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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The Donald J. Trump Foundation remains under investigation in New York. Trump says he wants to close it down, but he can't until the probe is finished.
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The Federal Election Commission sets disclosure rules for ads that discuss candidates. Many of the ads in question dealt only with issues. -
"We have dysfunction in Congress; we have dysfunction, I think, in the presidency; and we have dysfunction in the lobbying community" — reform lobbyist Meredith McGehee -
Tony Podesta, brother of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, blamed "right-wing media" for his decision to leave his namesake firm. The firm assisted Paul Manafort's work in Ukraine.
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Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced settlements in two long-running cases against the IRS, saying, "There's no excuse" for the agency's treatment of the groups, which sought tax-exempt status. -
If a federal judge lets the plaintiffs proceed with their lawsuit against the president, the next step would give them access to some of his financial documents — perhaps including tax returns. -
Today, attorneys for businesses saying they are being hurt by the Trump Hotel in D.C. told a federal judge why they should have standing to sue for enforcement of the Constitution's Emoluments Clause. The White House attorneys said the businesses have no standing to bring such a suit. The judge said he intends to rule in 30 to 60 days.
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On Wednesday, a federal judge will hear arguments in a case that asks: Is President Trump taking the kind of benefits banned by the Constitution? Step 1 is deciding whether plaintiffs have standing. -
Among Democratic high rollers, Weinstein's presence was bigger than his bankroll. -
Watchdog groups sued to find out who has visited President Trump at his resort in Florida. So far, all they have are 22 names from the Japanese prime minister's traveling party.
