DNC’s Opposition Research Dragnet

FOIAengine: Latest Requests About Vance Target More Companies

The Democratic National Committee’s latest Freedom of Information Act requests reveal an expanded effort to dig up details about possible federal investigations into various companies associated with Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio). 

The FOIA requests, made during August, broadened the DNC’s opposition-research efforts by seeking information from three federal regulatory agencies about contacts the agencies’ senior officials may have had with anyone from companies that Vance has been associated with. 

The requests – to the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Securities and Exchange Commission – appear in PoliScio Analytics’ competitive-intelligence database FOIAengine, which tracks FOIA requests in as close to real-time as their availability allows. 

Vance’s candidacy appears to have reactivated the DNC’s use of FOIA.  After logging more than 400 oppo requests in FOIAengine during 2022 and 2023, mostly about prospective Republican presidential nominees, the DNC went dormant until Vance’s nomination in July.  That month, the DNC jumped back into the FOIA oppo game, filing six requests with the SEC targeting Vance and his partners at various venture-capital firms before his election to the Senate.  (See our article “Got Dirt? Democrats Ask the SEC About JD Vance.”)

The DNC’s 11 August requests went further, seeking investigative records and agency contacts concerning three other companies that Vance was associated with, or has investments in:  Kriya Therapeutics, AppHarvest, and Rumble. 

The inquiries about Rumble, a “free speech” video platform that Vance has personally invested in, represent a signal that Democrats may be seeking to revive past claims that “Vance profits off of a company spreading Putin’s propaganda.  Is it any wonder he doesn’t really care what happens to Ukraine?”   During Vance’s Senate run in 2022, the fact-checking site Politifact found that there was “some accuracy” to the allegation.  Rumble became the primary host for content from the Russia state-affiliated media outlet RT after You Tube banned RT from its platform following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

The SEC and the FTC identified Caroline Graham, DNC’s research director, as having made the latest FOIA requests about Vance.  The FDA, following its policy, named only the DNC. 

Here’s a breakdown of what the DNC sought:

• Two requests to the FDA concerned Kriya Therapeutics, a gene therapy start-up that Narya Capital, Vance’s venture-capital firm, has invested in.  Although earlier Vance financial disclosures listed Kriya as one of Vance’s personal holdings, Kriya isn’t mentioned on his most recent post-nomination 2024 financial disclosure that was filed on August 9.  Regarding Kriya, the DNC’s first request to the FDA sought “records in the possession of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research [for] all complaints, inspection records, or testing records.”  A second asked for “all complaints, inspection records, testing records, citations, or remedial actions in the FDA’s possession” relating to Kriya’s locations in California and North Carolina.   
• A request to the FTC sought “complaints, violations, and investigations that mention Rumble, Inc. or any employee or officer of Rumble, as well as records of any actions or reports related to such investigations” from 2019 to 2024.  Vance has multiple connections to Rumble, a right-tilting platform that fashions itself as an alternative to You Tube:  Rumble hosts former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social; in 2021, Vance’s Narya Capital invested in the platform along with billionaire Peter Thiel.  Rumble also is an “official streaming partner” of the Republican National Committee.    
• Seven requests to the SEC were variations on the same Rumble theme, seeking to document “complaints, violations and investigations that mention Rumble, Inc. or any employee or officer of Rumble, as well as records of any actions or reports related to such investigations.”  The DNC also sought communications between past and present SEC commissioners and Enforcement Division leaders and various Rumble executives and board members, including CEO Chris Pavlovski.  Earlier this year, Wired.com reported that the SEC confirmed Rumble was the subject of an “active and ongoing” SEC investigation, but didn’t provide details. 
• Two other requests to the SEC sought information about possible SEC contacts with, or investigations of , the snake-bitten “indoor farming” start-up called AppHarvest.  That Narya-funded enterprise, with Martha Stewart among its board members, quickly shot up to a $3.7 billion valuation only to file for bankruptcy two years later, amid lawsuits.

Update:    There’s been a new development in the FOIA back-and-forth between the New York Times and the FDA over potential conflicts involving Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, until recently FDA’s director of the Center for Devices and Radiological Health.  Last week, the Times reported that two Democratic members of Congress asked the FDA inspector general to initiate an ethics investigation.  The lawmakers cited the recently published Times investigation documenting conflicts of interest between FDA’s Shuren and his wife, Allison Shuren, co-chair of the Arnold & Porter drug and medical device practice.  (See our first report on the Times’ FOIA requests, 13 months before the newspaper’s story dropped, here.)

FOIAengine access now is available for all professional members of Investigative Reporters and Editors, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of journalism.  IRE is the world’s oldest and largest association of investigative journalists.  Following the federal government’s shutdown of FOIAonline.gov last year, FOIAengine is the only source for the most comprehensive, fully searchable archive of FOIA requests across dozens of federal departments and agencies.   FOIAengine has more robust functionality and searching capabilities, and standardizes data from different agencies to make it easier to work with.  PoliScio Analytics is proud to be partnering with IRE to provide this valuable content to investigative reporters worldwide.    

To see all the requests mentioned in this article, log in or sign up to become a FOIAengine user. 

Next:  How the Republican National Committee Uses FOIA. 

John A. Jenkins, co-creator of FOIAengine, is a Washington journalist and publisher whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, GQ, and elsewhere.  He is a four-time recipient of the American Bar Association’s Gavel Award Certificate of Merit for his legal reporting and analysis.  His most recent book is The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist.  Jenkins founded Law Street Media in 2013.  Prior to that, he was President of CQ Press, the textbook and reference publishing enterprise of Congressional Quarterly.  FOIAengine is a product of PoliScio Analytics (PoliScio.com), a new venture specializing in U.S. political and governmental research, co-founded by Jenkins and Washington lawyer Randy Miller.  Learn more about FOIAengine here.  To review FOIA requests mentioned in this article, subscribe to FOIAengine.    

Write to John A. Jenkins at JAJ@PoliScio.com.