Yesterday, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol filed a highly consequential brief in ongoing litigation relating to a subpoena seeking documents involving attorney John Eastman’s alleged participation in efforts to thwart Congress’s certification of the results of the 2020 Presidential election.
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Robert Kelner
Robert Kelner is the chair of Covington’s nationally recognized Election and Political Law Practice Group. He counsels clients on the full range of political law compliance matters, and defends clients in civil and criminal law enforcement investigations concerning political activity. He also leads the firm’s prominent congressional investigations practice.
Rob’s political law compliance practice covers federal and state campaign finance, lobbying disclosure, pay to play, and government ethics laws. His expertise includes the Federal Election Campaign Act, Lobbying Disclosure Act, Ethics in Government Act, Foreign Agents Registration Act, and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
He is also a leading authority on the arcane rules governing political contributions and marketing activities by registered investment advisers and municipal securities dealers.
Rob's political law clients include numerous multinational corporations, many of which are household names. He counsels major banks, hedge funds, private equity funds, trade associations, PACs, political party committees, candidates, lobbying firms, and politically active high-net-worth individuals. He has represented the Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee, and National Republican Senatorial Committee. He also advises Presidential political appointees on the complex vetting and confirmation process.
As a partner in the firm’s White Collar Defense & Investigations practice group, Rob regularly defends clients in congressional investigations before virtually every major congressional investigation committee. He also defends corporations and others in investigations by the Federal Election Commission, the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, federal Offices of Inspector General, and the House & Senate Ethics Committees. He has prepared many CEOs and corporate executives for testimony before congressional investigation panels. He regularly leads the Practicing Law Institute’s training program on congressional investigations for in-house lawyers. In addition, he is frequently retained to lead internal investigations and compliance reviews for major corporate clients concerning lobbying and campaign finance law issues.
Rob has appeared as a commentator on political law matters on The PBS News Hour, CNBC, Fox News, and NPR, and he has been quoted in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Legal Times, Roll Call, The Hill, Politico, USA Today, Financial Times, and other publications.
Rob is Chairman of Covington’s Professional Responsibility Committee and a General Counsel of the firm. He also currently serves as Chairman of the District of Columbia Bar’s Legislative Practice Committee, and he previously was appointed by the President of the American Bar Association to serve on the ABA’s Standing Committee on Election Law.
FEC Provides Short Webinar Training for Candidate Committees
The Federal Election Commission (“FEC”) is offering a 90-minute online training session on Wednesday, April 7th, for campaign committees that use FECFile to file their disclosure reports. The purpose of this training is to address common filing problems and to provide answers to questions committees may have prior to their…
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Financial Institutions and Congressional Investigations – 2020 into 2021
Financial institutions are consistently targets of congressional oversight interest. In the last Congress, House and Senate committees held hearings with, demanded documents from, requested interviews with, and hosted briefings from a number of bank and non-bank financial institutions regarding a variety of issues. In a recent client alert, we…
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Covington Publishes Comprehensive Advisory Comparing Biden and Trump Executive Orders on Ethics
The ethics rules that apply to Presidential appointees shifted Wednesday, in some ways significantly, as President Biden, just hours after being sworn in, signed an “Executive Order on Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel” and President Trump, just hours before his term expired, revoked his Executive Order on …
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DOJ Announces Arrest in New FARA Case
The U.S. Department of Justice today announced the arrest of an alleged agent of the Iranian government, who has been charged with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”). The defendant is an Iranian political scientist, living in the United States as a permanent resident. The Justice Department alleges that…
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Covington Releases Investigations Manual for House and Senate Chiefs of Staff
Today Covington released an updated version of its manual for Chiefs of Staff to Members of Congress concerning best practices for responding to government investigations of Members and their staff. Titled “A How-To Guide for Chiefs of Staff,” the manual describes how government investigations of Members and staff unfold and…
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A Curious Advisory Opinion Reinterprets the FARA Exemption for Lawyers (and Resolves a FARA Mystery)
Last week, the Department of Justice’s FARA Unit released a curious advisory opinion. The new opinion stated that it replaced an advisory opinion released by the Department in December 2019, and it revised the Department’s guidance on the scope of the lawyers’ exemption to FARA. As far as we can…
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Sen. Grassley’s Unsuccessful Effort to Pass FARA Reform Legislation Leads to Bipartisan Commitment for Comprehensive Review of the Law
On Wednesday, December 16, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sought, and failed to achieve, unanimous consent to pass legislation that would have granted significant new powers to the Department of Justice to enforce compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act. In objecting to passage, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said that the…
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A Primer for Navigating the Presidential Appointee Vetting and Confirmation Process
With the election over, the process of selecting and vetting individuals to fill the next administration’s key appointed positions is quickly shifting into high gear. For those who are called to serve in such positions, the decision to enter the process may be one of the most important and life-changing…
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Guidelines for Interacting with the Biden-Harris Transition and the Biden Inaugural Committee
With the election over, attention now turns to the transition and the upcoming inauguration of the new Biden-Harris Administration. In this alert, which will be of interest to chief compliance officers and many others across the country, Covington’s Election and Political Law Practice Group provides insight into what promises…
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