The lobbyist brother of one of President-elect Joe Biden’s top advisors has made a name for himself for his deep connections in DC and for decades of experience serving corporate clients.
Some of Jeff Ricchetti’s former employees and clients also said he had turned down requests to lobby his brother, longtime Biden aide and new White House advisor Steve Ricchetti.
CNBC spoke to several people who worked with Jeff Ricchetti for insights into how he could go into the new year to influence lawmakers.
These discussions also provide insight into how Jeff Ricchetti could handle and potentially avoid potential conflicts of interest during in-depth administration.
CNBC reached out to Ricchetti on Wednesday. He did not return a request for comment on this story. A spokesman for the Biden transition team also did not return a request for comment.
In 2020, Jeff Ricchetti had its largest client base since 2014, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics. The surge in clients came when Biden won the Democratic primary and eventually defeated President Donald Trump in the general election.
Biden later named Steve Ricchetti, who also presided over the former Vice President’s election campaign, as his adviser to the White House. Jeff Ricchetti has signed nearly a dozen contracts this year and received lobbying fees of at least $ 635,000. Amazon is one of its newest customers, as CNBC first reported. Others are Horizon Therapeutics, Evofem Biosciences, Finseca, GlaxoSmithKline, and Applied Materials.
People who know Jeff Ricchetti say he pushes back customers seeking access to his brother. However, his staff also noted that customers will likely still get in touch with the Biden team.
“That doesn’t mean potential customers won’t come back to see him partly because of his brother,” said a lobbyist who has known Jeff Ricchetti for nearly a decade. “But he’s a professional and knows how to work properly.” This person declined to be named in order to speak freely.
A person familiar with the brothers’ relationship previously told CNBC that Jeff Ricchetti would never lobby Steve Ricchetti and that the two would keep their professional lives separate.
Before opening his company Ricchetti Inc., Jeff Ricchetti worked with Tony Podesta in the late 1990s. Steve and Jeff Ricchetti founded their company of the same name in the early 2000s.
Podesta told CNBC in an email that Jeff Ricchetti was recognized as a talented and strategic lobbyist while working there for a number of years. Podesta, the brother of former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, was once known as the kingmaker of the Democratic Party and a major corporate lobbyist. Steve Ricchetti also served in the Clinton administration and later with Biden during President Barack Obama’s tenure as President. Steve Ricchetti was signed off as a lobbyist in 2008.
“He does things,” said Podesta. “Very talented, hard-working, strategic, easy-going, content.” Records show that Ricchetti, as a lobbyist for Podesta’s company, represented companies like Dow Chemical, Eli Lilly, Novartis, eBay, and Roche Holdings.
Marc Cadin, CEO of the professional association Finseca, told CNBC that he has known Ricchetti for almost 20 years. One of the bills that Ricchetti and other members of Cadin’s team hired Congress to do was Trump’s 2017 tax reform bill.
“Most notable is a 199A deduction that we applied to life insurance companies to give our members a significant tax break there,” said Cadin, discussing Ricchetti’s recent efforts for Finseca, which has over 6,000 members.
The IRS calls this deduction a qualified business income deduction. “The deduction allows eligible taxpayers to deduct up to 20 percent of their qualifying business income as well as 20 percent of qualifying dividends from real estate mutual funds and income from qualifying publicly traded partnerships,” the IRS website states.
Cadin, who described Ricchetti as a lobbyist with extensive expertise in tax policy, expects him to lobby the new Congress and possibly the finance department for Finseca from 2021.
“We have some problems in and around the finance department. I can see how he is doing there,” said Cadin.
He also said that, in his experience, the Ricchetti Brothers always found a way not to address ethical issues. “These people know how to do it right and how not to push boundaries,” he said.
He was hired by some of Jeff Ricchetti’s recent clients to seek the support of moderate lawmakers for progressive tax policy proposals. Biden has proposed raising taxes for the rich and corporations.
Chuck Collins, a member of the Advisory Board of the Patriotic Millionaires Advocacy, told CNBC that his organization hired Ricchetti in 2020 to get support from moderate Democrats in both the House and Senate for what was on the group’s website referred to as the “Emergency Promotion Bill”.
In an open letter to Congress leaders, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., And Senate Minority Chair Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., the group urged Congress to pass emergency relief legislation to be included in an aid package for coronaviruses. The letter said the legislation would “double the Foundation’s mandatory annual payout from five to ten percent over the next three years and require the same ten percent payout obligation for Donor Advised Funds (DAFs).”
The Charity Act campaign was run by the Patriotic Millionaires, Wallace Global Foundation, Voices for Progress, the Institute for Political Studies – Inequality Program, Solidaire Network, and Edge Funders Network.
Collins, great-grandson of meat packer Oscar Mayer, told CNBC he has known Ricchetti for over a decade. The group selected him for the project, Collins said, not because of his connections with his brother, but because of his deep insight into current and past policy makers in Washington.
“I think he has a good inner compass of what is working and what obstacles you are going to run into and whether to waste your time,” said Collins.
A Patriotic Millionaires spokesman did not return a request for comment.
Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, a project by a progressive nonprofit called New Venture Fund, said the organization hired Ricchetti in late 2019 to drive a “millionaire side tax”. Similar to his efforts on behalf of the patriotic millionaires, Clemente said Ricchetti had targeted moderate Democrats in the house.
“We just felt like he brought something we didn’t have. He brings connections,” said Clemente.
The Americans for Tax Fairness website is promoting the additional tax as “a 10% surcharge on income over $ 2 million could raise $ 635 billion over 10 years.” Senator Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., And MP Don Beyer, D-Va., Presented the proposal to Congress in November 2019. Democrats running for president, including billionaire Mike Bloomberg and Senator Elizabeth Warren D-Mass., Also endorsed similar concepts.
When Biden ran for president, Clemente said he tried to get Ricchetti to push the Biden campaign to support the surcharge, but the longtime lobbyist declined.
“I think I asked him, ‘Can you help me with your brother?’ but it was always very clear – this was never a place to go, “said Clemente.
