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WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Accountable.US released a new analysis demonstrating how the high-profile speakers at the so-called “America First Agenda Summit” have spent their careers serving foreign business interests and governments. Earlier today, Donald Trump returned to the nation’s capital for the first time since his presidency ended to address the event hosted by the America First Policy Institute, a group founded by his former staffers.

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It's fitting that Trump gave his first speech back in Washington, alongside other former officials who spent their careers putting the interests of foreign corporations and governments ahead of the American people. It should concern us all that a conference claiming to be ‘America First’ is filled with Trump-loving lobbyists for foreign interests and those who have actively supported shoddy backroom deals worth billions of dollars that could pose threats to our security."

Kayla Hancock, Director of Power and Influence at Accountable.US

Accountable.US’s analysis includes background on the foreign connections of the following headline “America First” summit speakers:  

  • Fmr. Energy Secretary & Texas Governor Rick Perry: Rick Perry has spent much of his career catering to foreign business interests, between pushing for billion-dollar deals between his company, Energy Transfer Partners, and Ukraine’s state-owned energy company and pushing for investments from a Chinese firm that both the Bush and ObamaAdministrations deemed a potential cybersecurity threat.
  • Fmr. Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon: McMahon’s family business,WWE, has repeatedly been criticized for promoting “propaganda” for the Saudi Arabian government.

  • Fmr. Attorney General of Florida Chair Pam Bondi: Bondi has worked for a lobbying firm where she was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to represent foreign interests.

  • Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry: Landry owned a contracting firm that brought in hundreds of foreign workers with potentially fraudulent visas and partnered with a labor broker who was convicted of visa fraud.
  • Fmr. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal: Jindal faced backlash during his time as Governor over a land deal with a foreign corporation.

  • Fmr. Secretary of The Interior David Bernhardt: As a long-time lobbyist for the firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, Bernhardt has spent his career lobbying for foreign interests.
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