Scott Reed, the senior political strategist at the US Chamber of Commerce, confirms @maggieNYT reporting that he has resigned, due to the “leftward movement and constant Trump bashing of the Chamber.”
Reed says the Chamber’s Tom Donohue and Suzanne Clark blocked him from spending money on Senate GOP races: “They would not let me spend Senate money down the home stretch,” he said.
Reed says the campaign funds at issue would have been “enough to hold the Senate GOP,” but he was not allowed to spend it. A US Chamber spokesman says it will have a statement out shortly on this.
Reed says his departure has been building, + predicts an exodus of similarly minded Republicans. He says this story about the Chanber scrambling to smooth over its relationships with Democrats ahead of a possible Senate takeover “broke my back:” politico.com/amp/news/2020/…
Now the US Chamber is disputing Reed’s account of his departure, saying instead that it “terminated the consulting contract of Senior Political Strategist Scott Reed for cause, effective immediately.”
The Chambwr says in its statement: “An internal review has revealed that Reed repeatedly breached confidentiality, distorted facts for his own benefit, withheld information from Chamber leadership and leaked internal information to the press.”
More from the Chamber: “We have the documentation of his actions and it is irrefutable. Our decision is not based on a disagreement over political strategy but rather it is the result of Reed's actions.” Chamber says it will announce next round of political spending tomorrow.
And now Reed disputes the Chamber’s account of events to me, saying simply: “I quit.”
Reed predicts the Chamber will pull funding from three vulnerable GOP senators tomorrow: Joni Ernst in Iowa, Thom Tillis in North Carolina, and Susan Collins in Maine. “The Chamber had been engaged,” he said. But now they are “walking off the field.”
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My view of the standing ovation for Chinese President Xi Jinping tonight in San Francisco from a ballroom full of some of the most powerful American CEOs and Chinese officials. I’ll have more Thursday morning on @SquawkCNBC on @CNBC.
It’s a little difficult to read, but here’s my pic of the program last night, listing who hosted the dinner honoring Chinese president Xi Jinping and who paid for it.
The Washington Post obtained the transcript of JPMorgan exec Mary Erdoes’ deposition transcript in the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking lawsuit: washingtonpost.com/business/2023/…
The Post: “The deposition transcript shows Erdoes said she had been made aware of Epstein’s convictions for sexual offenses, his status as a high-risk sex offender, and public allegations of abuse of minors and human trafficking.“
“But she said she didn’t think it was her responsibility to remove him as a client, launch an inquiry into his accounts or refer them to compliance officials. JPMorgan has a separate process for dealing with client-related legal issues, she said.”
This is a great piece, and highlights the question: What is college for? It is absolutely linked to the conversation @JoeSquawk and I had on Squawk Box this morning. If costs are crippling, people will make different decisions about what they can afford. newyorker.com/magazine/2023/…
It may be that colleges have simply priced the English major out of the market. Getting a degree in literature at $20K might make sense, but how many can afford to take on a lifetime of debt to buy that degree at $80k?
Nothing at all against English, or poetry, or even my own major of political science, but focusing on job qualifications and earning potential could be a rational response to decades of stagnation in household incomes: pewresearch.org/social-trends/…
At Chatham House in London this morning, DOJ's Lisa Monaco signaled a stepped-up effort to protect US tech and US companies from autocratic regimes. That will include a new focus on US capital outflows -- to make sure Americans aren't funding advances in hostile countries.
"We are exploring how to monitor the flow of private capital in critical sectors and ensure that our own 'outbound investment' in dual-use technology doesn’t provide our adversaries with a national security advantage," she said.
The US is also modernizing CFIUS for this new era: "CFIUS began in an era of brick-and-mortar transactions," she said. "Today, the greatest risks come not from investment in our physical assets, but from transactions where datasets, software, and algorithms are the assets."
A judge just unsealed records showing that Larry Kramer, dean emeritus of Stanford Law School, co-signed a $500,000 bond on behalf of now disgraced former FTX crypto CEO Sam Bankman Fried. I asked Kramer why he supported SBF, and here's what he emailed me just now:
"Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried have been close friends of my wife and I since the mid-1990s..."
"During the past two years, while my family faced a harrowing battle with cancer, they have been the truest of friends – bringing food, providing moral support, and frequently stepping in at moment’s notice to help..."
I had a fascinating conversation with a high ranking US intelligence official about Snowden recently. I asked the official if there’s a chance Snowden was a Russian spy all along - after all, can it be a coincidence he ended up in Moscow?
This official said no. Having looked into it extensively, his take is that Snowden was a disgruntled narcissist who didn’t feel he was getting enough respect from his bosses.
The official said Snowden leaked a lot more than just the warrantless wiretapping details and that he came up with the ideological and political rationales for his leaking after the fact. What really motivated him was spite.