Profiles in Corruption

by Peter Schweizer

  The police eventually dropped the investigation.

  In 1990, Brown suffered his only electoral defeat when he lost the secretary of state’s position to Republican Bob Taft. After the loss, without skipping a beat, Brown pulled up stakes and moved back to northeastern Ohio to jump into a primary for a congressional seat that had just opened up near Cleveland.40

  Brown campaigned as a progressive populist and outsider. He was promising change and the opportunity to upend the establishment, and claimed to back term limits, restricting how long politicians could serve in office. Indeed, he even supported the idea that a twelve-year term limit should be “retroactive,” meaning if a term limit law was passed, one’s time served in office would already count against the limit. He denounced “old-timers” who stayed in Washington too long. “Voters support term limits because they want to get rid of the people who have been here for 20 or 30 years,” he proclaimed.41

  Brown went on the win the seat, but he would never honor his commitment to term limits. After serving for twelve years in Washington, Brown reversed course, explaining now that suddenly longevity in office was a good thing. Being in the nation’s capital longer was actually beneficial. Elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006, Brown has now been in Washington more than twenty-five years and counting.42

  Brown’s congressional career—in both the House and Senate—is marked by a devotion to progressive causes before they become widely supported within the Democratic Party. Brown’s efforts in the minutiae of health and medical issues—those that seem designed to help put a lot of money in the pocket of his brother—are less well known.

  Sherrod is extraordinarily close to both of his older brothers, Charlie and Robert. After Brown was first elected to the U.S. Congress, he recounted how he celebrated the following morning with “the people I care about the most.” It is a short list, including his parents (who have since passed away), his brothers, his daughters, and a niece. These were not simply polite words about family. When he set up his congressional office, he relied on a team of three individuals to screen senior staff. One of those was his brother Charlie.43

  They remain close to this day. So much so that Charlie is actively involved in Sherrod’s political career. During Brown’s 2018 Senate reelection, for example, Charlie served as a surrogate on the campaign trail, making appearances at Democratic Party events in Greene County and Montgomery County, where he shared his “insights into Sherrod’s 2018 re-election campaign.”44

  Charlie Brown was, like Sherrod, elected to public office at a young age. In his case, it was attorney general of West Virginia back in 1984, making him the youngest state attorney general in the country at that time. Sherrod traveled to West Virginia from Ohio to campaign for his brother.45 Unfortunately, Charlie’s tenure ended with multiple scandals, resulting in his resignation. First, he was indicted on charges of soliciting campaign contributions from his own staff in the attorney general’s office. Brown argued that while it was illegal to solicit such donations, he was asking for donations to retire old campaign debts so the law did not apply. He was charged anyway.46 Then there was the problem of perjury allegations stemming from his messy divorce case. While attorney general, Charlie Brown had allegedly impregnated his secretary and then paid her hush money after a supposed abortion—one she reportedly never had. The matter surfaced in his custody hearing involving his ex-wife and their five-year-old daughter. He was accused of lying under oath about the scandal involving his secretary.47

  Charlie Brown left political office and became a class-action lawyer focused on a number of health care issues, many highly controversial at best, some would say dubious. He and his legal partners have sued over vaccines, dental fillings, artificial sweeteners, and other products. His brother Sherrod, while serving in both Congress and the U.S. Senate, has appeared to work hard to clear the litigation path for his brother by pushing legislation or federal actions that would benefit his cases.

  Sherrod Brown has been a consistent supporter of trial lawyers during his Senate tenure. When legislation was introduced to limit attorney’s fees in class-action lawsuits, the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, Brown voted against it. When another piece of legislation was introduced to impose sanctions on attorneys and law firms who filed frivolous lawsuits, Brown voted against that, too.48 This is not unusual in Washington; trial attorneys are major contributors to politicians, especially to progressive politicians.49

  What makes Brown’s ties different is the fact that his brother is in the class-action lawsuit business.

  Since 1996, Charlie Brown has been affiliated with the law office of Swankin & Turner, a Washington, D.C., and Ohio–based firm that specializes in representing “businesses as well as individuals and consumer groups in a wide variety of regulatory matters concerning food, drug, health, environmental and product-safety matters.”50 The firm is headed by litigators and lobbyists who have been Sherrod Brown boosters. Among them is James S. Turner, who has himself charted a controversial legal path over the course of his career. He is also the founder and registered business agent for Anakosha, a “swingers club” in Florida, and a partner with the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom. Together they launched a “Swing Leadership Conference.”51

  Turner and his wife and son are decades-long donors to Sherrod Brown and Turner “aligns with the positions” of Sherrod, a political ally and friend.52

  Charlie’s work as an attorney has been challenged in the legal community. In 2007, the Washington, D.C., Bar Counsel found that he had shown “a disregard of certain ethical standards,” including filing frivolous lawsuits against defendants and filing a lawsuit without stating any legal or factual basis for the claims. They issued an informal admonition. Several years earlier, an Arizona Court of Appeals had ruled that his claims against certain defendants were “groundless” in a separate case. Eventually, the State Bar of Arizona issued Charlie “an order of informal reprimand and costs.”53

  Seemingly in support of their class-action lawsuits, Charlie Brown and James Turner run several health advocacy nonprofits out of the law firm and work closely with dozens of others. The organizations have official-sounding names like Citizens for Health; National Institute for Science, Law, and Public Policy; and Consumers for Dental Choice. Citizens for Health has gone after childhood vaccines (on the theory that they cause autism), fluoride in drinking water, artificial sweeteners, antibiotics in livestock, cell phone tower radiation, the cancerous risks of using mobile phones, and more.54

  There is a reason that these nonprofits are run out of the law firm: the groups may have altruistic motives, but the net effect is that they help advance the law firm’s litigation by raising medical issues and concerns. And Charlie Brown and his legal partners have latched on to every conceivable health issue or product and used it as an opportunity to litigate: vaccines, aspartame, and amalgamated dental fillings, to name a few.55 As we will see, Sherrod Brown has moved the levers of government in a manner beneficial to these lawsuits.

  It is important to note that the areas of Charlie’s litigation almost entirely overlap with his brother Sherrod’s committee assignments in Congress. Shortly after Sherrod was elected to Congress in 1992, he sought out a slot on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The powerful committee “has jurisdiction over the world,” bragged a former congressman, because it had a voice in anything dealing with commerce and energy broadly defined.56 Congressional Democrats granted him the post and gave Sherrod a perch on the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee.57

  His committee and subcommittee assignments also placed him in the perfect position to help his brother’s litigation, which would proceed against a variety of companies and interests. After the Republican sweep of Congress in the 1994 elections, he became the top Democrat on a powerful Commerce subcommittee that oversees health and environmental laws.58 These were precisely the areas that Charlie would be litigating.

  Almost as soon as he was in Congress, Sherrod was in a position to take
actions that could benefit his brother’s litigation. In 1996, Charlie started Consumers for Dental Choice (CDC), which would lobby for “mercury free” dentistry.59 As with Citizens for Health, CDC would be run out of Swankin & Turner.60 In the spring of that same year, a subcommittee of Sherrod’s Committee on Commerce sent a series of letters to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concerning delayed rulemakings in several areas including “dental amalgam ingredient labeling.” They wanted the FDA to expedite the rewriting of rules concerning possible warning labels for dental fillings.61

  Charlie began working with class-action attorneys around the country who sought large damages from the dental industry on the grounds that they had failed to disclose the ingredients in dental fillings. One lawsuit in Georgia alone sought damages that could potentially exceed $100 million.62

  Charlie’s legal cases rested on the widely disputed claim that dentists are poisoning millions of Americans by using amalgam fillings for cavities. Because the amalgam includes mercury, Brown claims that they are dangerous.63 Never mind that the practice has been widely used for decades and there is little or no scientific evidence to back up his claims.64 But if the FDA was to issue warning labels about the contents of amalgam, that might introduce consumer doubt—and potentially sway jurors.

  The lawsuits against dentists soon followed. In 2004, Charlie moderated a panel at the Association of Trial Lawyers concerning Mercury Silver Dental Fillings as the Next Mass Tort. Speakers included a Los Angeles–based class-action attorney who would partner with Charlie: Shawn Khorrami.65 The Khorrami firm was described as “one of the country’s most successful mass tort firms,” with verdicts and settlements worth some $2.5 billion.66 But it was also highly controversial: Khorrami has faced nineteen counts of misappropriating the funds of clients and in 2016 was disbarred by the California State Bar Association.67 Charlie was “of counsel” at Khorrami’s California-based firm. According to Khorrami’s website at the time, Charlie Brown “actively works on the Khorrami Firm’s cases relating to mercury fillings.”68 Khorrami later served as the lead national counsel at Consumers for Dental Choice.69

  At the association meeting in 2004, Charlie Brown explained: “This development puts every dentist in America on notice that if they continue to place mercury fillings in children or young women, they may well end up in a court of law.”70

  On September 8, 2005, Sherrod took another step that would directly benefit his brother and his law partners. He introduced a bill called the Medical Advertising Reform Act.71 The legislation would create new rules on prescription drug and medical device advertising directly to consumers. It was particularly focused on drugs like Celebrex and Bextra. Indeed, Sherrod mentioned them both by name. He went on: “This is a matter of life and death for millions of consumers. When lives are at risk, the stakes are too high to cross our fingers and hope drugmakers do the right thing.”72

  What Sherrod did not mention is that the same day he introduced the bill, a group of class-action attorneys merged thirty-one legal cases against Bextra and Celebrex from large federal cases into another group. The lawyer at the center of it? Shawn Khorrami, from the firm where Charlie was “of counsel.” The lawsuits were about Celebrex and Bextra and allegations that they had made false claims in their advertising, the same subject as Sherrod’s bill in Washington.73

  The lawsuits over pharmaceutical advertising ran into another problem in early 2006 when the FDA claimed that because of federal preemption, the lawsuits citing state laws would be moot. This, of course, undermined the entire case against the makers of Bextra and Celebrex. Sherrod and other members sent a letter to the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services opposing the FDA’s position and demanding that it be overturned.74

  Sherrod’s actions—both in introducing legislation and his letter to the HHS secretary—appear to be timed to directly benefit his brother Charlie and Charlie’s legal partner Shawn Khorrami.

  The pattern continued with a drug called Vioxx.

  In December 2004, Brown was one of the twenty-two members of Congress who signed a letter to the FDA requesting more information on a Dr. David Graham, a “Vioxx Whistleblower” who was being punished by the agency for his testimony before a Senate committee. Graham testified that the FDA “fumbled in its handling of the arthritis drug Vioxx,” among other things. In the letter, Congress said that if these actions against Graham were true, they were “out of line and may very well be illegal.”75

  By May 2004, Shawn Khorrami had already begun investigating individual and class lawsuits against Vioxx, and by December they were already prosecuting individual and class-action cases.76 Both Charlie Brown and James S. Turner were listed as attorneys at Khorrami’s firm at the time.77

  With Khorrami’s class-action lawsuits in play, Sherrod was continuing his fight for Vioxx lawsuits. He asked to send a portion of SB 5, or the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, to the committee for consideration.78 If passed, the law would address abuses of class actions by expanding federal jurisdiction over these suits and would limit attorney fees in class-action lawsuits.79 Sherrod opposed the bill on the grounds that it would make Vioxx lawsuits more difficult and would betray “the public’s trust.”80 In short, he wanted the Vioxx cases to continue. His efforts failed. Sherrod voted nay on the bill, but it became law with a final vote of 279 to 149.81

  In 2007, the FDA began receiving complaints about jerky treats from (or with ingredients from) China making their dogs sick. Complaints jumped from 2011 to 2013.82 In February 2012, Senator Brown wrote a letter to the FDA commissioner, which claimed that pet owners in his home state of Ohio had reported numerous cases of their dogs getting sick or dying after eating jerky treats imported from China. Brown railed against the problem in numerous media outlets and demanded that the FDA investigate the matter, test the dog treats imported from China, and ban anything found to be toxic.83 One of these large class-action lawsuits was introduced by attorney Shawn Khorrami, who sued treat makers in January 2013.84

  Beyond the activities of his brother as a class-action lawyer, Sherrod Brown enjoys large contributions from lawyers, no doubt including those operating in this area of the law.85 He continues to push for legislation that would benefit the entire class-action industry. In 2019, he introduced legislation that would add restrictions on arbitration and allow more class-action lawsuits in consumer contracts.86

  * * *

  The other major entanglement for Brown is his close relationship with labor leaders. Richard Trumka, president of AFL-CIO, says that Brown is “not just an ally, but a champion.”87 Few American politicians have received more financial support from labor union political funds than Sherrod Brown. He can count on the support of the leadership of every major union: the AFL-CIO; the Teamsters; United Food and Commercial Workers; Service Employees International Union; American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); the United Steelworkers; and others.88 He attends rallies that consistently feature appearances on the podium with the “labor movement glitterati.”89 National labor leaders like Teamsters head Jimmy Hoffa Jr. are regular fixtures by his side at campaign events. And they stuff his campaign coffers with funds. His embrace of unions is also part of political reality in Ohio and “reflects the power of the Ohio organized labor movement, particularly in the Cleveland area.”90

  As a member of Congress and as a U.S. senator, he has received financial support not only from local unions in Ohio and national headquarters in Washington, D.C., but also West Coast unions who see him as their champion.91 The funds have been a major foundation of his electoral success. During his 1998 congressional campaign, two of his top five contributors were unions.92 Unions not only donate to his campaign, but they also provide campaign services. For example, they pay for polls during election years.93

  On a personal level, his older daughter has worked for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).94

  Beyond the money, his political operation is fused with labor
leaders. The head of his Ohio operations, John Ryan, was the former head of Cleveland’s AFL-CIO office. He was Brown’s Senate campaign manager in 2006 and has headed up his Ohio office ever since.95

  Far less discussed is the role he plays to help union leaders. The distinction between union leaders and union members is an important one because the interests of the two can and do clash. And when they clash, Brown appears to consistently side with union leaders. He has worked during his time in public office to protect the interests of union leaders from transparency rules that would allow union members to track how their dues are being spent. He has also pushed a union pension plan that helps union leaders at the expense of union workers, and proposed legislation that makes it easier for union leaders to intimidate workers.

  Consider the simple question of transparency about how much union leaders are paid and how they spend their members’ money. The Department of Labor has required since 1959 that union officials make certain financial disclosures about how much they are paid, and how they spend union funds.96 The Department of Labor eventually updated those rules to require “increased reporting on compensation amounts of union leaders, identifying the buyers and sellers of union assets, and expanding on the reporting of cash receipts.”97 Given the long history of union corruption and financial malfeasance over the decades, the rules would seem to make sense.

  Sherrod Brown, though, considers these rules unreasonable. During a Senate hearing in November 2007, Brown made clear that it would be burdensome for the Department of Labor to require greater financial disclosures by union officials. He characterized the disclosure requirements as unreasonable since even “volunteer union activists [would] have to disclose about their financial lives.”98 The reality is, of course, otherwise. Indeed, the law covers many union leaders who have fueled his political rise—and they are hardly “volunteers.” Many are extraordinarily well paid. Lennie Wyatt, the president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 75 in Ohio, had over $480,000 in compensation in 2015. The secretary-treasurer of that same union, Steve Culter, received more than $500,000 for the same year.99 The union leaders are major Brown allies: the UFCW has bragged about “its statewide outreach efforts” securing victory for Sherrod Brown in his Senate run.100 It is hard to see why asking union leaders to explain how much they are paid and how they spent union dollars is burdensome.