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Sessions Lied Under Oath and Must Resign Jeff Sessions GettyImages The March 1 bombshell revelation from the Washington Post that Attorney General Jeff Sessions met with Russia's ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, twice last year – after testifying under the oath to the contrary – has sparked calls for his resignation. I agree. During his confirmation hearing, Sessions told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he was unaware of any communications between anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government during the 2016 campaign. Acknowledging that many considered him to be a campaign surrogate, he made the blanket statement that "I did not have communications with the Russians." Read the rest of this item here. What's in the Pruitt Emails with Coal, Oil, and Gas Corps Scott Pruitt Image: Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 2.0 For more than two years, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has sought emails between the former Oklahoma Attorney General (now EPA Administrator) Scott Pruitt and major coal, oil, and gas companies. Pruitt stonewalled CMD, but a court ordered that the emails must be disclosed. CMD is publishing them all online, which can be accessed at the bottom of the page. Pruitt's emails with polluters became a major issue during his Senate confirmation process to be head of the EPA as he repeatedly refused to answer questions about those ties. CMD has received a partial response to just one of the nine outstanding record requests, with more emails to be released shortly as ordered by the court. Here are some of the major findings from the thousands of Pruitt emails that have been released so far. Read the rest of this item here. Sessions Condemned Perjury as Impeachable Offense During the Senate impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, then-Senator Sessions made several statements about lying under oath, or perjury, as grounds for impeachment. Last week the American people learned that Sessions did not tell the truth to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and the public during the hearings on his nomination to be the Attorney General of the United States, the highest law enforcement office in the nation. In his oral and written testimony–that was under oath–he directly stated he did not have communications with Russia and misled the Committee about his own contacts with Russian officials while he was also serving as a surrogate for Trump. Read the rest of this item here. OK AG Releases 7,564 Pages in Response to CMD Request Scott Pruitt Image: Gage Skidmore CC BY SA 2.0 Under court order, Oklahoma Attorney General's office releases previously withheld emails and holds back others; more emails expected on February 27 OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — As a result of an Open Records Act request and lawsuit filed by the Center for Media and Democracy, on Tuesday night the Oklahoma Attorney General's office released a batch of more than 7,500 pages of emails and other records it withheld prior to Scott Pruitt’s nomination as EPA Administrator last Friday. The AG’s office has withheld an undetermined number of additional documents as exempted or privileged and submitted them to the Judge Aletia Haynes Timmons for review. A number of other documents were redacted, and CMD will be asking for the court to review those as well. Read the rest of this item here. Reformers Call for Sessions Recusal Jeff Sessions Image: Gage Skidmore CC BY SA 2.0 The Center for Media and Democracy joined 24 other reform organizations and bipartisan ethics experts in a February 17 letter calling on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from any Department of Justice investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, Russian interactions with the Trump campaign and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, or leaks related to those matters. DOJ regulations require recusal whenever an employee has a personal or political relationship with anyone who is the subject of a DOJ investigation or prosecution. Read the rest of this item here.

Recent Articles from PRWatch.org

Paul Ryan Is Fundraising Off Healthcare While Working to Kill It For Millions House Speaker Paul Ryan has a reputation for policy wonkishness, which he doesn't deserve. He also has a reputation for raising boatloads of cash, which he does deserve. Care to guess which one's driving his healthcare priorities? For bonus points, name the two billionaire brothers who are glad to see him do it. Ryan did a fundraising "physicians and dentist industry" breakfast on February 1 of this year, and the suggested contributions were worth more than a cup of coffee and some scrambled eggs: $10,000 for a "sponsor," $5,000 for a "host," $2,500 for a political action committee, and $1,000 for an individual attendee. Read the rest of this item here. Court Orders Scott Pruitt to Release Emails The Oklahoma County Court found Trump EPA nominee Scott Pruitt in violation of the state's Open Records Act. The Center for Media and Democracy filed a lawsuit against Pruitt for improperly withholding public records and the court ordered his office to release thousands of emails in a matter of days. In her ruling, Judge Aletia Haynes Timmons slammed the Attorney General's office for its "abject failure" to abide by the Oklahoma Open Records Act. Read the rest of this item here. Republicans Are Fundraising Off America's Healthcare Misery To the outside observer, it may look as if the Republican Party can't decide what to do about repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA). After voting to repeal the ACA more than 60 times in the House of Representatives, Republicans now hold both houses of Congress as well the presidency. Repeal is in their grasp, and yet they seem paralyzed. But that's only true if you believe that a political party's mission is to govern. If raising money is the GOP's true goal, their paralysis suddenly begins to make more sense. Read the rest of this item here.

Popular SourceWatch Articles

SourceWatch's home page is the top landing page in this website. Here are some of the other hot pages: our portal on Outsourcing America Exposed, our article on the Existing U.S. Coal Plants, our article on ALEC Corporations, our article on Koch Industries, our article on Monsanto, and our article on Fracking and water pollution. Get breaking news on these and other issues here, "Like" us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at @PRwatch and @ALECexposed."

Exposed by CMD

Pruitt Emails Reveal Communications with ALEC and Koch Groups Scott Pruitt Image: Gage Skidmore CC BY SA 2.0 Emails released to the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) reveal close ties between Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the fossil fuel interests that fund ALEC, including the Kochs' Americans for Prosperity Group. The emails were obtained after the Center for Media and Democracy filed an open records lawsuit against Pruitt for his two-year-long failure to respond to our open records requests for his email correspondence with major fossil fuel corporations. The court ordered Pruitt to release thousands of emails which are now online and available for public inspection, but CMD is still in court seeking to obtain 1,600 pages withheld and responses to eight additional open records requests. Read the rest of this item here. GOP Lawmakers Duck Town Halls, But Still Make Time to Meet with Campaign Donors Many of the same congressional Republicans who are ducking their constituents by refusing to hold town hall events during this week's recess are actively offering to meet with donors – for a fee. The Intercept and the Center for Media and Democracy have obtained fundraiser invitations for a number of GOP lawmakers who rejected calls to meet with constituents. The President's Day congressional recess is a period with no official work and designed for reconnecting with the folks back home. But after some early town halls drew hostile crowds, particularly inflamed by Trump administration policies on immigration and health care, more than 200 GOP lawmakers are skipping them instead. Read the rest of this item here.

Featured SourceWatch Article

SourceWatch.org is an interactive wiki website that depends on readers like you to improve content. If you want to help us grow SourceWatch with well documented research and become a volunteer editor, click here for more information. Excerpts from longer SourceWatch article: Mike Pompeo CIA Director Mike Pompeo Michael Richard Pompeo is the director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and former Representative of Kansas's 4th Congressional District, where the global headquarters of Koch Industries is located. While serving as a Congressman, the Huffington Post described the Tea Party Republican as "the Koch brothers' point man in the House." Koch Industries and its employees was Pompeo's largest contributor in each of his campaigns. Pompeo was tapped by President Donald Trump to be the Director of the CIA on November 18, 2016. He was confirmed by the Senate 66-32 on January 23, 2017 and sworn in that night. Koch Industries Is Pompeo's Top Campaign Contributor Representative Pompeo's largest contributor in his each of his Congressional campaign's was Koch Industries and its employees, totaling $375,100 since 2010. Read the entire SourceWatch page on Mike Pompeo. References

Editors' Pick

Secret Scott Walker John Doe Leak Inquiry Underway WI Governor Scott Walker According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) investigators are reviewing documents from state court and government offices for information about the Guardian story on the now-closed Wisconsin John Doe investigation into whether or not Scott Walker's campaign committee illegally coordinated his recall campaign efforts with outside groups. Outside groups raised and spent an estimated $20 million in Walker's June 2012 recall election. Until Justice Michael Gableman and the "conservative" majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court rewrote whole swaths of the state's campaign finance law in their July 2015 4-2 decision ending the Walker John Doe investigation, outside groups were required to work independently of candidates on elections. Two justices, including Gableman, were asked to recuse themselves from the case, because they were elected after major expenditures by some of the groups under investigation raising serious conflict of interest issues, but the justices refused. Read the rest of this item here.

Featured Video
Days After Pruitt Becomes EPA Head, Newly Released Emails Show His Ties to Koch Bros. & Energy Firms
Days After Pruitt Becomes EPA Head, Newly Released Emails Show His Ties to Koch Bros. & Energy Firms February 23, 2017 - Democracy Now! Thousands of pages of newly released emails reveal how EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt closely collaborated with oil, coal and gas companies backed by the Koch brothers to roll back environmental regulations during his time as Oklahoma attorney general. The documents were released just days after Pruitt was sworn in as the new head of the EPA, the agency tasked with curtailing pollution and safeguarding public health. Last week, Senate Democrats unsuccessfully attempted to postpone Pruitt’s final confirmation until the emails were released, but Republicans pressed forward and confirmed him in a 52-46 vote, largely along party lines. As Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt sued the EPA 14 times. The trove of new documents shows how energy companies drafted language for Pruitt’s Attorney General’s Office to use to sue the EPA over environmental regulations. We speak to Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, which successfully sued for the emails to be released.

Koch Exposed

Follow the Money! The Center for Media and Democracy, publisher of ALEC Exposed, brings you this unique wiki resource on the billionaire industrialists and the power and influence of the Koch cadre and Koch cash. Read about Koch Funding Vehicles: Koch Family Foundations Koch Network Freedom Partners Knowledge and Progress Fund American Encore DonorsTrust Donors Capital TC4 Trust Visit Koch Exposed for more.

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We Track Corporations and PR Spin

The Center for Media and Democracy publishes SourceWatch to track corporations. We provide well-documented information about corporate public relations (PR) campaigns, including corporate front groups, people who "front" corporate campaigns, and PR operations. Dating back to when tobacco companies deployed doctors to try to prevent labeling of cancer-causing cigarettes, many corporations use the "tobacco playbook" to hide behind neutral-looking "experts" as well as think tanks or non-profits in their efforts to influence or distort public policy to protect their bottom line or agenda--often a narrow agenda at odds with the broader public interest. This specialized encyclopedia watches those sources and provides detailed information about corporations and special interests, using the collaborative "wiki" platform, like Wikipedia. CMD relies on concerned citizens like you to keep this research online. You can contribute here. Please visit SourceWatch's sister websites EXPOSEDbyCMD, to find our investigations and original documents we release, PRWatch, to read our original reporting, and ALECexposed, to see our award-winning investigation of a corporate front group where corporate lobbyists actually vote as equals with elected legislators on "model" legislation to change our rights. Also, please check out the in-depth research from around the world by our partner projects within SourceWatch: CoalSwarm and FrackSwarm. You can also use the sign up box below to get breaking news about our breakthrough investigations. — Lisa Graves, Executive Director

Praise for SourceWatch!

"As a journalist frequently on the receiving end of various PR campaigns, some of them based on disinformation, others front groups for undisclosed interests, [CMD's SourceWatch] is an invaluable resource." —Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire "Thanks for all your help. There's no way I could have done my piece on big PR and global warming without CMD [the Center for Media and Democracy] and your fabulous websites." —Zoe Cormier, journalist, Canada "The troublemakers at the Center for Media and Democracy, for example, point to dozens of examples of "greenwashing," which they defined as the "unjustified appropriation of environmental virtue by a company, an industry, a government or even a non-government organization to sell a product, a policy" or rehabilitate an image. In the center's view, many enterprises labeled green don't deserve the name. —Jack Shafer, "Green Is the New Yellow: On the excesses of 'green' journalism," Slate. "The dearth of information on the [U.S.] government [lobbying] disclosure forms about the other business-backed coalitions comes in stark contrast to the data about them culled from media reports, websites, press releases and Internal Revenue Service documents and posted by SourceWatch, a website that tracks advocacy groups." —Jeanne Cummings, 'New disclosure reports lack clarity," Politico. "The folks at the Center for Media and Democracy have done incredible work documenting fake grassroots ("astroturf") groups. Here, they're helping protect the rights of all Americans to exercise their right to vote. They are completely non-partisan. These guys are the real deal." —Craig Newmark, Craig's List

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