Inside the troubling relationship between Biden’s agriculture secretary and Democratic dark money

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Opinion
Inside the troubling relationship between Biden’s agriculture secretary and Democratic dark money
Opinion
Inside the troubling relationship between Biden’s agriculture secretary and Democratic dark money
Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack appears at an event.
Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack appears at an event.

If it walks like an illegal
lobbyist
and talks like an illegal lobbyist, it’s probably an illegal lobbyist.

Recent revelations show that the head of Arabella Advisors, the
leftist
dark money group pulling the strings of the Democratic Party, is directly communicating with the secretary of the Department of
Agriculture
. These reports raise troubling questions about the Democratic Party’s willingness to outsource policymaking to an unaccountable dark money juggernaut — questions that Democrats in Congress are unwilling to answer.


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“Gentlemen- woke up very early this morning thinking about the processing project you are helping to direct and lead,” USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack wrote in an email to senior department leadership and Eric Kessler, the founder of Arabella Advisors, who is seemingly involved in top policy decisions at Vilsack’s agency.

Kessler, one of the most important figures helping to run the Democratic Party behind the scenes, does not work for Vilsack, although you’d be hard-pressed to realize that based on the extensive and exclusive collaboration between the two. Kessler’s admiration for Vilsack goes back years. In 2017, when Vilsack was leaving the Obama administration, Kessler
raved
about Vilsack’s record. With Vilsack back in the saddle, Kessler is able to enjoy easy access.

One would think that the close collaboration between the state and a dark money entity should be problematic to Democrats, whose top legislative priorities


include
getting rid of “dark money” in politics. However, these revelations seem to have fallen on curiously deaf ears in Congress. Perhaps that’s because congressional Democrats similarly have become much too accustomed to outsourcing policymaking to both unelected bureaucrats and their allies in outside groups.

Through a series of Freedom of Information Act requests, the watchdog group Americans for Public Trust exposed how this relationship works. APT uncovered that Vilsack has at times completely outsourced the decision-making of his sprawling federal agency to Arabella’s Kessler. Kessler is not some disinterested third party. The company he helms, Arabella Advisors, runs its own for-profit “
Good Food
” initiative that is poised to benefit from Kessler’s wide-open access to USDA.

Paul Kamenar, the counsel at the National Legal and Policy Center, told the Washington Examiner that Kessler’s arrangements with USDA “definitely raises eyebrows in terms of whether Eric Kessler should be registered as a lobbyist,” which Kessler is not. Kamenar also floated the possibility that Kessler may be exploiting a “loophole in getting around the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires private individuals to have their advice and recommendations put on the public record in public meetings.” Arabella itself is not registered to lobby either, which may in turn violate the Lobbying Disclosure Act.

Indeed, on Arabella’s Good Food website, the company touts the need for “a culture that demands good food, an infrastructure that supplies good food to meet that demand, and a policy environment that enables a good food system to take root. We’re helping to build all three.” Certainly Kessler, with his direct access to the secretary of agriculture, is helping to shape all three: the administration’s point of view on what “good food” is, the farming infrastructure to encourage the production of “good food” (which probably consists of a lot of green-friendly agriculture), and, most significantly, the policy environment which involves the quasi-lobbying in which Kessler is deeply involved.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), a Republican on the House Committee on Agriculture, told the Washington Examiner that his constituents back home would love to have the type of access to Vilsack that Kessler enjoys. “Nebraska farmers wished they had the same access to the Biden team as this dark money group,” he said. Indeed, Kessler, who is not a registered lobbyist, has access that even well-heeled agricultural lobbyists would probably kill for.

Bacon’s Democratic counterparts seem far less eager to address Kessler’s easy access to Vilsack. No Democrat on the House Committee on Agriculture responded to requests for comment about Kessler’s role in shaping policy.

Vilsack’s conversations with Kessler are, of course, two-way streets. Americans for Public Trust’s FOIA requests show how Kessler plays a key role in USDA’s work on “transform[ing] food system effort[s],” which sure sounds like lobbying that he is specifically not registered to do.

In July 2021, Vilsack emailed Kessler and senior USDA staff with the subject line “Random Thoughts,” telling them how excited he was about a food processing initiative that Arabella is helping to “direct and lead.” Kessler responded just minutes later, talking about how the “pipeline will fill quickly.” Then, another top USDA official made it crystal clear that Kessler is involved at the highest levels.

“Eric [Kessler] and I have been in nearly daily conversation about elements and strategies,” a USDA senior adviser for food systems resiliency wrote.

By September, Vilsack sent Kessler an entirely redacted email to which Kessler thanked him for the “kind invitation.” The next month, he emailed Kessler and other top USDA officials, asking for feedback on a “processing memo.” In December, he emailed top staff, and Kessler, letting them know he “reviewed the memo that you prepared on our transforming food system effort.”

Kessler’s unregistered lobbying looks to have paid off. As Fox News


reported
: “The communications and coordination on the effort appears to have led to a Jan. 3, 2022, event at the White House where President Biden, Vilsack, and Attorney General Merrick Garland announced steps the administration would take to ‘increase processing options’ for farmers and ranchers.”

“The President was extremely appreciative of your effort,” Vilsack wrote, to which Kessler replied that the event “was tremendous” and portends even more collaboration in the future. This is how he builds out his business, by offering more (and more profitable for him) collaboration in the future.

To be fair to Vilsack, his dark money ties are par for the course in this administration. Both former White House press secretary Jen Psaki and Biden’s point person on judicial nominations, Paige Herwig, previously worked for Demand Justice, the far-left group that Democrats are using to overhaul the Supreme Court. Herwig, who worked as the group’s deputy chief counsel, was even one of Demand Justice’s first hires.

Vilsack’s troubling relationship with Kessler proves the Democratic Party’s dark money network has infiltrated the Biden administration extensively. So it’s only a matter of when, not if, the next round of illegal lobbying pops up. The question we should ask is: What’s going to be done about it?


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Matthew Foldi is an investigative journalist and former congressional candidate.

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