial Workers.

Business is an important base, and many donated to both governors’ associations. Centene Corporation, a healthcare company that provides services through Medicare, Medicaid and state health insurance exchanges, was the largest single donor to the DGA and the fifth largest donor to the RGA.

AstraZeneca, Verizon, Pfizer, Wal-Mart and tobacco giant Philip Morris’ parent company Altria were among those who donated six-figure sums to both sides.

Many of the nation’s governors will gather in Washington this week for both the National Governors Association and the RGA’s annual winter meeting.

“The RGA has built and will continue to build a strong foundation of resources to defend our incumbents and elect a new class of Republican governors in 2018,” said Thompson.

The Panama Papers investigation has been honored with a George Polk Award for financial journalism, the award sponsor, Long Island University, announced.

The series, which exposed offshore tax havens and rattled leaders from around the world, was headed up by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a project of the Center for Public Integrity.

The Polk Awards judges lauded the reporting collaboration for sparking official investigations and reforms aimed at combating global tax dodging and money laundering.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Süddeutsche Zeitung, McClatchy, the Miami Herald, Fusion and more than 100 other media partners worked together to investigate a trove of leaked documents from inside Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-headquartered law firm that sells offshore companies and other hard-to-unravel corporate structures.

“The Polk Award and other honors are an important recognition of the value of cross-border collaborations,” ICIJ’s director, Gerard Ryle, said. “This project wouldn’t have been possible if our colleagues at Süddeutsche Zeitung hadn’t been willing to share the Panama Papers leak with us and other media partners. Some stories are so complex and so global they can only be unlocked when journalists are willing to share information and support each other.”

“It’s a tremendous honor,” said Center for Public Integrity CEO John Dunbar. “The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and its network of journalists showed true global reach in a project that was incredibly innovative and impactful.”

This marked the third Polk won by the Center.

The George Polk Awards are given out each year to honor “special achievement in journalism.” They place “a premium on investigative and enterprising reporting that gains attention and achieves results.” The awards were established in 1949 to commemorate George Polk, a CBS correspondent murdered in 1948 while covering the Greek civil war.

Other winners in this year’s Polk Awards include the Washington Post, the Arizona Republic, The Marshall Project, National Public Radio, the Houston Chronicle, The Atlantic, The New York Times and ProPublica.

So what can schools near roads do about their air quality?

Closing a school’s doors and windows won’t keep traffic pollutants out (though that helps). Heavy-duty air filters — higher quality than the typical filters in schools — can substantially reduce what gets into the air the kids and teachers are breathing inside.

Filters rated MERV 16, characterized as surgery-grade, have been installed in dozens of Southern California schools. In the Los Angeles Unified School District alone, more than 40 schools have high-grade filters to improve air in areas near highways, ports and other pollution sources.

Measurements by the South Coast Air Quality Management District — a local air-pollution control agency — found that MERV 16 filters in schools catch approximately 90 percent of fine and ultrafine particles, pollutants that are a key part of what makes traffic pollution a health risk. A much lower 20 to 50 percent of the particles were caught by the measured schools’ earlier efforts, which at best had involved air filters with a rating of MERV 7.

MERV 16 filters aren’t high price. You can buy them for less than $100 apiece. Schools with central air conditioning and heating — an HVAC system — should be able to use them, but it might take some retrofitting. IQAir, a company that’s installed high-grade filtration in hundreds of schools, most in California, says schools with a central system usually don’t need to spend much on alterations.

The big cost is for schools without HVAC. They’re left with two expensive options: pony up for HVAC, or pay for stand-alone air purification systems that are much pricier than air filters.

The South Coast air district offered a rough estimate of around $2,500 per classroom to install high-quality filters — averaging between schools that don’t need to do much and those staring down big-ticket HVAC costs.

At El Marino Language School in Culver City, California, officials retrofitted the heating system to get the filters in — that work cost about $500,000 — and plan to spend an additional $2 million installing air conditioning this summer so teachers can keep the doors and windows closed, allowing the filters to do their work.

How have schools paid for indoor-air fixes?

Dozens of schools in Southern California have received high-grade air filters paid for by the South Coast air district, which has funded the work with a pool of money that includes penalties assessed on polluting companies.

Not all schools near major roads in that region qualify, though. So the freeway-adjacent El Marino Language School got funding after the Culver City Unified School District in California proposed an ultimately successful bond measure, some of which was earmarked for work there. The lack of air conditioning at El Marino meant a higher price tag for effective filtration. The school could (and ultimately did) install filters by retrofitting the heating system, but it really needed to add AC, too, so unfiltered air wouldn’t flow in through doors open directly to the outdoors.

In Utah, meanwhile, the state Department of Transportation is paying for higher-quality air filters at five schools within about 1,600 feet of a highway under construction. That’s part of a deal struck after parents, environmentalists and doctors mobilized during the planning stages nearly a decade ago, modeled after a settlement over a highway-widening project in Las Vegas. Funding allotted for the Utah school upgrades and 30 years of future maintenance: $1.1 million, the equivalent of about $7,300 per school per year.

My school has air filters. That’s good enough, right?

School filtration and ventilation is often subpar, according to researchers who have documented conditions in the West and Midwest. Years ago, when he was at the California Air Resources Board, Thomas J. Phillips was part of a study of school classrooms and found air filters that “hadn’t been changed in quite a while — maybe the life of the school.”

Phillips, now principal scientist at Healthy Building Research in California, points out that school budgets are usually crunched.

“Things like air sealing and better air filtration will help,” he said. “But the devil’s in the details. How do you make sure it’s done right? How do you fund it? How do you maintain it?”

Being vigilant about maintenance is a good start. But the EPA also recommends that schools with traffic-pollution challenges install the highest-grade air filters they can. (For more details on that, see the answer above to “So what can schools near roads do about their air quality?”)

What can I do if my district is building a school near a highway or other significant road?

You could start a conversation if it’s not a done deal: Does your school district realize the health implications of nearby traffic? (Many don’t.) Are there other viable sites farther from busy roads?

Traffic isn’t the only environmental-health hazard, and the EPA cautions that building schools in far-off locations to avoid traffic just forces kids and staff to spend more time on roads to get there, breathing those pollutants while sitting in buses and cars. If a school must be built near significant traffic, experts recommend designing the site to improve air quality.

An effective HVAC system with high-grade air filters will substantially reduce the traffic particles getting to the classrooms, as schools in freeway-heavy Southern California have found. It’s also a good idea to put outdoor-activity areas, such as playgrounds and athletic fields, farther from the road while earmarking the closest spots for uses such as parking and storage, the EPA says. Other measures, such as placing the air intake away from the fumes of the road and the school loading dock, can also help.

The state plans to build a big road near my child’s school. Now what?

That’s happening in Utah. After parents, environmentalists and doctors joined forces to object, the state Department of Transportation agreed to pay for air monitoring and higher-quality air filters at five schools near the incoming Mountain View Corridor highway project.

“We’ve come a long way just to understand there is a problem out there,” said Linda Hansen, a member of the Utah State Board of Education and a former PTA leader in the affected school district. “We’re hoping once we get the data … from this project, we’ll be able to use it in other projects and get districts to see they really need to put some mitigation into those schools they have near roadways, because it’s hard on kids.”

This is why she thinks the advocacy effort paid off: “Groups that usually don’t work together on issues all came together.”

Reed Soper, environmental manager on the Mountain View Corridor project for a Department of Transportation contractor, sees the outcome as a win, too. “Everyone was willing to roll up their sleeves and come up with a solution that didn’t involve a lawsuit,” he said.

A big increase in truck traffic is coming near my child’s school. What can I do?

If it’s temporary, see if the traffic can be timed to avoid school days. Residents in Mars, Pennsylvania, convinced an energy company to wait until summer to hydraulically fracture gas wells there so schools wouldn’t be in session during the ensuing spike in truck volumes on the road passing by them, said Patrice Tomcik, the western Pennsylvania field organizer for Moms Clean Air Force. State environmental protection officials acted as mediators between residents and the company.

“I just want other communities to realize they have options,” she said.

If it’s not temporary, talk to transportation officials. Could other roads handle the traffic instead? What would be the implications of rerouting it? Or talk to the company behind the increase, if there’s a single employer involved.

In Chicago, the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization has pressed a manufacturer to use newer, less-polluting trucks as it prepares for hundreds more trips a day on a site next to an elementary school. The group’s leaders say they’re encouraged by the ongoing conversation.

“That’s not to say we don’t want the jobs, or that this growth isn’t important. It is,” said Kim Wasserman, executive director of the group. “But not at the cost of the truck drivers” — who breathe air tainted with their exhaust — “or the communities where these trucks are going.”

My kid’s school isn’t near any major roads, but what about the diesel school buses that idle outside? Isn’t that a problem?

Yes. Getting bus drivers (and parents) to turn off their engines while waiting to pick up kids really can make a difference. Pat Ryan, an associate professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, led a study that found significant drops in air pollutants following an anti-idling campaign at a Cincinnati school with a lot of buses.

Just putting up a no-idling sign isn’t enough, Ryan said: “You have to be a little more active, at least until — hopefully — it becomes a habit.” There’s an assumption among some drivers that they’ll burn up more fuel turning their engine off and back on again than if they idle, but that’s not true, he said.

The EPA has also helped school districts replace old diesel buses with grants from its Diesel Emissions Reduction Act program. But the future of that funding is unclear.

I’m not in a big city. This stuff doesn’t apply to my area, right?

Schools near busy roads are a particular problem in big cities, but thousands of these cases are in suburbs, smaller cities and rural communities.

School districts in areas with more undeveloped land do have options a heavily urbanized district doesn’t, as long as the issue is on their radar. Consider the suburban Blue Valley district in Overland Park, Kansas. Officials there try to get new schools into the plans for future subdivisions while there’s still time for that — and to build their campuses as far from major roads as they can.

“Safety is one [reason], but the impact of pollutants on those major roads is another one,” said Dave Hill, executive director of facilities and operations for Blue Valley, which helps mentor other school districts on indoor-air quality.

Students are also coming and going from the high school after hours and on weekends, when the crossing guards aren’t out and the 40 mph limit applies. Flynn said fifth- and sixth-graders cross Route 130 to get to football practice in late afternoons, and he routinely sees kids walking across the road in the dark.

The route is divided as it cuts past the Burlington schools, with stores tucked between the north- and southbound lanes. It’s as if students must navigate two roads rather than one, with twice the opportunities for harm.

Students have held a rally, made a presentation at City Hall, researched the life-and-death implications of crashes at different speeds and produced a safety video. In January they testified at a hearing on state Sen. Diane Allen’s legislation.

“If you would go to any student in any grade, they would be like, ‘Oh, Antwan, he’s an amazing friend,’ ” said Jesseca, who knew him well as a fellow cadet in the school’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, and who is best friends with the young man injured on the road in 2012. “We don’t want another tragic incident.”

Hopkins reported this story with the support of the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism and the National Fellowship, programs of the University of Southern California Center for Health Journalism.

She and her 10-year-old son, Tíyonn, both have asthma. She sleeps with her rescue inhaler under her pillow. Tíyonn needs medication to keep his lungs working properly and struggles with congestion. He feels safer inside, figuring the air is better, but he’s never far from the trucks.

They rumble past Hawkins Street School, the elementary/middle school he attends — an estimated 585 trucks a day on a two-lane road, along with roughly 11,000 other vehicles. They idle, like the truck outside school as Tíyonn left that day in December, pumping out gray smoke he could smell. Airplanes headed to the nearby Newark Liberty International Airport fly low over his school every couple of minutes, adding more pollution and noise.

“It’s so bad,” Tíyonn said, “I feel like we should have moved.”

Some in this working-class community with a mix of narrow, modest homes and public housing can’t afford to do that. Some don’t want to be driven out of a place they love, where many speak more than one language and the crime rate ranks among the lowest of Newark’s neighborhoods.

Kim Gaddy, a Newark school board member and environmental-justice organizer, thinks too many kids and adults in the city are exposed to unhealthy levels of traffic pollution, particularly in the Ironbound and in the South Ward neighborhoods that are also close to the port. Gaddy, a South Ward resident, has asthma and so do all three of her children. No one appears to track child asthma rates in Newark, but the best guess — the one repeated by officials — is that one in four children in the city has it. The asthma hospitalization rate for all ages, something New Jersey does track, was nearly three times higher in Newark than in the rest of the state in 2015.

“We have to look at this as a health injustice,” Gaddy said. “Our children, their life is on the line because we can’t escape the diesel.”

Driving around her neighborhood recently, pointing out the trucks and truck-intensive businesses, she paused outside the B.R.I.C.K. Peshine Academy school. Students were outside for recess, playing in the biting cold. Across the street and down a hill was Interstate 78, where roughly 160,000 vehicles, including more than 11,000 trucks, pass by every day.

The hill is good: The EPA has found that below-grade roads reduce the impact of traffic pollution nearby. (Hawkins Street School has no such luck, and its road is even closer, with a traffic light that guarantees pollution spikes from acceleration.) But the number of trucks on I-78 is unusually high.

All told, about 40 public schools in Newark — roughly 40 percent — are within 500 feet of a busy road.

John M. Abeigon, president of the Newark Teachers Union, has no doubt that proximity is unhealthy. He moved his family from the Ironbound to a Newark suburb in 1997 after his daughter developed asthma, and her symptoms quickly cleared up. But he says no one should expect the school district to find the money for high-grade air filters.

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen here,” he said. “They don’t have $75 for a water filter to keep lead out of the students’ drinking water.”

The Newark school district said its schools do have air filters and change them regularly, but they’re run-of-the-mill, regardless of whether a pollution source is nearby. That meets state requirements, schools spokesman Paul Nedeau wrote in an email. But this is a city that has long struggled with pollution, he said, and the district is eager to work with partners to improve conditions in and around its schools.

Among the most active local groups on pollution issues is the nonprofit Ironbound Community Corp., which thinks schools and residents shouldn’t have to pay for the air-quality problems they didn’t create. For more than a decade, ICC staffers and volunteers have called on the Port of New York and New Jersey — the destination for 9,000 trucks a day — to do more.

About 62 percent of the trucks that go to and from the port predate the stricter 2007 engine standards. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said in 2010 that it would bar those trucks in January 2017, but last year it weakened the plan. Old trucks not already serving the port are prohibited, but a ban affecting the current stock won’t kick in until next year — and only on trucks from 1995 or earlier.

Molly Campbell, director of port commerce for the authority, blamed it on lack of funding. The authority doesn’t have the money to assist all the people with older trucks, she said, many of whom are one-man independent contractors.

That sounds like a cop-out to Ana Baptista, an assistant professor at the New School in New York and a Hawkins Street graduate who previously led environmental-justice efforts at the ICC. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in California — the only two larger than New York’s and New Jersey’s — banned pre-2007 trucks five years ago, cutting their diesel particle pollution more than 80 percent. Those ports also set aside funds for air filtration in schools, something the New York and New Jersey port said it has not done.

Campbell, who came from the Los Angeles port, points out that California ultimately required all older diesel trucks, not just those bound for ports, to get anti-pollution retrofits or get off the road. It’s the only state to do so, and she thinks that makes more sense than demanding that one employer do better.