K Street in overdrive as investigations ramp up

K Street in overdrive as investigations ramp up

February 7, 2019, The Hill

The Hill interviewed Rob Kelner about his experience helping clients deal with congressional investigations. Mr. Kelner says, “In my 20 years here at Covington, I don’t think we have ever been as busy with congressional investigations matters as we are right now. That trend began before the Democrats took control of the House and it has certainly accelerated very significantly since the election.” He adds that companies want to be prepared in case they ever find themselves under the spotlight. “That’s very new. Until two or three years ago, it was pretty unusual for us to be hired as a congressional investigations counsel by companies who did not have a pending congressional investigation,” he says.

With Democratic committee chairs looking into various industries, Mr. Kelner says, “We expect the tempo of congressional investigations to be very high right through the 2020 election because there’s such a huge backlog of issues on which the Dems want to conduct congressional investigations. He added that such investigations were previously seen as a distraction from an election but now could be a “key tool in [members’] political toolkit. The media environment today has made those investigations much more valuable as a political tool than they used to be.”