Did your company donate to Trump’s ballroom project? Call your lawyer.

 

Did your company donate to Trump’s ballroom project? Call your lawyer.

 

Companies are bracing for an aggressive corruption hunt led by social media-savvy Democrats hungry to scrutinize dealings with the Trump administration.

By Oliver Ward and Daniel Barnes

10/29/2026 9:45 AM GMT+1 |Updated: 10/29/2026 10:09 PM GMT+1

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/29/oversight-lobbying-k-street-01139772

 

Donating to President Donald Trump’s pet projects may have seemed like a savvy corporate investment 18 months ago.

But today, companies are hiring lobbyists and crisis communications experts out of fear that their efforts to stay in the administration’s good graces may expose them to a hail of partisan crossfire if Democrats take over Congress.

Top congressional Democrats have already expressed interest in probing how technology giants like Meta, Nvidia and Amazon have worked with the Trump administration, rattling executives in other industries who fear they could also get targeted.

A broad range of technology, financial, cryptocurrency and industrial companies are now scrambling to get ahead of Democrats’ aggressive congressional oversight agenda if the party wins power next week, according to nine lobbyists, lawyers, public relations professionals and former congressional staffers who spoke to POLITICO.

They’re taking on outside legal counsel and contacting PR firms, particularly companies that donated to projects including the White House ballroom and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s road trip video series.

Law and lobbying firms on K Street have gone on an oversight-focused hiring spree in recent months, adding staff to handle increasing demand from clients. Some firms are reviewing their written communications with the White House to prepare for potential legal or reputational risks. Others are hiring lawyers who specialize in congressional investigations, arranging crisis communications plans or rehearsing for hearings.

Several are also meeting with Democratic offices as part of feverish preparations for the outcome of November’s midterms.

“The smart companies have not been waiting for the election results,” said Brian Bartlett, a partner at Kekst CNC, a strategic communications firm. “We’ve really been treating November as the deadline versus the starting gun.”

Corporate lobbying in advance of a new party takeover is a cherished election season tradition in Washington. Yet many of the lobbyists, PR advisers and lawyers POLITICO interviewed sense this time is different as their clients brace for an aggressive corruption hunt led by social media-savvy Democrats eager to scrutinize private-sector dealings with the administration.

“The most damaging allegations are allegations of a quid pro quo,” said Matthew Miller, a partner at strategic advisory firm Vianovo.

Democrats may be able to tie a company donation, gift or concession to the president to a favorable policy outcome. Companies will face pressure to demonstrate everything was above board, Miller said, even if they can show a legally justifiable cause for the favorable outcome.

Actual lawmaking will be tough in the immediate future. Even if Democrats walk away from November with House and Senate majorities, presidential vetoes and a Senate filibuster will pose a persistent constraint.

While some Democrats caution the party against using its investigative authority too broadly against corporate America, oversight-hungry lawmakers are signaling that they want to dig into everything from Trump’s trade pacts to a luxury jet gifted by the Qatari government.

But administration officials will “aggressively” resist these efforts, said Nathaniel Wienecke, a former House Oversight Committee aide who later founded Conscience Point Consulting.

“The only way that overseers are going to be able to get the information they’re looking for,” Wienecke said, “is to get it from individuals and companies who aren’t a co-equal branch of government and can be compelled to respond via subpoena.”

That dynamic leaves private companies vulnerable.

“[Democrats] can ask the administration all the questions they want — I doubt they’re going to get any answers,” said one Republican lobbyist at a major firm granted anonymity to speak candidly. “But companies are in a different spot. For the most part, they’re going to have to answer the mail when Congress asks them those questions.”

Congressional Democrats have spent much of 2026 previewing potential targets.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who is in line to chair the House Oversight Committee if Democrats win the House, demanded answers in August on a Defense Department loan to permanent magnets manufacturer Vulcan Elements.

Garcia also asked Taylor Farms, the company at the heart of this summer’s massive cyclospora outbreak, to turn over the firm’s communications with Trump officials connected to its donations to MAGA Inc. The company donated to the Trump PAC around the time the administration delayed a food safety rule related to tracing contaminated products, Garcia’s letter to the company’s CEO said.

Democrats will have no shortage of executives who cozied up to the Trump administration and may be able to shed light on its dealings with private companies.

Meta, for example, has donated to several administration projects, including Trump’s inauguration, the ballroom, Trump’s presidential library and the Kennedy Center, according to analysis from government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Companies in the prediction market, artificial intelligence, technology and cryptocurrency, and pharmaceutical spaces, among others, have also attracted Democrats’ attention.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) suggested one potential line of inquiry could target Amazon, the technology giant founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos.

“If federal contracting decisions are made not because a vendor has the best product or is offering it for the best price but because, in the case of Amazon, it was willing to pay $40 million for a crappy movie about Melania [Trump], is that resulting in Amazon getting an advantage in cloud computing contracts or other defense contracts?” Schiff told POLITICO in a September interview.

“That’s the kind of thing that costs taxpayers money, costs consumers more money, and there have been so many business payoffs of one sort or another,” Schiff said.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has sent prying letters to Meta, Amazon, Google and Microsoft over subsidies they received for data center development. She’s also queried Nvidia over its compliance with antitrust laws and prediction market giants Kalshi and Polymarket over a deal Trump made with the Treasury Department to secure immunity from tax audits.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, has been equally aggressive in pushing private companies for details on their links to administration policy actions.

Wyden pressed health insurers including Cigna and UnitedHealthcare this week for details on whether they worked with the administration to remove patients from Affordable Care Act coverage.

“Sen. Wyden will pursue the facts about Donald Trump’s corrupt dealings within the administration and with the private sector,” Wyden spokesperson Keith Chu said in a statement. “To do that he plans to seek information from any government or third-party entity who has relevant information. Everything is on the table.”

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) also warned Elon Musk earlier this month that “subpoenas are coming” to scrutinize Starlink’s relationship with Russia after Ukrainians reported interrupted service.

The risks for companies getting caught up in these fact-finding efforts extend well beyond the legal realm.

The prospect of Democrats taking control of the House is causing particular angst in C-suites and company boards because a crop of committee chairs adept at creating viral committee hearing moments is set to receive gavels and subpoena powers.

Hearings “create exposure” said Emily Loeb, a leader of the congressional oversight practice at law firm Jenner & Block. “An engagement with the administration that is lawful can still be brand-damaging if it’s portrayed as improper or as a reason for higher consumer costs. So we’re constantly thinking about the 360-degree risk of engagement with Congress and what are the downstream impacts.”

Companies view the 2023 House Education and Workforce Committee hearings on campus antisemitism as a cautionary tale, said Jonathan Becker, a partner at law firm Mayer Brown. The hearings garnered national attention and prompted powerful university officials to resign.

“You get a viral moment,” Becker said, “the reputational hit that normally is associated with a congressional hearing is that much more pronounced.”

Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee have already demanded information from more than 20 companies that sponsored events celebrating the country’s 250th anniversary this summer — including defense contractors, tech companies and the Ultimate Fighting Championship — forecasting investigations into allegations that fundraisers sold access to the president.

Companies on the receiving end of stern letters from lawmakers are not waiting for subpoenas to drop. They’re working with outside law firms to prepare documents, witnesses and messages for potential hearings, said Robert Kelner, the co-head of the congressional investigations practice at law firm Covington & Burling.

“There’s a great variety of approaches that companies take,” Kelner said. “Some companies are trying to reestablish connections on the Democratic side of the aisle. Other companies are battening down the hatches.”

Kalshi said it has been “building relationships” with lawmakers from both parties and their offices for more than a year.

“We have a sense of what members of Congress are interested in and where some questions lie,” a company representative said in a statement. But they stressed Kalshi has done “nothing intentional” to prepare for Democratic control, saying the company does not see oversight “as a partisan issue.”

The other companies mentioned in this story did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Some companies are also lining up customers, suppliers and local chambers of commerce to publicly amplify their messages and stress their importance for local jobs and communities should they get caught in the interparty crossfire.

There are advantages to putting these allies on alert and building those relationships now, Bartlett argued.

“If you start to try to do those in February, then it looks like damage control,” he said.

Chris Marquette contributed to this report.

 

Villa Vie Odyssey: The Truth Is Worse Than We Thought

Villa Vie Odyssey: The Truth About The Never-Ending Cruise That Ended

 

The cursed cruise: how the dream of never-ending luxury at sea became a nightmare

 

The Saturday readCruises

The cursed cruise: how the dream of never-ending luxury at sea became a nightmare

Oliver Holmes in Bangkok, Daniel Boffey in London and Adeshola Ore in Melbourne

The company pulled the plug on the cruise after it said monthly fuel costs per cabin had gone from $1,800 to as much as $8,000. Illustration: Guardian Design

The MV Odyssey was billed as the ultimate escape from Donald Trump. Instead, the oil shock caused by his war has left passengers unceremoniously dumped in Cambodia

Sat 31 Oct 2026 04.00 CET

https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/oct/31/mv-odyssey-cruise-passengers-nightmare-stranded-cambodia

 

The idea was a never-ending retirement at sea, a continuous voyage around the globe. The promise to the passengers of the MV Odyssey cruise ship – many approaching the autumn of their lives – was that on the open seas they could cut loose from the troubles of the world. But the world had other ideas.

The end came in an announcement as stark as it was brief: they had seven hours to get off. They were going no further than Cambodia.

The Odyssey, owned by Florida-based Villa Vie Residences, which had first set sail from Belfast, Northern Ireland, in October 2024, made an explicit offer: Donald Trump had been re-elected to the White House, and this was a way for those ill-disposed to the president to enjoy a four-year “skip forward”.

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Passengers disembark from the Odyssey at Sihanoukville port in Cambodia. Photograph: Kith Serey/EPA

For $319,998, a couple seeking such an escape could head off to the high seas for the length of a presidential term and come back from their journey to nowhere when the danger had passed – or not. For those who had simply had enough, there was a permanent residency option for a few hundred thousand more. Depending on the package, there were also monthly fees on top, which covered food, drinks, wifi, wellness programmes and room cleaning. They would have access to a pool, a pickleball court, a theatre, several bars and a gym. Exotic port destinations would be visited along the way.

It was by no means cheap – but the Odyssey was quite accurately billed as the “affordable” option for those interested in such a cocoon. The pioneer in the world of “residential ships”, a vessel called MS The World, offered apartments that typically ranged from $2m to $15m, with the pampered passengers getting to choose where it would go. For that experience, there was a waiting list.

The Odyssey was not in that league. Rather than built as a residential ship, it had previously been a traditional cruise liner named MS Braemar. Under that name, it had been turned away from several ports in the Caribbean during the pandemic when its passengers became ill. Cuba finally allowed it to dock, but the vessel never went into service as MS Braemar again. It was sold off by Fred Olsen cruises and adapted by its new owners. Villa Vie described the three-decade-old restructured vessel as “an intimate residential cruise ship offering a new way to live”.

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Passengers onboard the then-MS Braemar wait to disembark in Mariel, Cuba, in March 2020. Photograph: Adalberto Roque/AFP/Getty Images

At 642ft (196 metres) long, it was a relatively small ship, but at such prices, and with the world being held firmly at bay, what could go wrong? Neither the more than 200 passengers on the Odyssey nor its cruise operator foresaw the consequences of Trump’s war in Iran. The reality was, there was no escaping the US president.

On Tuesday, Villa Vie Residences issued a statement. It had run out of money owing to the soaring price of oil. Monthly fuel costs per cabin in parts of Asia had risen to as much as $8,000 from $1,800, placing it “under unsustainable financial pressure”, it announced.

“Since the conflict began in late February, we have taken significant steps to reduce fuel consumption, including slowing the itinerary and spending more time in port,” the company said, explaining the slow death of its business model. “Those measures have not been enough to offset the extraordinary increase in fuel costs, and we have been unable to continue carrying the resulting operating losses.”

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The Villa Vie Odyssey cruise ship leaves Belfast. Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA

The Odyssey’s passengers were told to pack up their belongings before being transported on buses into the Cambodian port city of Sihanoukville on the Gulf of Thailand. “We are working with residents to coordinate disembarkation and temporary living arrangements, and are supporting residents, crew, and employees as we evaluate restructuring and recapitalisation alternatives over the next 60 days,” the company said.

“People were shell-shocked, numb, crying,” said one passenger, Kit Cassingham from the US, who spent two years on the ship with her husband, Randy. They had made their cabin into a home, putting down their own rugs and pictures on the wall. “People were angry. They were hysterical. They were sad … Disbelief,” she added. “I mean, that whole gamut of, what is it, the five stages of grief.”

Most of the passengers on the Odyssey were Americans, travelling with an international group of 156 crew members, including a ship’s doctor and two nurses. Many of the passengers were retired or digital nomads. One woman, Holly Hennessy, had been living happily with her cat, Captain, since the ship set sail two years ago.

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Holly Hennessy with her Siamese cat, Captain, in Belfast. Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA

One couple, Lanette Canen and Johan Bodin, who said they had bought a cabin with a 15-year guarantee, had been documenting their life at sea on YouTube, including the lead-up to the fateful announcement. The signs of financial distress had been apparent for weeks, they said.

“I’m Mr Super Positive, and I’ve felt really drained the last two months,” Bodin recounted in a video.

Footage from inside the ship’s lounge on the final night showed residents drinking, as rumours spread that their voyage might be over. Cruise ship staff had requested each passenger contribute $1,800 to ensure the ship had funds to travel to Bangkok.

The next day, the couple posted an update showing the inside of their cabin as a voice on the loudspeaker said the ship’s operator had “unfortunately” been “unable to secure the fuel necessary to continue operations”. An email was sent requesting that everyone disembark by 2pm.

“We knew the worst-case scenarios, but we didn’t think it would come to reality, which it did,” said Rina Cavazza, a pilates instructor from Brisbane, Australia.

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Rina Cavazza’s cabin on the Villa Vie Odyssey. Photograph: supplied

Another passenger, Sherrie Cornett, wrote on Facebook that they were “dropped unceremoniously in the middle of town, left to our own devices”.

The company has not provided financial aid, passengers said, or even supplied a list of hotels in Cambodia. It later offered tickets for a charter flight to the US, although many passengers had already left. The company has been contacted for comment.

Kit and Randy Cassingham, now in a hotel in Cambodia, reflected on how life changed on the ship once the Iran war began, with ominous signs that the company was running out of money. The food quality began to deteriorate, and there was less of it; there were fewer excursions on shore, they said.

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Randy and Kit Cassingham: ‘Live life while you can because you don’t know how the adventure will turn out.’ Photograph: Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP/Getty Images

“I realised as soon as the strait of Hormuz incident came along, the energy of the ship changed,” Kit said. “I think it was because the ship management realised how much more this was going to cost. And then they were starting to do cutbacks that we weren’t aware of yet.”

Far from being a haven, the ship became a microcosm for the global economic turmoil. “I watched the world, and I don’t even pay attention to the news, but I’ve watched it just kind of crumble and shatter,” said Kit. “And I’m thinking, ‘it’s going to be difficult no matter what’.”

Randy said the writing had long been on the wall. They were, after all, on a ship that “drinks petrol by the metric tonne”. “You know, literally they’re buying 150 metric tonnes of fuel at a time,” he said. “We’re talking about $800,000 if we tried to get a full tank.”

While docked in Singapore in August, passengers had already been told the company did not have enough money to continue cruising, and several of the residents had contributed their own funds to get it moving again.

“Very few expect to get any money back because we know that they [the company] have been in terrible money problems from the beginning,” said Randy. Passengers had also passed a jar around for money for the crew, who are also stuck in Cambodia, he said.

Will the story of the Odyssey put people off cruises? It is unlikely, said Prof Andrew Coggins, an industry analyst, who pointed to an unprecedented boom since the end of the Covid pandemic, with global passengers reaching a historical high of 37.2 million in 2025.

Those numbers were in part because of “pent up demand” from those who had been unable to enjoy a cruise during the pandemic years, he said. But it was also the case, he said, that a cruise could offer good value for money. “You get to be pampered, you pack and unpack once, but you see different places, you eat better food than you would get at home, and then you have the romance of going to sea,” he said.

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Going nowhere: the Villa Vie Odyssey at Sihanoukville port in Cambodia. Photograph: Kith Serey/EPA

Residential ships such as the Odyssey were, though, in a very small category of their own, Coggins added. “The World is the only other one I know about and I think there are a couple that are trying to start up,” he said. But the finances are notoriously difficult. In 2023, a three-year cruise offered by Miray Cruises, with fares starting at $30,000 per person per year, including accommodation, food, drinks, laundry and even health care, was cancelled weeks before its due departure date owing to an inability to make the sums add up.

To survive choppy world markets, charges to the passengers have to be high, necessitating a concomitant level of luxury. “The World was actually built as a residential ship,” Coggins said. “The cabins or the state rooms are much bigger.”

Speaking earlier in the week, Mikael Petterson, who launched Villa Vie Residences in 2023, accepted that he was the “villain in the story” but said he was doing everything he could to help the stranded passengers. “Nobody that’s tried residential cruising has succeeded and we have gone further than anyone else,” he said. “But I think we would have been absolutely fine and we would have seen this through, if there was no Iran war.”

Back in Cambodia, Randy has been blogging to keep people updated while they work out what to do next. But he isn’t bitter. For all the promises, he said, all good things must come to an end. “Our message is that we’re not saying ‘poor me’. We know that people are having trouble, that they’re trying to put fuel in their cars, food in their mouths. And we’re very lucky. We’re not crying in our soup. So we are completely aware that we’re very lucky and that we’re going to land on our feet and be OK.”

Kit, a transformation coach, agreed. “This isn’t a pity party for us,” she said. “We actually want to say to people: ‘Live your dreams. Go for the gusto. Live life while you can because you don’t know how the adventure will turn out’.”

Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces That Threaten Our World by Michael E Mann (Author), Peter J Hotez (Author)

 

Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces That Threaten Our World

English edition  by Michael E Mann (Author), Peter J Hotez (Author)  Format: Hardcover

4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars   (169)

 

In this "well-researched guide," two of the world's most respected scientists reveal the forces behind the dangerous anti-science movement--and offer "powerful ideas about how to fight back" (Bill McKibben, author of Here Comes the Sun)

"Science is indeed under siege, and that's not good for any of us. Here, Peter Hotez and Michael Mann name names...It's not too late to do something; it's time to get things done. Read on" (Bill Nye, science educator)

From pandemics to the climate crisis, humanity faces tougher challenges than ever. Whether it's the health of our people or the health of our planet, we know we are on an unsustainable path. But our efforts to effectively tackle these existential crises are now hampered by a common threat: politically and ideologically motivated opposition to science.

Michael E. Mann and Peter J. Hotez are two of the most respected and well-known scientists in the world and have spent the last twenty years on the front lines of the battle to convey accurate, reliable, and trustworthy information about science in the face of determined and nihilistic opposition.

In this powerful manifesto, they reveal the five main forces threatening science: plutocrats, pros, petrostates, phonies, and the press. It is a call to arms and a road map for dismantling the forces of anti-science. Armed with the information in this book, we can be empowered to promote scientific truths, shine light on channels of dark money, dismantle the corporations poisoning the planet, and ultimately avert disaster.

The Cost of Cutting Science Funding

 

‘Very Orwellian’: Scientists reacts to Trump allowing political appointees to ‘correct’ science