The Wolves of K Street The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government

We start by looking at lobbying over the last 40 or 50 years, and what we found out, which is really remarkable, is that companies right now are dominant in Washington.

But it wasn't always the case. Now for most of the last century, companies had very little influence in Washington.

So we found that sort of remarkable. We sort of- We dive into how companies got that power, how they wield it, and how they bend rules and regulations to favor the wealthy and the corporate elites and not the rest of us.

So we basically start the book in the 1970s, which is this pivotal period where corporations come to power in Washington.

And essentially what happened is corporations were on the defensive for the 60s and the early 70s.

Brody did an incredible job. He outlined the careers of three mega lobbyists, people that changed the field.

And also terribly for us as a country. Nobody won here. Even the winners lost.

I loved it. Brody did an incredible job.

And the way he's survived for so many years is making contacts with the most important people in Washington, working for President Reagan, working for President Bush after that.

I think the culture has changed in Washington. That was very, you know, Mad Men 1950s mentality that we had in Washington through the 1980s. I think a lot of that has cleaned up.

It's called "The Wolves of K Street."

Wolves of K Street.

Brody Mullins, investigative reporter in the Washington Bureau of the Wall Street Journal. He covers business, lobbying and campaign finance. I've been both source and target of Brody in the past. He's a co-author of the new book, The Wolves of K Street, the secret history of how big money took over big government.

That's a great question. You know, I never wanted to write a book. I thought, you know, reading books is hard enough and writing a book, I didn't think I'd have the attention span for it.

And there just came a moment about five years ago when I realized that, you know, we're at a really important point in our country's history where companies have this tremendous influence in Washington.

And when I first started in Washington and when you first started in Washington, it was a little bit more of a fair fight. It was unions battling companies, companies battling environmental groups, public citizen groups out there fighting. And now it's really just companies. You know, unions are basically gone. There's no Ralph Naders of the world out there. And it's just companies are the only people of influence in Washington right now.

So it just seemed like a perfect moment to write about corporate influence in Washington and how it's hurt consumers in some situations.