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.