Andy Kroll

Reporter

Andy Kroll is Mother Jones' Dark Money reporter. He is based in the DC bureau. His work has also appeared at the Wall Street Journal, the Detroit News, Salon, and TomDispatch.com, where he's an associate editor. He can be reached at akroll (at) motherjones (dot) com. He tweets at @AndrewKroll.

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Will Big Donors Get Special Access to Obama? Group Still Won't Say

—By Andy Kroll

| Wed Mar. 13, 2013 1:38 PM PDT

Organizing for Action, the pro-Obama nonprofit hoping to raise $50 million to mobilize Democratic supporters around the president's agenda, kicked off its "Founder's Summit" on Tuesday morning at the tony St. Regis Hotel near the White House. But as ex-Obama aides David Plouffe, Jim Messina, and others spoke of the need for volunteers and donors outside Washington to pressure Congress into action on gun control, immigration, and climate change, OFA itself is still dogged by reports that big donors to the group will gain special access to the president.

At the OFA summit, spokeswoman Katie Hogan said little to satisfy the group's critics. Hogan stressed that OFA's fundraising plans were still in flux, and she couldn't say definitively what the group's interactions with the Obama administration would look like or how the organization would evolve going forward. "I don't have a crystal ball," she told reporters before event began.

She did say that OFA's board meetings will be closed to the public or press. The group's main board of directors will reportedly include ex-Obama officials such as Messina, Plouffe, and former deputy campaign director Stephanie Cutter. However, it is OFA's "advisory board" that has drawn much of the criticism. That board, according to the New York Times, will consist of supporters who've donated or raised $500,000 or more, and who will receive quarterly meetings with the president.

Both the White House and Jim Messina have dismissed the notion that OFA is selling access, but neither have refuted the Times story. Reformers have blasted OFA for appearing to sell access to the president, and some have called on Obama to demand that OFA be shut down.

On Wednesday evening, Obama is scheduled to speak to the 50 or 60 volunteers, donors, and other supporters who are in DC for the OFA summit. That event will be open only to small pool of reporters assigned to follow the president, and most of the summit is closed to reporters and the public. It's a safe bet, though, that near the top of the organizers' agenda is a plan to raise $50 million to back Obama's second-term agenda. As Bloomberg reported, some big Democratic givers are still worn out from the campaign, when they were pressed to give time and again. OFA's tallest hurdle going forward may be donor fatigue.

In his own remarks, Plouffe offered an indirect rebuke to OFA's critics. "Just the notion that there's millions of Americans that want to be part of these debates that they've been closed off to in Washington, that in my mind is reason enough to march forward," he said. "This is something that should be celebrated, not criticized."

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The White House Is for Sale Under Barack Obama, Too

Obama joins a long line of presidents to offer exclusive access for big bucks.

—By Andy Kroll

| Tue Mar. 12, 2013 3:00 AM PDT

On Wednesday night, at the swanky St. Regis Hotel three blocks north of the White House, President Barack Obama will schmooze with his biggest donors and most avid grassroots supporters at a "founder's summit" for Organizing for Action, the controversial pro-Obama nonprofit group. OFA will use the email lists, social networks, and cutting-edge technologies honed during Obama's reelection campaign to try to galvanize Americans in support of the president's second-term agenda.

[Read the full article]

Photo credits: Jackson, Wikimedia Commons; Harding, Wikimedia Commons; Johnson, Wikimedia Commons; Nixon, Wikimedia Commons; Carter, Wikimedia Commons; George HW Bush, Che qingjiu/Imaginechina/ZUMA Press; Clinton, Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS.com; George W. Bush, Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS.com.

GOP Senator: This Obama-Congress Lovefest Must Stop

—By Andy Kroll

| Mon Mar. 11, 2013 8:34 AM PDT

Here's a theory about Washington you won't hear very often.

On NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) decried the level of dysfunction in the House and Senate, between the Democratic and Republican parties, between Congress and the White House, and so forth. What's the news? you might ask. Unlike most people, Coburn blames Washington dysfunction on too much compromise. "Members of Congress and the administration agree on too much," he said.

Here's the full quote:

"Washington is dysfunctional, but it's dysfunctional in a dysfunctional way. Members of Congress and the administration agree on too much. We agree on spending money we don't have. We agree on not over-sighting the programs that should be over-sighted. We agree on continuing to spend money on programs that don't work or are ineffective. Basically we agree on too much."

Here's the video of Coburn's comment:

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Now, this is not to say Coburn is wrong on highlighting the government waste out there. He and his staff are among the best sleuths of nonsensical government spending (a 100-year starship program? A study to see if men look taller holding a pistol versus a caulk gun?). But on the issue of D.C. dysfunction, Coburn may be just a bit out of synch with the public.

Organizing for Action, Obama's Big-Money Muscle, Will Reject Corporate and Foreign Money

—By Andy Kroll

| Thu Mar. 7, 2013 12:52 PM PST

OFA director Jim Messina.

Liberals agree: Organizing for Action, the pro-Obama nonprofit formed out of the president's reelection campaign, has an admirable goal—helping Obama enact his second-term agenda, which includes gun-control measures, immigration reform, and new action on climate change. OFA's problem, in their eyes, is how it plans to meet that goal.

Early news stories revealed that OFA planned to raise $50 million, much of it in big donations, from individuals, corporations, and unions. OFA would also disclose the names of its donors and fundraisers quarterly but without saying precisely how much they'd chipped in. In response, liberal campaign finance groups howled; one, Common Cause, publicly urged Obama to shut down OFA.

OFA has heard the complaints. Today, in a CNN.com op-ed, OFA director Jim Messina laid out the case for OFA and clarified that the group would not accept any money from corporations, foreign sources, or federally-registered lobbyists. OFA will also disclose, every four months, the exact amount given by every donor who chips in more than $250.

That's more than previously expected of OFA, and the group's critics are encouraged by Messina's pledge. Common Cause president Bob Edgar praised the move, but added OFA should go even further by putting a cap on how much a single donor can give and throwing its organizing muscle behind new campaign finance regulations. "That means getting behind legislation like the DISCLOSE Act, supporting a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and rein in runaway political spending, and developing a new, small-donor public funding system that lets candidates break their dependence on big money," Edgar said in a statement sent to reporters.

OFA, as Politico's Ken Vogel points out, has already benefited from in-kind corporate support. January's "Road Ahead" conference, where OFA was first unveiled to a hand-picked group of big-wig Democratic fundraisers, was sponsored by a group called Business Forward, which receives money from Microsoft, Walmart, and other corporations.

OFA's ban on lobbyist money may be hard to enforce. President Obama imposed a similar ban on donations from lobbyists for his reelection campaign, yet the New York Times reported in October 2011 that the campaign's corps of elite fundraisers included at least 15 people involved in lobbying. Those fundraisers were not federally registered lobbyists, but fit the description of your typical Washington lobbyist. One such fundraiser, Sally Susman, raised more than $500,000 and at the same time ran Pfizer's lobbying office; another, David Cohen, ran Comcast's lobbying shop.

Messina also used his CNN op-ed to take a stab at addressing one of the biggest criticisms of OFA: that it was a vehicle for selling access to the president. One report said that donors and fundraisers who ponied up $500,000 or more would get quarterly meetings with Obama. In his op-ed, Messina writes, "Whether you're a volunteer or a donor, we can't and we won't guarantee access to any government officials." But he adds: "Just as the president and administration officials deliver updates on the legislative process to Americans and organizations across the ideological spectrum, there may be occasions when members of Organizing for Action are included in those updates."

That's hardly a full-throated rebuttal.

More Cocaine Could Soon Be on Our Streets, Thanks to the Sequester

—By Andy Kroll

| Wed Mar. 6, 2013 1:48 PM PST

Add this to the list of potential consequences of sequestration, the across-the-board spending cuts totaling $85 billion this year that went into effect on Friday: more cocaine on our streets.

According to the Virginian-Pilot, the Navy is pulling back from an operation that kept 160 tons of cocaine and 25,000 pounds of marijuana out of the United States last year. The program, called "Operation Martillo," was a joint effort between the Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Drug Enforcement Agency, and governmental agencies in Europe and Latin America. But now, due to sequestration, the Navy will not deploy two of its ships slated to replace two homebound Navy vessels that were participating in the program. Here's more from the Virginian-Pilot:

Officials acknowledge that, without the frigates, fighting drug trafficking in the Caribbean just got tougher.

"We are always looking for creative ways to address this problem," said Lt. Cmdr. Ron Flanders, spokesman for the Southern Command, which is responsible for the task force that works with partner countries to run Operation Martillo.

"Certainly with less gray hulls it will be more challenging," he said, referring to Navy ships.

Last year, Operation Martillo ("martillo" means hammer in Spanish) intercepted and captured $4 billion worth of cocaine, valued at $12 billion in street resale value; 25,000 pounds of marijuana, worth more than $10 million on the streets; and $3.5 million in cash, according to U.S. Southern Command.

The across-the-board budget slashes took effect Friday, coming down hard on defense and forcing the services to cut operations not considered essential. With the Afghanistan war effort still a priority and the Navy's pivot to the Pacific region, commanders have warned that police and goodwill operations in South and Central America would be on the sequestration chopping block.

Operation Martillo is not the only naval operation in the Caribbean hit by sequestration.

The hospital ship Comfort was supposed to leave its new base in Norfolk early next month for a four-month humanitarian mission to eight South and Central American nations. That, too, was cut.

For more on how the sequestration is shaking things up, see MoJo's previous coverage: Kevin Drum explains what sequestration is and how it works, Erika Eichelberger outlines 12 ways it could hurt low-income Americans, and Zaineb Muhammad highlights six ways it could harm the environment.