#personalistregime — Public Fediverse posts

If We’re Talking about the Violent Occupation and Colonization of Minnesota, Let’s Also Talk about the Play for Minnesota’s Critical Minerals

The ever-prolific docket watcher and political commentator Marcy Wheeler put up a video the other day where, in her words, she “laid out how Trump’s invasion of Venezuela is like his invasion of Minnesota: Tribute and obeisance.” I have been wanting to draw and explore that same analogy, but I am reluctant to paint with the broad brush Wheeler uses here. I do, however, think there’s a way to make the analogy she draws between Venezuela and Minnesota a little more compelling.

Wheeler’s general point is that the “model” of power in both Venezuela and Minnesota is the same: “extract tribute, subjugate the population… and impose your rules on how to govern.” Or, as she puts it near the end of the video,

It is the same model: Stephen Miller is trying to colonize Minnesota, he is trying to colonize Venezuela, he has no fucking interest in bringing benefits to the citizens of either one. He wants extraction and he wants obeisance.

The neo-colonial project, in this view, is to invade, conquer, subdue, and plunder. This is inflammatory language but I have no trouble applying it to Venezuela, where Trump has declared himself “acting President of Venezuela” and in that capacity (it appears) will now control an offshore, Qatar-based fund for Venezuela’s oil proceeds. So what about Minnesota? What form might the “tribute” demanded in Minnesota take?

Wheeler doesn’t say (though she uses the word “extraction”), and I haven’t seen other commentators spell out what form it will take. So for what it’s worth I am going to offer this: it’s important to understand that Trump and those in his circle regard Minnesota not only as a hotbed of Somali daycare fraud, a stronghold of illegal immigration, and the home of whistle-blowing paid agitators and domestic terrorists, but also as a resource play. A critical minerals bonanza.

(As anyone who reads this blog knows, this is a theme I’ve been chasing since Trump was first elected, and Jared and Ivanka moved into the five-million-dollar mansion purchased for them by a Chilean billionaire with a controversial plan to mine copper and nickel in northern Minnesota, on the edge of the Boundary Waters.)

Just last week, when news of Renee Good’s murder broke, there was another Minnesota story in the news that helps illustrate what I’m talking about. You can read it as a story about a cynical abuse of the Congressional Review Act, but it’s also about the convergence of a foreign mining company’s US political project with the Project 2025 authoritarian takeover of the US government.

Once it became clear that there was no lawful path forward for the Twin Metals project, that convergence was bound to happen. The mining company’s case in US District Court had been dismissed (though it is still on appeal at the DC Circuit), their lease applications had been denied, their mining plan of operations was rejected, and the Biden administration had put a 20-year moratorium on copper and nickel mining in the Rainy River watershed. The only way forward for Chilean mining giant Antofagasta was political, as I put it at the time. The company could count on a Trump victory in 2024, on corruption, and on the Project 2025 plan to weaken and hobble the administrative state.

Now that bet is starting to pay off, as the latest chapter in this story shows. Just after the new year, on January 6, this entry was made in the Congressional Record:

Project 2025 specified that the 20-year mineral withdrawal of the Rainy River watershed should be “[abandoned]” if it had “not been completed.” In 2023, that read like a throwaway line. The mineral withdrawal had been announced in January of that year, and it seemed all but certain that the withdrawal would be completed by the end of Biden’s term.

Now, Republicans claim, the Biden administration failed to take one small, final step.

The Biden White House published notice of the withdrawal in the Federal Register, but not in the Congressional Record, as required by law [or not, see the postcript below*]. With this letter, Trump’s Department of the Interior is correcting that oversight. But of course it’s a bad faith gesture. The notice creates an opportunity for the House of Representatives to review and for the Republican majority to reject the mineral withdrawal, as this Reuters article explains. The same notice was sent to Vice President Vance, as head of the Republican-controlled Senate. Opponents of the withdrawal will now have 60 days to muster simple majorities in both houses.

Though it may look like a bureaucratic fix to cure a deficiency, the letter is clearly part of a coordinated effort to advance Antofagasta’s Twin Metals project. It’s a clever ploy, designed to give corruption the appearance of legitimacy. Start with the office issuing the letter, the Office of the Secretariat and Regulatory Affairs (OES) in the Department of the Interior. OES serves as “the primary point of contact” with the White House Office of Management and Budget, and communicates and works regularly with OMB to “ensure” that regulations and policies “comply with…OMB requirements.” That is the principal and legitimate channel of communication for this kind of letter.

However, anyone paying attention for the last year or so knows that OMB is now a fully captured office, under the direction of Russell Vought, one of the architects of Project 2025. At every turn, Vought has directed OMB to dismantle and hamstring federal agencies and undo rules unfavorable to private industry. OMB is most likely the office that ordered this OES review, and the “White House Office” where the Bernhardt Group, according to its most recent disclosure, has been lobbying for the Twin Metals mine. (Next week, we’ll see if Q4 25 lobbying disclosures offer any more clarity on this point.**) Along with OES, OMB, and Antofagasta’s lobbying firm, Rep. Pete Stauber was also in the loop. Or at least he wasted no time doing his part. Less than a week after the letter from OES appeared in the Congressional Record, Stauber introduced a joint resolution of “Congressional disapproval” of the withdrawal.

Communications among these groups would make a particularly ripe target for a FOIA request, and help establish who did exactly what in this latest scheme. At the same time, I doubt that document production would help us make any meaningful connection between what’s going down in Minneapolis right now and these behind-closed-door maneuvers on behalf of a foreign mining company. That’s not really the point, anyway. I am not trying to suggest that extracting the treasures of the Duluth Complex is the main motive for the federal occupation of Minnesota, or that the violent brownshirt tactics we’re seeing on the streets of Minneapolis are primarily intended to pave the way for extractive industry up north. What I am suggesting is that we should look for places where these two Trumpist efforts might come together: the federal occupation of Minnesota and the push to plunder Minnesota’s mineral resources. That’s the intersection where the case for colonialism or analogies with Venezuela or Greenland will gain real traction.

With Trump now threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act, there are already some worrying signs that the authoritarian takeover of Minnesota could extend beyond subjugation of Minneapolis to demand tribute from the Iron Range. The ICE surge is already providing Stauber, Tom Emmer, and other Minnesota Republicans with an opportunity to attack Twin Cities leadership and widen existing north-south, rural-urban political divides. With his cronies on the House Natural Resources Committee, Stauber has tried to drag environmental groups before Congress on the pretext that they colluded with the Biden administration on the Rainy River withdrawal, and he has made McCarthyite threats about their non-profit status. ICE kidnappings and detention of Oglala Lakota and raids on the Little Earth housing complex suggest that blind racism and utter disregard for tribal sovereignty could (once again) enable extractive industry in the north. And from everything we’ve seen, it’s clear this lawless administration will not hesitate to label environmental defenders and water protectors — or anyone who stands in the way of their booty — domestic terrorists, and deal with them accordingly.

*Postscript Longtime Boundary Waters champion and lawyer Rebecca Rom writes to say the law does not require publication in the Congressional Record:

The issue isn’t the Congressional Record (the claimed technicality) but rather the application of the Congressional Review Act for Interior Dept. Public Land Orders. 

The Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) governs federal land withdrawals and requires thorough and timely notice to Congress upon the signing of a Public Land Order for a withdrawal. The Interior Department has followed the FLPMA Section 204 notice provisions to Congress for nearly 50 years (since 1976), through Republican and Democrat administrations. This is the pattern and practice of FLPMA notice compliance by the Interior Department.

This did not change with the enactment of the Congressional Review Act in 1996, which applies to notice of rules (not orders) to Congress in a process that is nearly identical to FLPMA.

In the past 25 years, there have been 28 withdrawals. Interior has not sent any of these withdrawals (those that were over 5,000 acres) to Congress pursuant to the Congressional Review Act. All notices that have been to Congress have been FLPMA notices.

The Interior Department delivered FLPMA notices to Congress, as required by law, on Jan. 26, 2023, when Public Land Order 7917 was signed. All members of the MN Congressional delegation received a letter of notice, including Congressman Stauber. The decision was published in the Federal Register, as required.

Any claim by Congressman Stauber of a violation of the Congressional Review Act is wrong. Any claim by Congressman Stauber that Congress did not receive notice of PLO 7917 is wrong; it received the legally required notice under FLPMA.

**Update 23 Jan 26: A little more clarity. The most recent disclosure by the Bernhardt Group corrects “White House Office” to “Executive Office of the President (EOP)” — which is where OMB is housed. It also shows the Bernhardt Group lobbying for Twin Metals at USDA. I found it curious that the Department of Agriculture was not among the agencies listed on the Q3 disclosure form.

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Goddard and Newman On Resource-Hoarding Hyper-Elites

Stacie E. Goddard and Abraham Newman urge us to take off our “Westphalian blinders” if we are to make sense of the bullying, extortion, and belligerence that now passes for US foreign policy.

Their paper on “neo-royalist cliques” addresses a theme I’ve discussed from time to time on this blog: “a return to the ‘patrimonial’ state, with rational-legal bureaucracies displaced by personalized rule and ‘extra-legal’ sovereignty.”

Goddard and Newman see patrimonial or personalist rule not only dominating US domestic politics but also extending to international affairs — to the re-ordering of “the whole world.”

I’m not crazy about the term “neo-royalist,” and even Goddard and Newman are careful to qualify:

We use “neo”-royalism to describe this order because, while it recalls pre-sixteenth-century European dynastic systems, this is not necessarily the return of kings and divine right. Instead, it is an international system structured by a small group of hyper-elites who use modern economic and military interdependencies to extract material and status resources for themselves.

What’s more convincing is their focus on “networks”:

neo-royalism…centers on ruling cliques, networks of political, capital, and military elites devoted to individual sovereigns [or personalist rulers], seeking to generate durable material and status hierarchies based on the extraction of financial and cultural tributes.

Where they say “cliques” we could just as well say “gangs.” It’s a world re-ordered by lawless bands of resource-hoarding hyper-elites and their hangers on, marauders and plunderers, serving and being served by the personalist ruler. Should they prevail, the state will be corrupted beyond redemption, serving only to give them cover, distribute favors to friends, and punish enemies — which is anyone who doesn’t pay tribute when demanded.

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The Bernhardt Group’s Lobbying for Antofagasta’s Copper and Nickel Mine on the Edge of the Boundary Waters, Q3 2025

The Bernhardt Group, the lobbying shop set up just down the street from the White House by Trump’s former Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, is now the sole firm lobbying for Antofagasta’s Twin Metals project on the edge of the Boundary Waters (as I noted back in July). The Group’s third quarter disclosure reports income of $110,000 for lobbying on “mine leasing issues” on behalf of Twin Metals. That’s more than double The Bernhardt Group’s Twin Metals Q2 2025 income ($40K), and toward the high end of what other clients pay per quarter.

Bernhardt’s firm has been lobbying for the Twin Metals project in both the House and the Senate and at the White House, the Department of the Interior, and, notably, DOJ. (I am a little surprised that there is no mention here of the Department of Agriculture.) At DOJ, The Bernhardt Group was likely helping to devise and coordinate the legal strategy that saw the federal government do an about-face, join forces with Twin Metals, and get the case before the DC Circuit put on ice.

It’s worth reading this latest disclosure in light of a piece by Brendan Bordelon, Amanda Chu, and Caitlin Oprysko that appeared a couple of days ago in Politico, about the reduced influence of non-Trump affiliated lobbying firms and the concentration of lobbying in one place: the presidency. The article offers a K-Street perspective on Congress’ abdication, the destruction of the administrative state, and the rise of a corrupt personalist regime.

The president and a handful of lieutenants have seized full control over policies once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies, including hyperspecific issues like tariff rates, high-skilled visa fees and funding freezes. Trump’s gravitational pull has forced CEOs to act as their companies’ top lobbyists, plying the president with gifts and concessions to secure their policy priorities. [emphasis mine]

Let’s pause here for clarification. These policies were not just “once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies.” They are lawfully the remit of Congress, but Congress remains supine or, worse, bent over and taking it. Meanwhile, the administration is ridding itself of all those pesky experts at the agencies and conducting sloppy and unlawful “reviews” of its own, as the Department of Agriculture recently did with the Rainy River watershed withdrawal.

Politico puts it more politely than I ever could, but the thrust of the reporting here is no less troubling. As Sam Bagenstos remarked yesterday, “per [Politico], the lobbyists are basically treating Article I as dead.”

The new dynamic has transformed the business of Washington influence, shutting out many veteran lobbyists and excluding even longtime experts from the most important policy fights in Washington. With Congress and the agencies often sidelined, outside lobbying firms and in-house specialists — many with decades of policy experience and cross-party relationships — are declining in importance….

The legislative branch is losing importance as Republicans — in charge of both chambers — take their cues from the White House to a degree that’s unprecedented in modern politics.

“Congress has basically taken itself out of the equation,” said Rich Gold, a Democrat who heads lobbying and law firm Holland & Knight’s public policy and regulation group. “There is a perception that Democrats have not fought back, and Republicans have basically ceded all their authority to the president.”

The same is true at federal agencies, which once operated more independently but are now closely responsive to the president himself.

From K Street’s point of view, there’s only one lever consistently worth pulling — and it sits in the Oval Office.

But rest assured: the lobbying world is adapting.

Despite the upheaval on K Street, Washington’s lobbying sector is on track to earn more money than in any year since 2010, adjusted for inflation — driven by corporations’ mix of enthusiasm and concern about what Trump is doing.

That revenue is flowing away from established firms with policy expertise and robust networks of cross-party contacts, and toward a handful of rising firms able to open the Oval Office door.

The Bernhardt Group is, of course, one such firm.

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#abdication #corruption #governmentCapture #governmentCollapse #kleptocracy #lobbying #personalistRegime #resourceHoarding #Water

The Bernhardt Group’s Lobbying for Antofagasta’s Copper and Nickel Mine on the Edge of the Boundary Waters, Q3 2025

The Bernhardt Group, the lobbying shop set up just down the street from the White House by Trump’s former Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, is now the sole firm lobbying for Antofagasta’s Twin Metals project on the edge of the Boundary Waters (as I noted back in July). The Group’s third quarter disclosure reports income of $110,000 for lobbying on “mine leasing issues” on behalf of Twin Metals. That’s more than double The Bernhardt Group’s Twin Metals Q2 2025 income ($40K), and toward the high end of what other clients pay per quarter.

Bernhardt’s firm has been lobbying for the Twin Metals project in both the House and the Senate and at the White House, the Department of the Interior, and, notably, DOJ. (I am a little surprised that there is no mention here of the Department of Agriculture.) At DOJ, The Bernhardt Group was likely helping to devise and coordinate the legal strategy that saw the federal government do an about-face, join forces with Twin Metals, and get the case before the DC District Court put on ice.

It’s worth reading this latest disclosure in light of a piece by Brendan Bordelon, Amanda Chu, and Caitlin Oprysko that appeared a couple of days ago in Politico, about the reduced influence of non-Trump affiliated lobbying firms and the concentration of lobbying in one place: the presidency. The article offers a K-Street perspective on Congress’ abdication, the destruction of the administrative state, and the rise of a corrupt personalist regime.

The president and a handful of lieutenants have seized full control over policies once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies, including hyperspecific issues like tariff rates, high-skilled visa fees and funding freezes. Trump’s gravitational pull has forced CEOs to act as their companies’ top lobbyists, plying the president with gifts and concessions to secure their policy priorities. [emphasis mine]

Let’s pause here for clarification. These policies were not just “once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies.” They are lawfully the remit of Congress, but Congress remains supine or, worse, bent over and taking it. Meanwhile, the administration is ridding itself of all those pesky experts at the agencies and conducting sloppy and unlawful “reviews” of its own, as the Department of Agriculture recently did with the Rainy River watershed withdrawal.

Politico puts it more politely than I ever could, but the thrust of the reporting here is no less troubling. As Sam Bagenstos remarked yesterday, “per [Politico], the lobbyists are basically treating Article I as dead.”

The new dynamic has transformed the business of Washington influence, shutting out many veteran lobbyists and excluding even longtime experts from the most important policy fights in Washington. With Congress and the agencies often sidelined, outside lobbying firms and in-house specialists — many with decades of policy experience and cross-party relationships — are declining in importance….

The legislative branch is losing importance as Republicans — in charge of both chambers — take their cues from the White House to a degree that’s unprecedented in modern politics.

“Congress has basically taken itself out of the equation,” said Rich Gold, a Democrat who heads lobbying and law firm Holland & Knight’s public policy and regulation group. “There is a perception that Democrats have not fought back, and Republicans have basically ceded all their authority to the president.”

The same is true at federal agencies, which once operated more independently but are now closely responsive to the president himself.

From K Street’s point of view, there’s only one lever consistently worth pulling — and it sits in the Oval Office.

But rest assured: the lobbying world is adapting.

Despite the upheaval on K Street, Washington’s lobbying sector is on track to earn more money than in any year since 2010, adjusted for inflation — driven by corporations’ mix of enthusiasm and concern about what Trump is doing.

That revenue is flowing away from established firms with policy expertise and robust networks of cross-party contacts, and toward a handful of rising firms able to open the Oval Office door.

The Bernhardt Group is, of course, one such firm.

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#abdication #corruption #governmentCapture #governmentCollapse #kleptocracy #lobbying #personalistRegime #resourceHoarding #Water

The Bernhardt Group’s Lobbying for Antofagasta’s Copper and Nickel Mine on the Edge of the Boundary Waters, Q3 2025

The Bernhardt Group, the lobbying shop set up just down the street from the White House by Trump’s former Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, is now the sole firm lobbying for Antofagasta’s Twin Metals project on the edge of the Boundary Waters (as I noted back in July). The Group’s third quarter disclosure reports income of $110,000 for lobbying on “mine leasing issues” on behalf of Twin Metals. That’s more than double The Bernhardt Group’s Twin Metals Q2 2025 income ($40K), and toward the high end of what other clients pay per quarter.

Bernhardt’s firm has been lobbying for the Twin Metals project in both the House and the Senate and at the White House, the Department of the Interior, and, notably, DOJ. (I am a little surprised that there is no mention here of the Department of Agriculture.) At DOJ, The Bernhardt Group was likely helping to devise and coordinate the legal strategy that saw the federal government do an about-face, join forces with Twin Metals, and get the case before the DC District Court put on ice.

It’s worth reading this latest disclosure in light of a piece by Brendan Bordelon, Amanda Chu, and Caitlin Oprysko that appeared a couple of days ago in Politico, about the reduced influence of non-Trump affiliated lobbying firms and the concentration of lobbying in one place: the presidency. The article offers a K-Street perspective on Congress’ abdication, the destruction of the administrative state, and the rise of a corrupt personalist regime.

The president and a handful of lieutenants have seized full control over policies once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies, including hyperspecific issues like tariff rates, high-skilled visa fees and funding freezes. Trump’s gravitational pull has forced CEOs to act as their companies’ top lobbyists, plying the president with gifts and concessions to secure their policy priorities. [emphasis mine]

Let’s pause here for clarification. These policies were not just “once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies.” They are lawfully the remit of Congress, but Congress remains supine or, worse, bent over and taking it. Meanwhile, the administration is ridding itself of all those pesky experts at the agencies and conducting sloppy and unlawful “reviews” of its own, as the Department of Agriculture recently did with the Rainy River watershed withdrawal.

Politico puts it more politely than I ever could, but the thrust of the reporting here is no less troubling. As Sam Bagenstos remarked yesterday, “per [Politico], the lobbyists are basically treating Article I as dead.”

The new dynamic has transformed the business of Washington influence, shutting out many veteran lobbyists and excluding even longtime experts from the most important policy fights in Washington. With Congress and the agencies often sidelined, outside lobbying firms and in-house specialists — many with decades of policy experience and cross-party relationships — are declining in importance….

The legislative branch is losing importance as Republicans — in charge of both chambers — take their cues from the White House to a degree that’s unprecedented in modern politics.

“Congress has basically taken itself out of the equation,” said Rich Gold, a Democrat who heads lobbying and law firm Holland & Knight’s public policy and regulation group. “There is a perception that Democrats have not fought back, and Republicans have basically ceded all their authority to the president.”

The same is true at federal agencies, which once operated more independently but are now closely responsive to the president himself.

From K Street’s point of view, there’s only one lever consistently worth pulling — and it sits in the Oval Office.

But rest assured: the lobbying world is adapting.

Despite the upheaval on K Street, Washington’s lobbying sector is on track to earn more money than in any year since 2010, adjusted for inflation — driven by corporations’ mix of enthusiasm and concern about what Trump is doing.

That revenue is flowing away from established firms with policy expertise and robust networks of cross-party contacts, and toward a handful of rising firms able to open the Oval Office door.

The Bernhardt Group is, of course, one such firm.

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#abdication #corruption #governmentCapture #governmentCollapse #kleptocracy #lobbying #personalistRegime #resourceHoarding #Water

The Bernhardt Group’s Lobbying for Antofagasta’s Copper and Nickel Mine on the Edge of the Boundary Waters, Q3 2025

The Bernhardt Group, the lobbying shop set up just down the street from the White House by Trump’s former Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, is now the sole firm lobbying for Antofagasta’s Twin Metals project on the edge of the Boundary Waters (as I noted back in July). The Group’s third quarter disclosure reports income of $110,000 for lobbying on “mine leasing issues” on behalf of Twin Metals. That’s more than double The Bernhardt Group’s Twin Metals Q2 2025 income ($40K), and toward the high end of what other clients pay per quarter.

Bernhardt’s firm has been lobbying for the Twin Metals project in both the House and the Senate and at the White House, the Department of the Interior, and, notably, DOJ. (I am a little surprised that there is no mention here of the Department of Agriculture.) At DOJ, The Bernhardt Group was likely helping to devise and coordinate the legal strategy that saw the federal government do an about-face, join forces with Twin Metals, and get the case before the DC District Court put on ice.

It’s worth reading this latest disclosure in light of a piece by Brendan Bordelon, Amanda Chu, and Caitlin Oprysko that appeared a couple of days ago in Politico, about the reduced influence of non-Trump affiliated lobbying firms and the concentration of lobbying in one place: the presidency. The article offers a K-Street perspective on Congress’ abdication, the destruction of the administrative state, and the rise of a corrupt personalist regime.

The president and a handful of lieutenants have seized full control over policies once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies, including hyperspecific issues like tariff rates, high-skilled visa fees and funding freezes. Trump’s gravitational pull has forced CEOs to act as their companies’ top lobbyists, plying the president with gifts and concessions to secure their policy priorities. [emphasis mine]

Let’s pause here for clarification. These policies were not just “once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies.” They are lawfully the remit of Congress, but Congress remains supine or, worse, bent over and taking it. Meanwhile, the administration is ridding itself of all those pesky experts at the agencies and conducting sloppy and unlawful “reviews” of its own, as the Department of Agriculture recently did with the Rainy River watershed withdrawal.

Politico puts it more politely than I ever could, but the thrust of the reporting here is no less troubling. As Sam Bagenstos remarked yesterday, “per [Politico], the lobbyists are basically treating Article I as dead.”

The new dynamic has transformed the business of Washington influence, shutting out many veteran lobbyists and excluding even longtime experts from the most important policy fights in Washington. With Congress and the agencies often sidelined, outside lobbying firms and in-house specialists — many with decades of policy experience and cross-party relationships — are declining in importance….

The legislative branch is losing importance as Republicans — in charge of both chambers — take their cues from the White House to a degree that’s unprecedented in modern politics.

“Congress has basically taken itself out of the equation,” said Rich Gold, a Democrat who heads lobbying and law firm Holland & Knight’s public policy and regulation group. “There is a perception that Democrats have not fought back, and Republicans have basically ceded all their authority to the president.”

The same is true at federal agencies, which once operated more independently but are now closely responsive to the president himself.

From K Street’s point of view, there’s only one lever consistently worth pulling — and it sits in the Oval Office.

But rest assured: the lobbying world is adapting.

Despite the upheaval on K Street, Washington’s lobbying sector is on track to earn more money than in any year since 2010, adjusted for inflation — driven by corporations’ mix of enthusiasm and concern about what Trump is doing.

That revenue is flowing away from established firms with policy expertise and robust networks of cross-party contacts, and toward a handful of rising firms able to open the Oval Office door.

The Bernhardt Group is, of course, one such firm.

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#abdication #corruption #governmentCapture #governmentCollapse #kleptocracy #lobbying #personalistRegime #resourceHoarding #Water

The Bernhardt Group’s Lobbying for Antofagasta’s Copper and Nickel Mine on the Edge of the Boundary Waters, Q3 2025

The Bernhardt Group, the lobbying shop set up just down the street from the White House by Trump’s former Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, is now the sole firm lobbying for Antofagasta’s Twin Metals project on the edge of the Boundary Waters (as I noted back in July). The Group’s third quarter disclosure reports income of $110,000 for lobbying on “mine leasing issues” on behalf of Twin Metals. That’s more than double The Bernhardt Group’s Twin Metals Q2 2025 income ($40K), and toward the high end of what other clients pay per quarter.

Bernhardt’s firm has been lobbying for the Twin Metals project in both the House and the Senate and at the White House, the Department of the Interior, and, notably, DOJ. (I am a little surprised that there is no mention here of the Department of Agriculture.) At DOJ, The Bernhardt Group was likely helping to devise and coordinate the legal strategy that saw the federal government do an about-face, join forces with Twin Metals, and get the case before the DC District Court put on ice.

It’s worth reading this latest disclosure in light of a piece by Brendan Bordelon, Amanda Chu, and Caitlin Oprysko that appeared a couple of days ago in Politico, about the reduced influence of non-Trump affiliated lobbying firms and the concentration of lobbying in one place: the presidency. The article offers a K-Street perspective on Congress’ abdication, the destruction of the administrative state, and the rise of a corrupt personalist regime.

The president and a handful of lieutenants have seized full control over policies once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies, including hyperspecific issues like tariff rates, high-skilled visa fees and funding freezes. Trump’s gravitational pull has forced CEOs to act as their companies’ top lobbyists, plying the president with gifts and concessions to secure their policy priorities. [emphasis mine]

Let’s pause here for clarification. These policies were not just “once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies.” They are lawfully the remit of Congress, but Congress remains supine or, worse, bent over and taking it. Meanwhile, the administration is ridding itself of all those pesky experts at the agencies and conducting sloppy and unlawful “reviews” of its own, as the Department of Agriculture recently did with the Rainy River watershed withdrawal.

Politico puts it more politely than I ever could, but the thrust of the reporting here is no less troubling. As Sam Bagenstos remarked yesterday, “per [Politico], the lobbyists are basically treating Article I as dead.”

The new dynamic has transformed the business of Washington influence, shutting out many veteran lobbyists and excluding even longtime experts from the most important policy fights in Washington. With Congress and the agencies often sidelined, outside lobbying firms and in-house specialists — many with decades of policy experience and cross-party relationships — are declining in importance….

The legislative branch is losing importance as Republicans — in charge of both chambers — take their cues from the White House to a degree that’s unprecedented in modern politics.

“Congress has basically taken itself out of the equation,” said Rich Gold, a Democrat who heads lobbying and law firm Holland & Knight’s public policy and regulation group. “There is a perception that Democrats have not fought back, and Republicans have basically ceded all their authority to the president.”

The same is true at federal agencies, which once operated more independently but are now closely responsive to the president himself.

From K Street’s point of view, there’s only one lever consistently worth pulling — and it sits in the Oval Office.

But rest assured: the lobbying world is adapting.

Despite the upheaval on K Street, Washington’s lobbying sector is on track to earn more money than in any year since 2010, adjusted for inflation — driven by corporations’ mix of enthusiasm and concern about what Trump is doing.

That revenue is flowing away from established firms with policy expertise and robust networks of cross-party contacts, and toward a handful of rising firms able to open the Oval Office door.

The Bernhardt Group is, of course, one such firm.

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#abdication #corruption #governmentCapture #governmentCollapse #kleptocracy #lobbying #personalistRegime #resourceHoarding #Water

Where lawful corporate governance ends and the personalist regime begins

I embarrassed myself when, back in January, I asked whether wind energy investors had standing to sue the Trump administration over a presidential memorandum pausing all federal approvals for wind power development. I was suffering at the time from the delusion — common to most writers, I suppose — that readers would respond or at least consider the point. Instead, crickets. I guess it was what the experts would call a dumb question, which wouldn’t be the first one I’ve asked and won’t be the last, or it just wasn’t the sort of thing that grabs people’s attention nowadays. (I would never claim to have my finger on the popular pulse.) In any case, it was a failed bid.

I was, however, on to something. I just didn’t know what, but now I think I have a slightly better idea. It’s not only that Trump’s Quixotic madness about windmills has been on full display ever since; “adverse market development in the US,” as an Ørsted executive euphemistically puts it, has interrupted big projects like Empire Wind and sent wind energy stocks plummeting. It’s also that Trump continues to assert his (unlawful) prerogative to control and extort companies, whole industries, and markets.

Acting arbitrarily, corruptly (witness the Paramount or Tim Cook bribes), and with undisguised prejudice, Trump is trying to replace the invisible hand that we were supposed to believe was at work in the free market with his own bruised, rotting Chaos Monkey paw.

He has reserved for his regime a “golden share” as a condition for approving deals (auguring “a ‘meaningful shift’ in America’s approach to capital markets,” as a writer in the FT delicately puts it), spooked investors by calling unflattering economic data rigged, imposed import and export taxes with unfair exemptions for cronies and flatterers, arrogated to himself powers reserved for boards (witness the call, last week, for the CEO of Intel to step down), and repeatedly offended shareholder rights and prerogatives.

L’actionnaire c’est moi, or something like that, and though boards have gotten very good at ignoring ordinary investors, they are hardly known for standing up to this kind of political pressure. As for CEOs, they have shown that they are all too ready to capitulate and collude.

This non-stop chaos, oafish meddling, and strong-arm interference may at times look clownish, but it will have serious consequences. Sure, it creates “uncertainty” (the rhetorical fig leaf the business press uses when the Chaos Monkey exposes himself), and of course it will lead to misallocation of capital. But that’s hardly the main trouble.

It marks the spot where lawful corporate governance (such as we knew it) ends and the personalist regime begins.

Greg Ip, with whom I usually disagree, appears to make a fair point when he calls this “State Capitalism with American Characteristics,” but I would prefer State Capitalism with Coherent Industrial Policy to to what we actually have, and Ip’s label doesn’t quite capture the personalist element: L’etat c’est moi donc l’actionnaire c’est moi, or something like that.

Let’s just say that it looks like we are heading for — or perhaps we are already in the throes of — a full-blown governance crisis. It may already be too late to push back, but it sure would be nice to see boards and big institutional investors try.

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