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Washington Lobbying Firm Offers to Undermine Occupy Movement on Behalf of Wall Street

HeadlineNov 21, 2011

A newly leaked memo reveals a high-powered Washington lobbying firm has offered to help key members of the banking community undermine the Occupy Wall Street movement. According to MSNBC, the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford sent the memo to the American Bankers Association and offered to conduct “opposition research” on Occupy Wall Street in order to construct “negative narratives” for a fee of $850,000. The memo advises the ABA to take the movement seriously, writing: “It may be easy to dismiss OWS as a ragtag group of protesters but they have demonstrated that they should be treated more like an organized competitor who is very nimble and capable of working the media, coordinating third party support and engaging office holders to do their bidding. To counter that, we have to do the same.” The memo goes on to warn the ABA that Democratic victories in 2012 would be detrimental for Wall Street and suggests the financial industry focus its energy on specific races that would lead to Republican elections. The ABA has confirmed that it received the memo, but says it chose not to act on the advice in any way. Two of the memo’s authors, partners Sam Geduldig and Jay Cranford, previously worked for Republican House Speaker John Boehner.

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