ICYMI: Key GOP Senate Recruit Seeks Job Overseeing His Largest Customer [Bloomberg Government]

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Bloomberg Government: Key GOP Senate Recruit Seeks Job Overseeing His Largest Customer
By Zach C. Cohen and Caleb Harshberger
June 30, 2023

Key points:

• Candidate Tim Sheehy runs a company that gets most of its money from federal government contracts, presenting potential conflict-of-interest questions that US Senate hopefuls usually don’t face.

• Bridger has brought in about $87.6 million in unclassified federal contract awards since its founding in 2014, according to Bloomberg Government data. In 2022, it pulled in nearly $50 million in federal business. Federal contracts accounted for 96% of the company’s revenue in 2022, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

• Sheehy directly or indirectly held more than 12 million shares in Bridger, according to a May disclosure with the SEC. They would be worth over $66 million as of Thursday. Private equity behemoth Blackstone Inc. is the company’s largest single stockholder.

• Sheehy will have to consider how to handle votes on matters including wildfire management requirements and funding for the Interior Department and Forest Service.

• “There are genuine conflicts of interest if he is receiving funds and government contracts,” Holman said. “Sheehy’s company also has retained outside lobbyists with ties to the Senate. Disclosure reports show that the company paid Crossroads Strategies $370,000 for lobbying from Sept. 1, 2021 to Dec. 1, 2022. It was represented during that period by the firm’s former Senate Appropriations Committee staffers.

• After Sheehy announced his candidacy, Rosendale — who hasn’t said whether he’ll run again for the Senate — responded with a barbed “Congratulations to Mitch McConnell and the party bosses … “Unfortunately for them, Montanans don’t take orders from Washington,” Rosendale tweeted.”
  

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