Toyota ends gifts to election deniers

Toyota Motor Corp. will no longer donate to members of Congress who voted against certifying the 2020 election in January, including all GOP members of Congress from Tennessee and most of the Republicans in Georgia, the company said Thursday.

The move follows an announcement earlier in the day that The Lincoln Project, a political action committee founded by Republicans to help defeat former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, would be releasing a series of advertisements directed at companies that donated to policymakers who opposed certifying the election on Jan. 6, beginning with Toyota.

Like many other companies, Toyota announced it would temporarily withhold and review PAC donations after Trump supporters mobbed the U.S. Capitol building and after 147 Republicans objected to the Electoral College results from select states later that evening.

But the company’s PAC resumed donations to some of those members as early as Feb. 4 with a donation to Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., according to campaign finance filings. The company went on to donate a total of $56,000 to Mooney and 37 other Republicans who opposed certifying the results, according to an analysis by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit ethics watchdog group.

Other corporate donors included Boeing, Koch Industries, Lockheed Martin, Walmart, PNC, U.S. Bancorp and more.