In his bid to become the Democratic presidential nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden pledged to reject contributions from lobbyists and corporate PACs. But he has quietly taken in more than $30,000 in donations from corporate interests through a political action committee he created in 2017. Biden founded American Possibilities in 2017 to support Democrats in the midterm elections. The group took about $29,000 in donations from federal lobbyists and $5,000 from a PAC affiliated with Masimo, a medical device company.

The lobbyist and PAC donations underscore Biden’s history of close relationships with lobbyists and special interests.

The former vice president, who announced his campaign last week, has already come under scrutiny for relying on lobbyists and other well-connected supporters to host his first fundraiser. Although the lobbyist and PAC donations represent barely 1 percent of the money received by American Possibilities, the contributions underscore Biden’s history of close relationships with lobbyists and special interests. (Biden’s campaign did not return requests for comment.) American Possibilities has been especially important to Biden’s presidential ambitions. The PAC helped pay for a political staff after Biden left office in 2017, and it was recently given access to former President Barack Obama’s massive email list of supporters. Two days before Biden announced his presidential bid, American Possibilities sent messages to people on the Obama list and offered recipients the chance to “be the first to know” about Biden’s plans. K Street History Biden has a history of relying on lobbyists to assist his campaigns. Lobbyists donated more than $200,000 to Biden’s 2008 presidential run. That year, William Oldaker — a political consultant and lawyer with whom Biden’s son, Hunter, once worked as a lobbyist — served as Biden’s legal adviser. Biden’s shift away from lobbyist donations came as a result of his union with Obama, who was running on a pledge to reject lobbyist cash. The Obama-Biden ticket launched multiple television and radio advertisements warning of Republican nominee John McCain’s relationship with lobbyists, along with the website www.mclobbyist.com, which detailed the dangers of McCain’s lobbyist-friendly inner circle. Biden, however, had to deal with his own lobbyist issues during the campaign, including the vote he cast for a controversial 2005 bankruptcy bill after receiving a large number of donations from MBNA, a credit card firm that also retained Hunter Biden as a consultant. (MBNA, which was headquartered in Biden’s home state of Delaware, was bought by Bank of America in 2006 and subsequently acquired by the U.K.-based Lloyds Banking Group in 2016.)