The good-faith defense for lobbying is that it is transparent and would still occur even if illegal, albeit with more capacity for subverting democratic institutions. A slightly more cynical take is that it is a compromise made by a divided political playing field. The thinking is that a lack of accountability is convertible to power. Same thing goes for the new AML directives in Europe that concern disclosing political status to a financial institution upon account opening.

There’s a common misconception that when the press reports $millions in lobbying, that means the $millions went to the politicians.

Actually $0 of lobbying expenses go to politicians. The money is spent on salaries, ads, research, publications, etc. that are used to communicate to the politicians.