Posted by Keturah Hetrick on Nov. 7, 2023
Despite a felony guilty plea, right-wing trickster and conspiracy theorist Jack Burkman just had his most lucrative lobbying period since the Obama administration - if you can believe his reporting.
Burkman's lobbying firm, J.M. Burkman & Associates, disclosed at least $493,000 in income from 40 clients during the third quarter, according to the firm's disclosures. That's the firm's highest federal lobbying income since 2015, when J.M. Burkman & Associates brought in $555,000 in Q1.
In Q3, $330,000 - two-thirds of the firm's reported income - came from a single client, PJM Power Ventures. According to filings, Burkman has brought in a total of $430,000 from PJM Power Ventures since signing the organization as a lobbying client in March.
In
a disclosure from earlier this year, J.M. Burkman & Associates described PJM Power Ventures as "a solar company," though the New York address listed for the entity does not appear to exist. No trace of a company with that name seems to exist on the internet outside of Burkman's lobbying filings. It is unclear if PJM Power Ventures is related in any way to energy-transmission company PJM Interconnection, whose CEO is a Biden appointee to an energy advisory panel.
The firm's purported work for PJM Power Ventures focuses on Department of Energy issues and congressional solar power issues,
per a filing from last month.
Burkman and fellow lobbyist Jacob Wohl pleaded guilty last year to felony telecommunications fraud for their part in a robocall voter-suppression scheme against Black voters. Both Burkman and Wohl are also known for their attempts to frame Robert Mueller, Pete Buttigieg and Anthony Fauci for sexual assault.
In March, a federal judge ruled against the pair in a New York lawsuit related to the robocall scheme. Criminal charges in Michigan are pending. The Federal Communications Commission fined the pair more than $5 million in June.
Amid his guilty plea in 2022 Q4, Burkman's firm made $148,000 in lobbying revenue. In 2020 Q1, before the robocall incident, J.M. Burkman & Associates made $154,000.
Some people and organizations who "caught our eye" last week:
