Dick Morris, Breaking Big Stories. Fred Thompson, Playing the Dirty Money Game

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Mother Jones loves exposing the Washington game wherein lobbyist children work with their lawmaker parents, a game that results in a shocking (shocking!!) rate of success for the lobbyists and lots of money spread around for all involved.

Today, with an assist with Dick Morris, we bring you a consultant son working with his presidential candidate father, with, oh yes, lots of dirty money…

What did Fred Thompson’s son, Daniel, do to earn the more than $170,000 that his firm, Daniel Thompson Associates, was paid from his father’s federal political action committee, the Fred D. Thompson PAC?

The records suggest he did next to nothing.

Undeclared candidate (I love that phrase) Thompson has been running a PAC since 2003 with the leftover money from his senatorial campaign committee. He began the PAC with $378,601 and did nothing with the organization except give that money away. Of the payouts, $176,000 went to Thompson’s son’s firm, $46,000 went to federal races, $35,000 went to “other political donations,” and $62,700 went to charity. Meaning over half of the PAC’s payments have gone to Fred Thompson’s son. One might even say this was a conscious effort to enrich a family member: a scam, in short.

Evidence of that theory lies in the fact that, as Morris writes, “it’s hard to find any evidence of bona fide work done by Daniel Thompson Associates for his father’s PAC.” Thompson’s PAC didn’t do anything that would require a consultant, except maybe write checks. Or find people to write checks to, a service that would hardly require a payout of almost $180,000.

Thompson is from an earlier era of congressional Republicans — let’s call them the pre-2006 era Republicans. They played fast and loose with ethics rules and campaign donations, and got slammed by voters as a result. It’s no surprise that the presidential frontrunners for the GOP are a mayor, a governor, and the strongest supporter of campaign finance reform in the country. Do they really want to add a dirty money man to that list?

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That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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