q&a" with "wall street journal" reporter brody mullins. >> this week on "q&a," "wall street journal" reporter brody mullins discussing his article "the rise and fall of a k street renegade." on the gloryins the 14th 2017, you had a front page these on "wall street called "the rise and

fall of a k street renegade." what was it about? about how he essentially lived a lavish lifestyle, spent a kind of money on cars, real estate, travel, and vacation, and how it all came to a fast and terrible and. >> why did you get on this story? rumors aboutheard this guy's lifestyle for a while. other newspapers and publications about this story. is awall street journal" fantastic newspaper, but it takes a little longer on broad investigative stories. i wanted to wait and see if

anything else became public about this guy. a year later, when i had not heard anything, i started hising into his life and campaign donations, spending, and what made them want to be a drug company lobbyist. >> we have some video on audience member: -- evan morris. let's take a listen. >> this is our fourth year of hosting the west coast event. we think it is critical that women on the west coast have the opportunity to network. not everyone has an opportunity to travel. we are proud to host this of that for woman of the year. the -- herris, who is and what is his background? brody: he was a political

science major. he had the political bug. he came to washington where he did some internships. after his freshman year, he landed an internship in the clinton white house in 1996. he fell in with the clintons. -- in awe of their network. keeper friended some of them during his time at the white house. college, heting went to law school in washington at gw where a lot of elliptical want to be -- political want to be's go. his firstnded at one of the biggest washington lobbying firms, very democratic and

connected to top democratic members of congress. moved and got a top lobbying job at one of his company's clients. it was a swiss drug company. within two long, he was head of the office. at age 27, he was the top washington lobbyist for it major global pharmaceutical company. making lots of money, yet a huge budget, yet lots of perks, yet lots of stock, and he had connections. get access to power in washington. names in thetwo story that relate. when is a- brody: global swiss pharmaceutical company and the others a bio company.

in 2009, they took over and .company genentech >> how did you hear about him? brody: i heard rumors downtown -- young andand powerful lobbyists read and spending a lot of money and was living a landing -- a lavish lifestyle. golf courses, 8 each of which costs $100,000 to join. >> where are they located? brody: one in washington, a

couple in richmond, one in new york. for, -- golferal , but he also kept a separate set of golf clubs at each house. washingtonuse in the suburbs, not unusual for a lobbyist to have. the amount of money he was extraordinary. >> you heard about it over a year ago? brody: yes, and i waited to see what reporting would come of it. when i not sure, even started looking into it, we were not sure if there was a story. if a big washington lobbyist thating a lot of money, stuff happens all the time, we had to figure out what made this different or a story for "wall street journal." >> kickback scheme, is that a

fair way of characterizing this? brody: yes, that is when we started to think we had a story. he went from a guy who could have been making a seven-figure salary from his company, could've had a lot of stock options, could've come from family money, spending money lavishly -- two what's we heard there were potential kickbacks, then it seems as if we might be onto a real story. was the full page, which is not that usual for "wall street journal." brody: not anymore. >> this is one of the biggest u.s. investigations since jack abramoff. brody: they were trying to figure out who was involved in kicking money back to this lobbyist. in the course of 10 years as a top lobbyist, he had 100

individual lobbying firms that employ a total of 600-800 , so that wasbbyist just on the contracts he had with publicly disclosed lobbyists. denny had media consultants, ad buyers, campaign consultants, and all sorts of other vendors. what investigators are trying to figure out is who among those could have been steering lobbying company money back to himself? >> how did he operate as a lobbyist? what kind of things did he do? brody: even at a young age she was a extremely successful and smart lobbyists. play thee ability to washington chess game and figure out what were the right moves to make.

first and perhaps biggest drug to treaten a the avian flu, which was going to be potentially a problem in 2004-2006, people had died overseas and people in the u.s. were getting worried. a campaign to start for promoting some of these stories and fears that americans have about the avian flu. from his point of view as a lobbyist, once voters were concerned, they started talking to members of congress. congress started getting concerned, and then the bush administration, with the help of congress, created a huge stockpile of vaccinations for the bird flu. the key part of the story is that evan morris's company made

the single biggest treatment for, tamiflu. so his efforts on avian flu million in sales for his company. >> areas at a news conference talking about tamiflu. isthe insurance policy tamiflu. we have a shortage of tamiflu. every expert says that you 25-40% ofer 40% -- the nation. the president wants to cover 15% at most. that is rolling the dice. >> this is during george w. bush's administration. back to what you said earlier, there were stories coming out of

europe about the avian flu and the need for tamiflu. it is hard to accuse senator schumer in this process, but when you see that, what is your reaction? do you think that is what evan morris generated? wasy: what evan morris trying to do is take the fear of the avian flu that was coming from overseas and stoped them in the u.s. to get members of congress to react. bit of a perfect storm were a bunch of things had to break in his favor, but he hired media consultants, he did lots of polling, he went out there and he hired consultants around the country who could generate new stories, not "wall "the newurnal" or smaller paperst

that would be easier to get a story into. read it andy would call their congress member about seeing the story. that would motivate the member of congress to try to act on their behalf. >> what happened to the sale of tamiflu? brody: in the u.s. it shot through the roof. they had it couple different federal purchases of tamiflu. the first one was a little short of $1 billion. the government decided it was wise to not just have a stockpile in washington, but they needed one in california as well. so they started a federal state joint program where the federal government would kick in more money to help state's stockpile. every state now has a separate stockpile of tamiflu. on top of that, tamiflu expires. every few years you need to buy some tamiflu to keep up your

stockpile. ever is an outbreak of avian flu or another flu strain, they do have the stockpile. we are just never had the epidemic. >> you tell me if this is right, i got on the flu website and i 15 --i saw that they do $50 billion of business a year. is that right? brody: that's right. sometimes they post their earnings in swiss banks -- swiss nation iso the trans- all. drugs, they have a very popular and successful cancer treatment drug. they had everything across the board. >> here's some video from 2014.

the reason for this is that hillary clinton is speaking at the biotechnology innovation convention in san diego. it is not long, but why was she there? this?d evan morris plan brody: one of the things we have in the story is that because of his connection with the clintons because of his white house internship was very interested in helping bill and hillary clinton in their political careers. he thought to raise money for the clinton foundation, he sought to raise money for hillary clinton's presidential campaigns and her previous senate campaign. he was a big fan and wanted to be in their orbit. one thing he was able to do is in the brief time between hillary clinton leaving the state department and running for paiddent, she accepted

speeches which obviously were all over the most recent presidential campaign. one of the speeches that she accepted was for bio which is the trade association which represents genentech among others. >> how much was she paid to go there? 35,000 for as $3 short speech. clinton: pharmaceutical companies moving out of the country is something i do not want to see. [applause] >> who would have been in the audience? brody: i believe there were thousands of employees at the

pharmaceutical industry and biotechnology industry. bio represents a growing number of biotechnology company that produced drugs. they are talking to some people, sales representatives, doctors, people up and down the supply chain. >> who would have paid that money to have her there? brody: the fee was paid directly by bio, and they collect fees from its members, including genentech. as story is that evan morris the top lobbyist for genentech was writing an annual check to bio just to be a month -- a member. then some of that money would go to the annual convention, but would also go to hiring keynote speakers. >> i'm looking at the digital version of your story which was

different from the version i first read in "wall street journal," the actual newspaper. why is there a difference? difference ins a the online story and the story in the paper. the online story is not restricted by the amount of space we have in the newsprint. the more advertisers you have, the bigger the paper, the more is for stories. has no such space constraints. increasingly, stories that deserve more space than they are getting in the paper can run longer in -- online. the story online was 4000 words and came out the day before the paper version. the paper version was around 3000 words. atso somebody wants to look the store they can find it on february 13 instead of february

14? brody: correct. if you just type in brody reet renegade it will come up. have you been at the "wall street journal"? brody: 14 years. i try to follow how companies use money and lobbyist to change regulations to help their companies or hurt their competitors in many places. -- companies and my lobbyists spend money in elections to elect the people they want in power. try and lift the curtain of the world on how companies get their way. >> let me read some of this back to you. and his wife, a former schoolteacher, made more

personal,000 in campaign constitutions from 2003 2 2015, the records show. the couple donated to nearly 50 lawmakers, almost all democrats. mrs. clinton was a top recipient. help theis biotechnology innovation organization, a washington trade group, higher mrs. clinton to address its 2014 annual convention. 5,000 for the$33 speech. how did you find that? brody: a lot of the information is publicly available. the donations to the clinton foundation are made public. speech information was made

public voluntarily by the clintons. the federal election commission collects data and maintains records for campaign donations to federal candidates. it also figures in the amount of money evan morris spent on lobbying. lobbying this closures are filed in the house and senate. >> he organized for a democratic lawmaker in new jersey. evan morris invited lawmakers to mr. and take photos with clinton who are just finished a round of golf. >> that was not published. that was something i bumped into in my own reporting. knew: it shows that he bill clinton well enough to be able to flag him down and get the people he was golfing with to arrange for a quick photo opportunity. >> how over the event at that

time? brody: 2010? probably around 32. >> and he ran the genentech washington lobbying office. how many people worked for him? brody: at the end of his time in 2015 he had well over 100 lobbyist working for him. within the company and contract lobbyists. >> how much was his yearly budget? brody: it was not disclosed publicly, but it was probably 50 million. >> how did you get that? brody: reporting. >> so genentech wouldn't tell you that? brody: i spent many months talking to people who used to work with evan morris or continue to work with him. differs people give us

-- different parts of the story that we had to piece together. >> did you ever talk to evan morris? brody: no. >> he lived in this area through the process. where did he live? $1.7: he lived in a million house. people of his stature who have a job like that it is probably run-of-the-mill. $19 into home renovations. -- $1 million into home renovations. he had multiple porches. >> you said he bought a $2000 bottle of wine at some dinner? brody: yes, his favorite bottle was at its cheapest

$2000. that was one of his favorite wines. he was a wine connoisseur and collector. he had thousands of bottles of wine in his house. lunch with ant to fellow lobbyist and ordered a $2000 bottle of wine. when they finished that, the restaurant delivered another equal value bottle of wine for free. you started to do this article and you talked to genentech, what did they tell you they knew and did not know? brody: i want to stay away from the sausage making process on how the story was reported. we had conversations with genentech and they provided statements to us that we can colluded -- included in the story.

>> but they worried about this story? brody: yes they were worried like any company would be worried about one of their employees. the guy was a senior vice president, not some no-name low-level employee. the vice president of their own company cooper years have been in puzzling millions of dollars from the company to the company was more worried about their evens and their reputation more than the money that was stolen. a point whereo you take the tamiflu story, how much of what he did generated -- and you say $1 billion in revenue, how much of his technique actually did that? brody: great question. it is very hard to figure out. one of the reasons it is hard to figure out is that the lobbyist liked tois lights --

tell tall tales and in villages role in certain actions. for example, he would tell anyone how close he was with the clintons. he said he had hillary clinton's cell phone number. i doubt that some of that is true. butink it is unfortunate, like any good lobbyist in washington, when something goes your way, you take credit for it. he made a lot of the moves to help genentech move the tamiflu business. i think some of it could have come from outside of his doing. go to the clip we saw earlier from evan morris back in 2012 at the woman of the year of event. his role have been in

the health care business women's association and the women of the year? did genentech give money to this kind of thing? brody: it is hard to tell. but he would like to do using genentech money is hand out lots of money to charities and charitable foundations. the leukemia society or this organization. part of that is what any big company does, particularly in a pharmaceutical or health care state. if you want to create allies and help get the support and research that they are doing. like sometimes he had an all tier your motive in giving money, and in the case of the california group, i cannot figure it out. he liked to be a player. he liked to throw a lot of money around. he liked to be interviewed on television. >> lets john c can see what he

looks like and what the sounds like. >> we are very happy at genentech that this is our fourth year hosting the event. not everyone has an opportunity to travel. we are proud to host the fourth annual west coast event for woman of the year. , how mayr experience people like him in a city like washington -- i don't mean they are breaking the law or anything, but how many had this kind of money available to them to spend on charitable event and dinners and stuff like that? hundreds ofinly them, maybe thousands. i would not think it is more than 10,000. what are the things that is happened in the past two decades as the government has gotten so powerful and plays an increasing

role in industry is that companies large and small need to come to washington to spend money to influence policy. even if they are not actively pushing policy, companies need to know what washington is doing because it can have great impact on business decisions that people need to make at they corporate boardroom. the federalof government has gotten involved in the story? mainly thear it is health care regulatory agencies, fda which approves a bunch of market,s that genentech as well as rescinded approval for a drug. health and human services department, in charge of tamiflu . jury? there been a grand

brody: there is a grand jury looking into this. >> still meeting? brody: yes. >> how long has it been meeting? brody: it is still ongoing. >> is the fbi involved? brody: yes. >> is the justice department involved? brody: yes. >> you said he exploded gaps in disclosure laws. brody: this is interesting. it only happened because of the way lobbying in washington has changed. the lobbying laws require individuals who lobby to fill out quarterly forms that are made public saying, here's how much i spent on lobbying, here is my name, here is the issue that i worked on, these are the companies i represent worried it really only captures direct

conversations. a lot of lobbying these days happens outside of washington. wasnot sure if genentech beating down the doors of congress directly. they were going out to state and regular constituents and voters in giving them away or and concerned about the potential problems of an avian flu epidemic. that indirectly influenced members of congress. story, you're saying had money totech treat avian flu. where did he get his college degree? brody: union college in new york. atory abouto the

drug that treated cancer. the fda said this drug avastin is so good that we are going to use in breast cancer before it is pretty adequate testing. once it is approved, the fda would work together the rest of the data to get full approval. >> it was used for: cancer as well? brody: yes, all kinds of cancer. but this was particularly for breast cancer. and it cost 90,000 per

treatment. some people say it was incredibly effective and worth it. the fda continue to gather data and thought it was not as effective as originally thought, and thought it could have severe side effects. so the fda went about rescinding its previous approval for it. at that point, the fda needed to go through a process -- a bureaucratic process of rescinding its approval. what evan morris and his lobbying team did was everything they could to slow that process down by going out and finding forn who were using avastin breast cancer and try to bring them to capitol hill to get numbers of congress on their side and weigh in with the fda. >> in your article, you say that he launched the patient care action network. we've seen these things all the time.

what was the patient care action network? brody: this was one of those. a seemingly good sounding public interest profit group. andas set up by evan morris a few of his lobbying consultants. corral doctors and physicians and patients and bring them all to one place to get them to urge the fda to keep the drug on the market for longer. >> was any doubt in your mind that this money was being spent to influence politicians and their involvement or putting legislation in and all that. you hear people talk about it. they give because they believe, or do they give because they think it is going to move mountains? is probably a

combination. you need one modestly better at night, but anybody spending money in washington is spending money to affect public policy. most of the time it is because of the bottom line. louisianad a republican painted the defense of avastin. brody: he was in the process of running for governor of louisiana. he always wanted to be governor at the time he was a senator. he had, like many other republican lawmakers, follow the conservative media and conservative blogs. , through his consultants, were able to get stories out there that were read constituentsr's who gave him a call and said, we need avastin because it is

with breast cancer. at the same time, 2009, obama had been moving the affordable care act. republicans were pushing against it saying that there would be death panels. removing avastin from the market for breast cancer was akin to a death panel. it became a very popular talking points. in the end, the process for removing avastin stretched to 12-14 months. evan morris took credit for it. he said that delay i orchestrated. he said he made the company another $1 billion in sales by keeping avastin on the market

until the last possible moment. >> wended the fda rescinds avastin for the use of breast cancer. 2011, it was november of but i do not have the numbers with me. >> what number -- what reason did they get? brody: they say the drug's effectiveness cannot be proven and could cause severe side effects. fda subject to political influence? brody: the fda says that it is not. the fda is set up to be largely immune from political influence. supposed tons are be judged purely on science -- by a team of scientists and doctors. this is something that could be changing. what happened here is that when evan morris made this political

network of doctors and patients to talk to members of the conference -- congress, it may be fda go by the book. they could not cut corners, they could not immediately rescinded, because they had a whole bunch of members of congress that were concerned. they needed to make sure they did everything right. meant a morris, that delay. >> did the senator get money from genentech? brody: good question. i do not recall that he did. i do not believe he did. he definitely did not from evan , he probably got money from the political action committees of genentech. >> so what is this thing called national media?

who is the gentleman that runs it? runs a string of media consulting firms in washington. a ad buyingia is company in washington. where if you are a republican member of congress and you want to run for reelection, you go to national media and they will make the ads for you. on radio or the ads broadcast television or read everyone. he worked at national media. wasof his clients there evan morris.

>> what is his relationship with the federal government under this investigation? brody: they are examining his role trying to figure out if he was involved in kicking money back you legally to -- you legally to evan morris. work? did that brody: it is unclear. what we do know is that one of the things the fbi is looking at is payment that evan morris through genentech made to national media or some of the corviche that james worked for. from 2000 5-2015, the companies corvicheoyed james

received hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of contracts from evan morris. the lawyers for those companies say that they had an arrangement whereby evan morris would go around washington and write personal checks to charitable causes or political causes and then be reimbursed for those expenses by those companies. they say that the money that went from their corporate accounts to the personal account were reimbursement payments. things in the middle of all this and it is hard to keep track of. i'm going to put up on the screen and you tell us where we messed this up because we did not talk about this. it is just a chart. evan morris and $880,000.

that leads to james and sphere. there are multiple cases, we do not know how many, in which the companies that employ him would write checks to evan morris's personal bank account. about the time that one of the firms would receive a contract from genentech, we have been told that approximately half of the money would end up back in evan morris's personal bank account. cordage -- jim

courtovich company said that would be a form of reimbursement. >> you have the price, -- posted. company says that they wrote a check to reimburse evan morris for a donation or expenses he had with the american enterprise institute, a well-known think tank. we acquired a copy of the invoice that we were told evan vichis gave to the courto company saying that evan morris 48,000 to aei. we asked them if that was a real invoice and they say it had been

doctored. of money was well more than what morris had given .o aei another example of attorneys? brody: in 2012, national media in --a check to accompany and company that makes high custom-made boats. they are beautiful. , national media said they sent the boat company that check. they said evan morris had sent

them an invoice for an event he was holding for the democratic attorney general's group. $330,000.und coveredris said it water taxes, catering, lunches for the whole day, all sorts of expenses. national media said they got the invoice and wrote the check to the boat company. we called the boat company and said they had never had an event for the democratic attorney general's association. just as importantly, the democratic attorney general's association said we do not know this guy evan morris and did not have an event at the boat company. this event did not take place. the kicker is that the check that evan morris requested through national media was for

-- $330,000,000, evan morris motorboat from that company that cost the same amount of money. >> what happened that they caught him in this process? what was the trigger? expendituresme his got increasingly lavish. officeboth inside his and other colleagues and friends started to have suspicions about where this money was coming from. 2015, the company genentech got an anonymous letter from someone, we still do not know who, saying you should look into evan morris and his

expenditures. the company started that investigation. long they had more questions about what was going on. here's a conversation we had in 2010. we're talking about sources. almost every tip you get is from somebody who has an agenda. everybody has an agenda, as long as you know what their agenda is , that is the store you can write about. reporters need to be very careful about getting tips and not fully checking them out and writing stories that turn out not to be true. everyone in this town once something. >> everyone in this town once something. brody: still true today, probably even more so. back then we were talking just about lobbying. i think it has morphed into the media also. and the rise of blogs

conservative and liberal media, and even sometimes cable news. there are more ways for interest groups to push their agendas. hadbig win that evan morris on tamiflu came from almost entirely blogs and media, very little on actually pushing members of congress or the administration. they worked the system from the outside. of americans to think one things, you will have members of congress following them. >> how many people at "wall street journal" works with you on this story? brody: i work with a whole series of editors. and then another reporter who works with law enforcement for "wall street journal." he was helpful in guiding me through the whole process works. we have a whole team of fantastic editors led by the man

who leads the investigative enterprise stories. >> county days did you work on this story? september --ted in >> 2015? brody: 2016. remember, i waited a year before. a couple ofit months and then trump was elected. that changed everyone's priorities and game plans. like everyone else, i was expecting hillary clinton to win and was going to keep moving along with the story. when trump won, the washington world, and certainly "wall street journal" was turned upside down. >> you started your story on the front page.

in the first or second paragraph you started talking about a golf course here in the washington area and a bottle of wine. also, a fund-raising dinner. a fund-raising event with terry mcauliffe, the governor of virginia. tell the rest of the story. brody: in may 2015, the company anonymousreceived an letter saying to look into evan morris and his expenditures. evan morris did not know about it. 2015, on a monday or tuesday or wednesday, evan morris gets a call from genentech's top lawyer in san francisco who says i'm coming into town tomorrow, clear out your schedule.

been pretty who had clearly stealing money from the company for 10 years became concerned about this meeting. as a date democratic player and fundraiser, he happened to have a fundraiser at his home for a state senator in virginia, terry mcauliffe was one of the invited guests and ended up going to the fundraiser. he had some conversations with evan morris. one of the conversations evan morris told terry mcauliffe that he wants to hold a fundraiser for hillary clinton. the presidential campaign had just gotten underway. the next morning, evan morris drove to work. the meeting that he is scheduled with his outside counsel was at an law firm hired by the company. he went to that office.

there he was expecting to meet with his companies lawyer, but he met with lawyers from this startedrm who questioning some of his expenditures. some of the big contracts he was giving to various programs they were concerned about and started asking questions about. the meeting was expected to last all day, or certainly most of the day. long, less than an excusedan morris himself. he left the building, never saw the genentech who is blown into see him. i'm speculating, but i think that evan morris knew that he is been caught. i imagine his mind was racing, to he did not stay around see where things were headed.

>> where did he go? brody: he drove out to his favorite golf course, robert trent jones, in virginia. a couple weeks later, that course was expected to host a events, one of the premier golf events of the year. had scored a spot in the pro-am, a couple of days before the actual tournament starts. sponsors and local celebrities and folks can play in a charity tournament with some of the pga players themselves. he was scheduled to play in that, which is a big honor, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. he had been practicing a lot at the golf course. golf, his wifeys had been trying to get a hold of

him because she knew about the meeting and wanted to know how it went very he said that he was in meetings for the rest of the day and did not let her know that the meetings had not gone well. up his rounds of golf and within and showered and cleaned up. he went to one of the restaurants at the course. >> to show how you wrote it, you said he showered and put on a blue blazer with the club's insignia, ordered a steak dinner at the clubhouse and bought a round of rings for everyone in the restaurant. brody: right. it seems like he was trying to make a show. he wanted everyone to know that he was important. somewhere around that same time,

his wife got increasingly worried and try to track him down. she called friends of his. get people too look for his car in genentech's parking lot downtown and could not find him. he was not returning her calls or messages. mutual friends suggested to go look at his debit card or credit card statements. madeiscovered that he had a purchase at a gun store in leesburg, virginia. this is a guy from new york who gun and diduched a not own any guns. this is the first gun yet ever purchased during it was alarming to his wife. >> you wrote that he asked for a bottle of his favorite wine. how did you find this out? brody: very difficult reporting. he is the primary source and is not around.

there are email messages, text messages, phone calls, people who in the rest of the washington world when this happened were talking to each other. there were some records out there about what had happened. we also have people who talk. after a year and a half, there were enough people who are willing to talk to me about this day's events. >> you walked around sunset he walked to a spot around the clubhouse were members smoke cigars around a fire pit. he sat in a chair in drink. he texted his wife the contact information for his accountant and financial planner. also, the life insurance provider. he is 38 years old at the time. then what happens? took out thee

revolver he had just purchased. he fired a test shot it seems. he took out a sign that said do not resuscitate. and he killed himself. lines are when a server from the club found the body. did you talk to his wife? brody: no. >> how many children did he have? two young children. >> did that and the investigation in 2015? brody: that accelerated the investigation. the investigators for genentech when they met with them had just discovered the tip of the iceberg. his reaction to them finding the tip of the iceberg indicated that there was an iceberg. over the next year, genentech

continued to acquire and unearth financial records that painted a broader picture of this embezzlement scheme. at some point, i do not know when, the fbi began looking into it also. the justice department as well, we know thatcause evan morris is not paying taxes on this money. his company needed to figure out who owns all of these purchases? who owns the boat? who owns the golf course membership? who owns the houses and the porsches? the company continued investigations into where the money went. they're still trying to sort out that issue. wrote thisllins

article in the middle of february. you can find it on the "wall street journal" website. "the rise and fall of a k street renegade." thanks. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer 1: if you like this q&a program with