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April 5, 2019 In The News, Themis Project

Trump Chooses No Choice

"'They are so vehemently anti-birth control,' said Alice Huling, a lawyer for Campaign for Accountability, a group that has been in court trying to get access to information on Obria’s programs. Not only does Obria avoid the pill, it also doesn’t provide patients with IUDs or even condoms."

Watchdog Again Calls for Investigation of Interior Nominee David Bernhardt for Lobbying Disclosure Violations

On April 5, 2019, CfA again called on federal officials to investigate whether Acting Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt and his former lobbying firm, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP, violated the Lobbying Disclosure Act and the False Statements Act by failing to disclose Mr. Bernhardt’s apparent lobbying in connection with Westlands Water District (Westlands), an agricultural conglomerate in California. New documents indicate that Mr. Bernhardt continued to work for Westlands through April 2017 despite formally withdrawing his lobbying registration on November 18, 2016.

Payday loan group paid KSU for favorable research, records show

"'What’s so egregious in this case is it’s not just that payday lenders paid for the study, it’s that they actually wrote the study,' said Daniel Stevens, executive director for the Campaign for Accountability, which has complained about the industry’s attempts to influence scholarly research for years. The Washington, D.C., nonprofit released more than 400 pages of internal KSU emails about the December 2014 study in recent weeks, after fighting a three-year legal battle to obtain the public records that went to the Georgia Supreme Court."

Bernhardt pushes ethics reforms amid complaints

"Bernhardt's ethics memo yesterday also happened to come on the same day the Campaign for Accountability, a nonprofit watchdog group, announced that Interior's Office of Inspector General confirmed it is reviewing a request for investigation into Bernhardt and his relationship with his former lobbying client, Westlands Water District in California."

Interior Dept. watchdog reviewing allegations that acting secretary violated Trump ethics pledge

"Several groups, including the Campaign Legal Center and the Campaign for Accountability, as well as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), have questioned Bernhardt’s role in the Interior Department’s push to conduct an environmental analysis of proposed changes to federal and state water projects in California. That effort could free up more water for the Westlands Water District, which serves farmers in California’s Central Valley."

Trump Administration Gives Family Planning Grant to Anti-Abortion Group

"The Title X changes and the grant to Obria suggest that the Trump administration is 'more interested in courting religious ideologues than in providing real health care to low-income Americans,' said Alice Huling, counsel for a liberal watchdog group called the Campaign for Accountability, which this month sued the administration seeking Obria’s communications with the Department of Health and Human Services."

New Report Reveals Google’s Business Dealings, America’s Foreign Policy Entangled in Cuba and North Korea

On March 29, 2019, CfA released a new report, Google’s Diplomatic Edge, documenting how Google selfishly – and perhaps misleadingly – involved itself in some of America’s thorniest foreign policy engagements for the apparent purpose of opening new markets for its products.

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