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He was instrumental in defending tobacco companies

The industry, in turn, has provided McConnell with millions of dollars in speaking fees, personal gifts, campaign contributions and charitable donations to the McConnell Center, which is home to his personal and professional archives.

One lobbyist for R.J. Reynolds called McConnell a "special friend" to the company.

Much of the relationship between McConnell and the tobacco industry happened behind the scenes. But the disclosure of millions of once-secret tobacco industry documents — which are now readily searchable online — has opened a window into McConnell's interactions with tobacco executives and lobbyists.

Since he was first elected to the Senate in 1984, Mitch McConnell has vehemently opposed regulations of the tobacco industry — from banning in-flight smoking, to allowing the FDA to regulate the industry, to including smoking in anti-drug school lesson plans.

To be sure, Kentucky's culture and economy have been intertwined with tobacco growing for decades. McConnell has argued that his support for the industry is because it employs tens of thousands of farmers in the state. "Farming tobacco put shoes on kids' feet," McConnell said in May. "It put dinner on the table." In the 1990s, tobacco contributed more than $2 billion annually to Kentucky's economy, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal at the time.

But the importance of tobacco to Kentucky can sometimes be overstated. The Courier-Journal declared in 1998, "Despite Kentucky Lore, Tobacco Is Not King," noting that tobacco was only 3% of the overall state economy.

Regardless, the industry documents reveal the methods tobacco lobbyists used to gain favor with politicians from tobacco-growing states.

Soon after McConnell won a U.S. Senate seat, he was invited to the Tobacco Institute's boardroom to give a speech in January 1985.

The main lobbying organization for the tobacco industry at the time said it would also pay McConnell $2,000 for his time.

He continued to give paid speeches to the industry throughout the 1980s.

The documents also reveal that McConnell and his Senate office frequently accepted gifts from tobacco industry lobbyists, a practice which was also legal at the time.

The gifts included tickets to NFL and NBA games, a production of Dostoevsky's Crime And Punishment, a Ringo Starr concert, "top-quality brandy," and what McConnell called a "beautiful ham."

McConnell often ended his thank you notes to tobacco lobbyists with an offer:

"Please feel free to call on me whenever I may be of assistance to you."

Throughout this time, the industry also provided McConnell with major campaign contributions.

When McConnell has sought re-election, tobacco company employees and PACs have typically donated to McConnell more than to any other member of Congress, according to data from the Center For Responsive Politics

On top of campaign contributions, the industry also made major donations for the McConnell Center based at the University of Louisville. The center offers scholarships to college students, hosts lectures and holds McConnell's private archives.

For years, McConnell and the university fought to keep the identities of the donors to the center secret. But, in 2004, a lawsuit by the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper forced the university to disclose who gave checks.

The disclosure revealed major contributions from tobacco companies: $200,000 from Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., $450,000 from Philip Morris, $500,000 from the RJR Nabisco Foundation, $14,000 from the Tobacco Institute, and $125,000 from U.S. Tobacco.


One of the most striking episodes revealed in the tobacco industry documents came in October 1998, a midterm election year.

"[S]en. mcconnell just called me requesting 200,000 [dollars] soft," R.J. Reynolds lobbyist Tommy Payne emailed a colleague, referring to soft money contributions that were not limited by federal law.

After his colleague agreed to send more contributions, Payne followed up in an email, "[A]re you feeling a choking sensation?"

The email is even more notable for its timing.

Just a few months earlier, McConnell helped defeat major tobacco legislation championed by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. McConnell's role in that debate led to intense scrutiny of his relationship to the industry.

The McCain bill would have ratified and strengthened the proposed settlement between the tobacco industry and attorneys general from most of the states. It would have also allowed FDA regulation of nicotine and penalized companies that failed to reduce teen smoking.

The tobacco industry launched a massive $40 million ad campaign to defeat the bill.
McConnell, who had repeatedly clashed with McCain over campaign finance legislation, helped lead the opposition.

Fifty-seven senators ended up voting for the bill — three short of breaking the filibuster.

But in the days after the vote, a story emerged.

"Sen. Mitch McConnell stood up at a closed-door meeting of Republican senators to deliver good news," The Wall Street Journal reported. "The tobacco industry would mount a television ad campaign to support those who voted to knock off the bill."

"That to me is the most egregious incident that I have seen about the appearance of corruption since I have been a member of the United States Senate," McCain later said of McConnell's comments, which he witnessed.

"What I should have done is stand up and say this is an outrage for you to say this kind of thing," McCain said. "But I was so astonished that any member of the Senate would say such a thing, I was temporarily at a loss for words."

https://www.npr.org/2019/06/17/730496066/tobaccos-special-friend-what-internal-documents-say-about-mitch-mcconnell