Pfizer has hired the former policy director for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Hazen Marshall, as a lobbyist to support the Big Pharma firm’s efforts to shut down amendments to the False Claims Amendments Act of 2021. The lobbying contract covers opposition to whistleblower protections and affirming Pfizer’s patents on the COVID-19 vaccine, The National Pulse can reveal.
Lobbyist filings reveal Pfizer recently retained the D.C.-based Marshall & Popp to fight amendments to a law that currently does little to protect the public against fraud by firms like Pfizer. The lobbying firm, which raked in over $3,000,000 in 2021, was founded by former Mitch McConnell staffer Hazen Marshall and former Chief of Staff to Republican Senate Whip John Cornyn, Monica Popp.
The corporate-establishment Republicans also appear to represent the interests of Alphabet (Google), Altria (Philip Morris Tobacco), and a slew of other pharmaceutical clients alongside Pfizer in Washington.
Marshall & Popp was founded in 2019, and was temporarily prohibited from lobbying in the U.S. Senate per the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (2007), as noted by POLITICO.
In the official filing, Marshall and his team were recruited to lobby against the aforementioned bill, as well as issues related to waiving intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines. Waiving protections on the COVID-19 vaccination patent would force Pfizer to give up their essential wealth funnel from the federal government.
https://thenationalpulse.com/2021/12/30/exclusive-top-mitch-mcconnell-staffer-leads-pfizers-lobbying-charge-to-protect-vaccine-patent-and-block-bill-holding-big-pharma-accountable-for-fraud/