Military Intelligence Industrial Complex Providing 30% Bonuses to Potential HASC and HPSCI Chairs

Because of Buck McKeon and Mike Rogers’ retirement this year, the Chairmanships of both the House Armed Services Committee and the House Intelligence Committee will be up for grabs early next year.

Roll Call decided to see how this was affecting funding for the contenders to replace McKeon and Rogers.Their results were pretty striking. HASC contenders Mac Thronberry and Randy Forbes and HPSCI contenders Devin Nunes and Mike Pompeo are experiencing significantly bigger hauls from defense contractors than in the past.

Four of the top five candidates for the chairmanships of the House Armed Services and Intelligence panels have raised considerably more money this election cycle than they did at a similar point in 2012. The same four have also raised much more money from the defense industry than before – in some cases, more than doubling their takes.

Most of them, too, have raised more money in the first full quarter since the departures of the incumbent chairmen became official, and donated more to other candidates and GOP party committees than in the last cycle.

[snip]

Thornberry, Forbes, Nunes and Pompeo each have raised at least 30 percent more through the first six quarters of the 2014 election cycle than they did over same period of 2012. Only King — who was Homeland Security chairman through 2012 — has raised less. Nunes has raised the most overall: $2 million.

Thornberry, Nunes and Pompeo have more than doubled in the current election cycle the amount they got from the defense sector over the same period in the 2012 election cycle, and Forbes has reaped 40 percent more, while King’s dipped. Thornberry has received the most overall — $344,350.

Thornberry, too, saw the biggest leap from the most recent fundraising quarter than ended in June compared with the same quarter in the 2012 cycle, 84 percent. Forbes and Pompeo also saw increases over that period.

Click through to see how McKeon and Rogers’ retirement announcements set off this boondoggle and how the take has allowed the contenders to fund their colleagues as well.

Ah, democracy as our forefathers intended! Where campaign bribery plays a key role in determining who will oversee the National Security State.

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5 replies
  1. Don Bacon says:

    Thanks for this, I can use it elsewhere. Also I was unaware of the site.
    .
    Thronberry is nearly invisible but Forbes is a big talker for the MIC. Forbes also is fortunate to have half (five) of the US aircraft carriers home-ported in his Virginia district, a number that has held steady even with the vaunted pivot — now rebalance — to Asia-Pacific. Five aircraft carriers in the Atlantic! –in case France gets uppity again.

    • P J Evans says:

      I had the dubious pleasure of living in west Texas, in Thornberry’s district. Politically conservative, although the people are mostly nice (if limited by lack of opportunity in everything). It’s overwhelmingly rural, with farming in the south and ranching in the north: Amarillo is the biggest city in it.

  2. wallace says:

    quote” Where campaign bribery plays a key role in determining who will oversee the National Security State.”unquote

    OMG, I saw your tweet, so I went and looked. I just get done posting a comment there, and then find your post on it here. At least it’s nice to know I’m not the only one who calls a horse a horse..ie..my comment at the site of the article:

    “Running for Intelligence chairman isn’t the same as other panels, King said, because it’s a select committee where the House Speaker, in this case John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, makes the choice.”unquote

    ah…no wonder…

    quote“Lawmakers who aspire to leadership posts and chairmanships often try to
    build goodwill by contributing to their colleagues, either from their
    own campaign accounts or from leadership PACs,” Novak said.”unquote

    whudda thunk. Goodwill=OOD euphemism for bribery.

    These Congressional schmucks must all read from the same OOD(Office of Obfuscation and Doublespeak) talking points handbook.

  3. Don Bacon says:

    The Pentagon’s $1.4 trillion dollar F-35 program is supposedly too big to kill, and special congress-critters of course get their cut of the ‘big.’
    .
    William Hartung
    The four most important F-35 contractors – Lockheed Martin ($4.1 million), BAE Systems ($1.4 million), Northrop Grumman ($3.5 million), and United Technologies, the parent company of F-35 engine-maker Pratt and Whitney ($2.1 million) – have made a total of $11.1 million in campaign contributions in the 2011/2012 and 2013/2014 election cycles. The vast majority of these contributions have gone to key members of the armed services or defense appropriations committees in the House and Senate, or to members of the 39-member House F-35 caucus.
    .
    The top five recipients of contributions from F-35 contractors in the House of Representatives in the past two election cycles are House Armed Services Chair Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, $218,650; F-35 Caucus co-chair Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX), $195,950; Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX), $162,500; F-35 Caucus co-chair John Larson (D-CT), $137,450; and Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), $85,000
    .
    But remember, elections count so be sure to vote. /s

  4. Schuey1981 says:

    Great article as usual here, I’m becoming an almost daily reader! :)
    One mistake:
    “Ah, democracy as our forefathers intended!”
    America was designed as a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy, the word democracy is not in any founding document to my knowledge :)

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