Welcome to Pay Dirt—exclusive reporting and research from The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay on corruption, campaign finance, and influence-peddling in the nation’s capital. For Beast Inside members only.
The public can now search lobbying disclosure filings to see if anyone trying to influence their elected representatives was previously convicted of corruption or financial crimes.
Congressional ethics officials have added that functionality to their search engine for federal lobbying disclosure filings pursuant to a law signed by President Trump in January. Cheekily dubbed the Justice Against Corruption on K Street (JACK) Act, after the notorious lobbyist-felon Jack Abramoff, the law amends the Lobbying Disclosure Act to require disclosure of any previous conviction on “an offense involving bribery, extortion, embezzlement, an illegal kickback, tax evasion, fraud, a conflict of interest, making a false statement, perjury, or money laundering.”
So far, no one has disclosed any such conviction. The law went into effect on Jan. 3, so any lobbying registration or quarterly disclosure statement going forward will have to include that information. We’ll be keeping an eye on these filings and report back if any notable criminals pop up.
