Peter Overby
Peter Overby has covered Washington power, money, and influence since a foresighted NPR editor created the beat in 1994.
Overby has covered scandals involving House Speaker Newt Gingrich, President Bill Clinton, lobbyist Jack Abramoff and others. He tracked the rise of campaign finance regulation as Congress passed campaign finance reform laws, and the rise of deregulation as Citizens United and other Supreme Court decisions rolled those laws back.
During President Trump's first year in office, Overby was on a team of NPR journalists covering conflicts of interest sparked by the Trump family business. He did some of the early investigations of dark money, dissecting a money network that influenced a Michigan judicial election in 2013, and — working with the Center for Investigative Reporting — surfacing below-the-radar attack groups in the 2008 presidential election.
In 2009, Overby co-reported Dollar Politics, a multimedia series on lawmakers, lobbyists and money as the Senate debated the Affordable Care Act. The series received an award for excellence from the Capitol Hill-based Radio and Television Correspondents Association. Earlier, he won an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for his coverage of the 2000 elections and 2001 Senate debate on campaign finance reform.
Prior to NPR, Overby was an editor/reporter for Common Cause Magazine, where he shared an Investigative Reporters and Editors award. He worked on daily newspapers for 10 years, and has freelanced for publications ranging from Utne Reader and the Congressional Quarterly Guide To Congress to the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post.
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"It all just looks really bad," said anti-corruption expert Stuart Gilman. "It looks like Trump is trying to simply protect his properties."
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"I think people are afraid to put their name on a lawsuit against the president," Jeffrey Lovitky says. "There is a sense that Donald Trump can be very difficult on people who oppose him."
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White House Counsel Don McGahn has historical ties to President Trump and a combative record at the Federal Election Commission. His job is to interpret ethics laws and apply them to the White House.
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New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and other state attorneys general have been examining how Trump's presidential actions could conflict with his continuing corporate interests.
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The Trump Organization reportedly is moving ahead with plans for resorts in Scotland and the Dominican Republic. Last month, President Trump's attorney said he would take on "no new deals" overseas.
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Voters in South Dakota adopted a package of ethics and campaign finance reforms in November. Now the legislature is declaring a state of emergency in order to repeal it.
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Eric Trump called it an "exciting new chapter at the Trump Organization." But to progressive group Public Citizen, "It wouldn't matter if the Trump Organization hired Archbishop Desmond Tutu."
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An online invitation to a charity event raised questions about exchanging huge charitable donations for face time with Trumps' oldest sons. The invitation was later removed from the event website.
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Bob Dole, a former GOP senator and presidential candidate, has been working as a foreign agent for the government of Taiwan, according to disclosure documents filed with the Justice Department. The filing shows that the World War II hero, now acting as a lobbyist with the Washington law firm Alston & Bird, coordinated with Trump's campaign and his transition team to set up meetings between Trump's advisers and Taiwan officials.
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The Clinton Foundation, a big organization that has led to big political headaches for Bill and Hillary Clinton, plans to spin off its international work if Hillary is elected president.