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Inside Jeff Sessions’ hidden haunt - POLITICO

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/jeff-sessions-private-club-lobbyists-233318

Inside the 116 Club, Jeff Sessions’ hidden hauntThe attorney general
nominee belongs to a private club that epitomizes the swamp Trump has
promised to drain.

By Isaac Arnsdorf <http://www.politico.com/staff/isaac-arnsdorf> and Kenneth
P. Vogel <http://www.politico.com/staff/kenneth-p-vogel>
•01/08/17 07:24 AM EST
[image: 170106_jeff_sessions_gty_1160.jpg]

Jeff Sessions is likely to cruise to confirmation as attorney general
despite complaints from Democrats and civil rights leaders. | Getty

Two blocks from Jeff Sessions’ Senate office stands an unassuming red
townhouse where he rubs shoulders with lobbyists and Washington power
players, outside of public view.

If there is a physical embodiment of the lobbying and influence peddling
that Donald Trump has railed against, the 116 Club might be it.

Story Continued Below

The private club’s roster is a closely guarded secret, but Sessions’
membership is evident from $25 monthly dues payments listed on his most
recent campaign filings. It highlights for Sessions, an Alabama senator
since 1997, his status as a Washington insider who is likely to cruise to
confirmation as attorney general despite complaints from Democrats and
civil rights leaders.

The 116 Club is not as well-known as the Republican-only Capitol Hill Club
or the public restaurants like Charlie Palmer Steak and, until recently,
Johnny’s Half Shell where Washington players conduct a good deal of their
business. But that’s part of the appeal.

“It’s a ‘Cheers’ kind of atmosphere,” said Floyd Williams, chairman of the
club’s board and a senior tax counsel at Public Strategies Washington. “You
know the people, you know the food’s going to be good. Nothing changes
there.”

Lately the dining room has been buzzing with talk of Trump’s agenda,
especially the prospects for overhauling the tax code, Williams said.

“Everybody who goes there has some connection to government or the Hill or
policy or pub affairs,” he said. Still, he added, “I don’t really see it as
‘the swamp,’” referring to Trump’s promise to fix Washington by “draining
the swamp.”

The nonprofit club’s board is a who’s who of top lobbyists, industry group
leaders and Congressional staffers. According to its most recent tax
filing, it includes: Peggy Renken Hudson, the Direct Marketing
Association’s senior vice president of government affairs; Dan Tate of the
lobbying firm Forbes Tate Partners; Joseph H. Kimmitt, executive vice
president of government operations and industry relations at Oshkosh
Corporation; in-house Nike lobbyist Jesse McCollum; lobbyists Robert
Schramm, Ray Bragg and Amy R. Hammer; Robert Holifield, co-founder and
managing principal of Lincoln Policy Group; lawyer William Oldaker; and
Neil Chatterjee, policy adviser for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Campaign finance filings also show dues payments from former Reps. Ed
Whitfield (R-Ky., now a lobbyist), Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), Marion Berry
(D-Ark.), Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) and Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.). Other
lawmakers including Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and former Sen. David
Vitter (R-La.), have hosted events at the club, according to Federal
Election Commission records.

Former congressman Don Rostenkowski lunched there shortly before his
17-month prison sentence for mail fraud, the Washington Post reported in
1996
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1996/05/02/the-reliable-source/b66b6921-5cf7-43ed-a945-15f3e68472c9/?utm_term=.3a082413390a>
.

Federal election rules prohibit paying club dues out of campaign accounts
unless the membership is tied to a specific fundraiser or part of the
official’s job. That wouldn’t cover a posh gym, but a lunch club close to
the Capitol is OK, according to Craig Engle, a Republican campaign finance
lawyer.

The 116 Club, however exclusive, is not fancy. One member, who requested
anonymity because members aren’t supposed to discuss the club with the
press, described the décor as “early American attic.”

But it is reputed to have the city’s best crab cakes. Besides the signature
dish, the menu changes daily, with emphasis on Southern staples like
catfish and black-eyed peas, Williams said.

Williams said Sessions is not a regular but he has seen the senator there a
handful of times over several years.

Sessions’ decades in the Senate look likely to smooth his path to
confirmation despite allegations of racism that bucked his 1986 judicial
nomination. Democrats have said Sessions won’t avoid tough questions just
because he’s a colleague, but quick endorsements from moderate Judiciary
Committee moderates like Jeff Flake (R-Ariz), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and
Susan Collins (R-Maine) all but ensure his success.

Still, the transition is mounting a public-relations campaign to support
Sessions’ nomination, including spending more than $100,000 on DC-area
digital ads and rounding up praise from black leaders.

Though undeniably a creature of Washington, Sessions’ hardline views of
immigration, which had long made him an outlier in the Senate, also made
him the chamber’s earliest Trump backer.

“Sen. Sessions has served the state of Alabama in public life for nearly
four decades and has been outspoken about his principles along the way,
which is why he was one of the earliest endorsers of President-Elect
Trump,” Sarah Isgur Flores, a Republican strategist who is working on
guiding Sessions through the confirmation process. “He might be the last
person anyone would accuse him of being too cozy with the Washington
establishment.”

Joining the 116 Club requires the recommendation of two members and
approval by the board. Locals pay $1,500 to join and $60 a month, while
government employees pay $100 upfront and $25 monthly, according to Stacy
Paleologos, the club’s manager. Her late father, John, used to manage the
club and owned Washington restaurants Carrigan's, the Robin Hood and the
Assembly.

The club, at 234 Third Street NE, takes its name from its original location
— through a hidden metal gate, up the stairs, past six row houses to 116
Schott’s Court — now the Hart Senate Office Building. It descended from the
Quorum Club, founded by Bobby G. Baker, an LBJ protégé who went to prison
in an influence peddling case.

“It's the sort of club where people in high places can be comfortable
without feeling that they're in a fishbowl,” an unnamed club member told
the New York Times in 1974
<http://www.nytimes.com/1974/11/06/archives/the-116-a-club-for-capitals-in-people-effect-on-legislation-the-116.html?_r=0>.
“The membership is the innermost of the ‘in’ group.”

“Much of the major Congressional legislation affecting billions and
billions of dollars is either written or influenced there,” said another in
that article. “But you'll never see in The New York Times or The Washington
Post that Senator Smith had lunch with Lobbyist Jones at the 116 Club.”
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Eric D. Schwerin
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com

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