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Report: PwC and Deloitte Among Companies That Have Continued to Make Political Donations to Republican Lawmakers Who Voted to Overturn Presidential Election

Posted on by Jason Bramwell

Shortly after the riot at the U.S. Capitol last Jan. 6, the Big 4 each put out statements saying they were either suspending all political contributions or suspending PAC funding to the 147 Republican members of Congress who voted to overturn the presidential election results. It was a move, they said, to “facilitate a smooth transition to the Biden/Harris administration,” “support a peaceful transfer of power,” and to “restore peace so we can move forward together as a nation.”

A year later, corporate PAC contributions to Republican election objectors have decreased by nearly two-thirds, according to the website Popular Information which reviewed Federal Election Commission filings in 2021 and 2019. And since the chaos at the Capitol happened a year ago tomorrow, 79 major corporations—including Allstate, Nike, and Walgreens—have kept their promises of not donating directly to Republican lawmakers who objected to the election results or to multicandidate committees that support these Republicans, like the National Republican Campaign Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Popular Information reported.

Popular Information goes on to say:

Another 26 companies — including Comcast, Dell, and Google — have not donated to individual Republican objectors but have donated to committees like the NRCC and NRSC. 58 companies—including Eli Lilly, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and American Airlines—have directly violated their pledge by donating directly to Republican objectors.

According to Popular Information’s January 6 corporate accountability index, PwC has donated $124,000 to 27 Republican objectors since last January, $15,000 to the NRSC on both July 7 and Oct. 5, 2021, and $15,000 to the NRCC on both July 21 and Sept. 30, 2021.

Deloitte and EY are two of the 52 companies that Popular Information said “pledged to suspend all PAC donations. Since then, they’ve donated directly to one or more of the 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the election. Some have also donated to multi-candidate committees that primarily support Republican objectors.”

While we don’t know the extent of EY’s political giving since the Jan. 6 insurrection, Popular Information founder and journalist Judd Legum tweeted about Deloitte’s political contributions on Monday:

KPMG is one of 16 companies that Popular Information said “violated the spirit of the pledge” by giving contributions to the NRCC or NRSC.

After January 6, KPMG said: “The KPMG PAC is imposing a moratorium on contributions to Members of Congress who supported objections to state certifications of the 2020 presidential election results, during which time we will re-evaluate our approach to PAC giving.”  KPMG donated $15,000 to the NRSC on June 30.

Were the statements released by the Big 4 after the siege of the Capitol on Jan. 6 saying they were suspending political contributions and doing their part to “help our great nation come together and heal” nothing more than good PR? Yes. But—and defending the Big 4 makes me vomit in my mouth a bit—they said they were “suspending” not “ceasing” political contributions to those Congressional Republicans and the committees that support them.

Popular Information saying that the Big 4 “violated their promises” is incorrect. The word “suspending” is defined as “temporarily prevent from continuing or being in force or effect.” Knowing how shady the Big 4 is, suspending political contributions to those 147 Republicans and those two committees could have meant one day, one week, one month, three months. Only they know. Anyone who thinks the Big 4 would completely cut off these political contributions lives in a world of make-believe.

Related article:

Political Contributions Watch: Big 4 Suspends Donations to Lawmakers Who Voted Against Certifying Election Results

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Blind Item: Which Big 4 CEO Sent This Poorly Timed Email About Working in the Wee Hours of the Morning?

In light of recent events, the following email was forwarded to us with our tipster admitting that intentions were good while the timing was not.

I recently met with a [BIG executive] who formerly served as a Former Big Four partner and [some hotshot internal group (I think)]. Most of the discussion was focused on how we might help [BIG executive’s company] with their global HR transformation. Quite unexpectedly, he began our meeting with a story about a senior manager on our team, [Sally Worksherassoff].

Just a day earlier, he had asked [Sally Worksherassoff] if she could find any information explaining the relevance of Dodd-Frank legislation to Human Resource leaders. When he woke up the next morning, he noticed that [Sally Worksherassoff] had emailed a whitepaper outlining exactly what he needed…at 2:00 am. The timing was critical, as he needed to deliver a presentation to [BIG executive’s company] leaders later in the day. After I left [BIG executive]’s offices, he sent an unprompted note to our project team recounting this story and remarking that “seemingly small things like this can add significant value to [BIG executive’s company].” The subject header of his note: How to “wow” a client.

My takeaway: small things, big difference. It can be easy to get lulled into reserving our extra energy and special effort for those situations, requests, and issues that seem like “big deals”. But as our client pointed out, there are no small things when it comes to delivering an exceptional client experience.

— [Big 4 CEO]

First-Generation Americans’ Parents Need Convincing That Accounting Is a Better Career Choice Than Law

As we all know, the Big 4 are more than happy to market themselves as the melting pots of the professional services world. First in your family to go to college? Great! Not an Ivy League graduate? No problem! Completely devoid of WASPyness? Even better! With the relative success of the firms to market this inclusive culture, however, Reuters reports that the biggest challenge is convincing the parents of first-generation recruits that accounting is just as worthy of a career path as medicine or law:

Accounting has long provided a path for first-generation Americans into the professional classes. Good pay and a focus on numbers makes it an attractive career choice. Still, recruiting the children of immigrants is complex, say some Certified Public Accountants (CPAs). Parents’ opinions are influential and they often don’t know the field, a problem that alternatives like medicine or the law don’t face. Once on the job, first-generation CPAs can face new challenges like decoding the relationship-driven, sometimes self-promotional American business culture.

Makes sense to me. Medicine is easy because doctors are in the life-saving business. Law is attractive because parents hope that they might become Jack McCoy or the protagonist in a John Grisham novel. But accounting? Jesus, numbers are boring, it’s not even a real profession:

When Maria Castanon Moats, PwC’s chief diversity officer, told her family that she planned to be a CPA, she remembers her parents asked “Why not be a lawyer?”

“They did not understand this accounting thing … To them, a professional was an attorney or a doctor,” said Moats, 43. Moats, who emigrated from Mexico at the age of one with her father, a migrant farmworker, said the profession appealed to her because it brought stability. High ethical standards and integrity, strong values in her family, were also important. Now, as part of the firm’s 14-member leadership team, she welcomes young recruits with a similar background. “The first generation really wants to be successful to make their parents proud. They are committed and loyal,” she said.

We’ve had the accounting vs. law debate before and we don’t to call Elie Mystal in here to explain why pursuing a career in a law is a risky proposition. The Reuters article doesn’t come out and say it but it really amounts to candidates educating their parents about the advantages to pursuing a career in accounting. Recruiters at the Big 4 can’t really say, “Clue your parents in,” so they put on aggressive marketing campaigns to tout diversity and inclusion. The students take this message back to mom and dad (along with salary ranges) and they start warming up to the idea. This way, everyone is happy. The kids get a decent job; the parents can beam about the CPA in the family. Sure, accounting isn’t justice but it beats being unemployed and doing this:

Accounting can be door to U.S. professional class [Reuters]

7 thoughts on “Report: PwC and Deloitte Among Companies That Have Continued to Make Political Donations to Republican Lawmakers Who Voted to Overturn Presidential Election”

    1. As far as riots go, January 6 can fit in a thimble first of all.

      So can the credibility of any election in any part of the world conducted using mail-in ballots.

      So now we have almost all time low labor participation, lower than Jimmy Carter inflation and our profession needs more people than ever.

      Let’s worry about fish that actually fry!

    2. AMEN!!! This article is complete BULLSHIT!

      Go woke – be broke!

      Let’s Go Brandon

      Pronouns detected – Thoughts rejected

    1. Tupac is dead as dead can be…

      Why is there no insurrection bullshit about the storming of the Wisconsin Capital in 2011?

      demoRATs – 2022 is going to be a very tough year for you

  3. Reps. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., Barbara Lee, D-Calif., Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Jim McGovern, D-Mass., all objected to electoral votes in 2016 where was the outrage then?

    Just by objecting doesn’t mean they agree with the clownshow that went on that day.

    1. Yep – all the communist terrorists in our government get a free pass to spew what ever bullshit they want.

      You can usually vote in socialism – you always have to shoot your way out….

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