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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A federal judge has rejected a motion from the Department of Justice to dismiss the suit. The lawsuit alleges Trump's businesses, especially his hotel in D.C., violate the Constitution. -
Advocates say it's a First Amendment issue. Critics say it's opening the door to secret money from foreign sources. -
Congressional seats continue to lean further in the direction of Democratic candidates, as donors give unusual support to challengers. -
Conservatives immediately put up ads supporting the nominee-to-be, while a liberal group aims to make the Supreme Court decision to uphold Obamacare part of the debate. -
"On their phone, on their desktop, on their laptop, on their tablets, however they are seeing information, they're entitled to know where it's coming from," said FEC Vice Chair Ellen Weintraub
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After two days of hearings, the Federal Election Commission is a bit closer to ending anonymous funding for online pro- and anti-candidate ads. But that's just one portion of the political ads online.
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At least eight funds now exist to help Trump administration aides and allies pay legal bills. But there are few rules to promote transparency or avoid conflicts of interest.
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One of Pruitt's closest political allies in Congress said he would call for the EPA chief to step down if his ethical scandals don't stop. -
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said the conflict between Trump's foreign-policy decisions and his business ventures "epitomizes why the founders put that emoluments clause into the Constitution." -
The aide said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt asked for help procuring a mattress while he was apartment hunting. Federal ethics rules prohibit staff from doing private work for their superiors.
