For instance, David Sirota and other reporters at the International Business Times have been digging relentlessly into which firms get lucrative public pension fund mandates, and whether people connected to those firms have been or become donors to elected officials. And investing in high-fee investments can’t be defended on its merits. The Maryland Policy Institute published a study that updated and reconfirmed the findings of an analysis performed two year earlier, that public pension funds that invest in high fee strategies like private equity give up billions in performance as a result.