With Daniel Lippman
CRYPTO SPENDING KEEPS RISING: Crypto interests nearly tripled their investments in federal lobbying last 12 months in comparison with the 12 months prior, because the industry welcomed among the first real efforts from lawmakers to arise a recent regulatory framework for the sector and worked to emerge whole from market turbulence that was capped off by the spectacular collapse of the crypto darling FTX at the top of the 12 months.
— Nearly 60 crypto and Web3 startups in addition to more-established firms, trade groups and other heavy crypto players reported pouring $26.6 million into lobbying efforts in D.C. last 12 months, in accordance with a PI evaluation of disclosures. That’s up from $9.8 million in 2021, when greater than half of those entities hadn’t even begun lobbying or were just starting to arise their influence operations in D.C.
— Coinbase was the sector’s biggest spender, dropping near $3.4 million in 2022 versus $1.5 million in 2021. One in every of the industry’s essential trade groups, the Blockchain Association, got here in at second with $1.9 million in lobbying expenditures, a $1 million increase from the 12 months before.
— Rival exchanges Binance.US and FTX were amongst those who ramped up their spending probably the most last 12 months, together with NFT marketplace Dapper Labs. Binance.US reported spending $1.1 million on lobbying last 12 months, greater than six times what the exchange spent in 2021.
— The $720,000 in spending reported by FTX was dwarfed by a few of its rivals, however the now-bankrupt exchange sought to curry influence in other ways, including the small army of PR operatives and consultants on the corporate’s payroll, per The Intercept’s Lee Fang, Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw, and the thousands and thousands of dollars in political contributions at the middle of campaign finance charges against founder Sam Bankman-Fried. After all, all of FTX’s outside lobbying firms dropped the exchange in the times following its implosion.
— Crypto interests lobbied on quite a lot of issues last 12 months starting from a sweeping digital asset regulation bill from Sens. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and an FTX-hyped measure from Senate Agriculture leaders that might give the CFTC oversight of the industry, to possible stablecoin laws, NFT markets and every little thing in between.
— If recent filings are any indication, the industry’s stumbles and continued fallout from the FTX collapse won’t put a dent in crypto’s rapidly expanding lobbying footprint — if anything, the renewed drive in Washington to finally arise a framework for regulating digital currencies could further fuel the gold rush on K Street.
— After Binance.US shook up its lobbying team late last 12 months, the international exchange Binance.com has retained each of the lobbying firms that the U.S. operation cut ties with. Binance retained Ivan Zapien, Aaron Cutler and Chase Kroll of Hogan Lovells in December, and on Monday, the exchange brought on Ice Miller’s Jarrod Loadholt, Meagan Bolton and John Pence — nephew of former Vice President Mike Pence — filings show.
— Meanwhile stablecoin issuer Tether picked Continental Strategy, the firm run by Carlos Trujillo, former President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the Organization of American States, as its first lobbying hire, and the digital asset marketplace Bakkt added its first lobbyists at Steptoe & Johnson.
— Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms just registered its first in-house lobbyist, former Trump press aide Brian Morgenstern, and a16z crypto, the crypto arm of enterprise capital giant Andreessen Horowitz, registered its first in-house lobbyist this month as well, while the exchange Crypto.com recently engaged a recent outside firm.
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PORTER HEADS TO THE VALLEY: Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) will hold a fundraiser in Silicon Valley next month for her newly launched Senate bid, making her the newest critic of tech giants to make the pilgrimage to their cash-flush backyards.
— Porter will headline a fundraiser on the Palo Alto home of Sarah Sands, whose husband is enterprise capitalist Greg Sands. Like a fundraiser hosted by Sands for Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) earlier this month, the event was organized by the Bay Area fundraising group Electing Women Bay Area, in accordance with the invite. The suggested contribution amount is $1,000.
— Like Klobuchar, Porter backed congressional efforts last 12 months to rein in tech firms, support that immediately positions her in contrast with California’s current Senate delegation, which pushed back against the targeted nature of the laws, as The Washington Post identified. She’s also a protege of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who can also be a tech critic and has endorsed Porter’s Senate bid.
— Porter has long been a prolific grassroots fundraiser. Her campaign reported raising $25.4 million last cycle, greater than former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and almost as much as recent House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, per OpenSecrets — all without accepting contributions from corporate PACs and lobbyists.
ALLEN WON’T FACE CHARGES: “The Justice Department has informed John R. Allen, a retired four-star Marine general, that federal prosecutors have closed an investigation into whether he secretly lobbied for the federal government of Qatar and that no criminal charges can be brought against him within the case,” Allen’s lawyer told The Recent York Times’ Adam Entous and Mark Mazzetti.
— “The investigation of General Allen became public in June, when an F.B.I. agent’s application to go looking his electronic communications was unsealed, possibly by accident. Days after the revelations, General Allen resigned as president of the Brookings Institution, a left-leaning think tank in Washington.”
— “The F.B.I. agent’s application provided an in depth account of a period in June 2017, when General Allen met incessantly with Richard G. Olson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, and Imaad Zuberi, a businessman with ties within the Middle East. General Allen traveled to Doha, Qatar, during that period.”
— “Federal prosecutors have signaled a selected interest in potential violations involving Persian Gulf nations, which have developed close ties to business and political figures in the US,” but the choice to shut the probe of Allen follows a string of high-profile legal setbacks for the Justice Department while bringing foreign influence cases, which frequently carry a high bar for prosecution.
— Allen’s lawyer, David Schertler, told the Times that he’d been informed “no criminal charges can be brought against General Allen under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or some other law, based on, or consequently of, General Allen’s trip to Qatar in June 2017 or the federal government’s investigation of those events.” He added: “It’s deeply unlucky, unfair and contrary to law that General Allen’s popularity and livelihood were wrongly damaged by the general public release of confidential grand jury information.”
DEM AGS OUTRAISE REPUBLICANS: Last summer’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade fueled a record-breaking fundraising 12 months for the Democratic Attorneys General Association, in accordance with numbers shared exclusively with PI. The group, which works to elect Democrats to state attorney general posts across the country, brought in $25.5 million in 2022.
— DAGA barely outraised its Republican counterpart, the Republican Attorneys General Association, which took in $24.8 million in 2022 and typically has the upper hand in fundraising. But POLITICO’s disclosure of the draft abortion ruling last 12 months, followed by the ruling itself in June, put state attorneys general candidates on the frontlines of abortion access across the country, drove hordes of money toward Democratic political groups specifically within the immediate aftermath.
— DAGA’s money haul last 12 months is up from $22 million in 2020 but marks a 56 percent increase for the group over 2018 (the overwhelming majority of attorney general races happen in midterm years). The rise in attention from donors aligns with the steadily expanding clout of state attorneys general lately, as state AGs across the board have taken an outsize role in investigations touching antitrust, tech, finance, consumer protection, health care and more — and giving rise to a recent cottage industry in law firms across D.C.
RE-UPPING: One in every of the Cherokee tribes seeking to have its delegate seated within the House is set to not let effort’s newfound momentum be lost amid the change of power atop the chamber. The push for lawmakers to make good on a virtually 200-year-old promise reached its pinnacle at the top of last 12 months, following already historic advances in Native American causes by the Biden administration.
— “Last November, the House Rules Committee held a historic hearing on this issue, with members of each parties expressing their support for this effort,” Chuck Hoskin Jr., principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, wrote in a letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffriessent Monday.
— Hoksin’s tribe is one among several angling for the House to seat their selection for delegate consequently of a 1835 treaty that led to the brutally forced removal of the tribe by the federal government from its ancestral home to land in what’s now Oklahoma. Doing so “shouldn’t be a Republican issue or a Democratic issue,” he argued. “It’s a matter of whether the US will live as much as the guarantees it has made throughout history.”
— Hoskin also contends within the letter that the divided state of the country makes seating a Cherokee delegate all of the more imperative — and he positions it as a straightforward bipartisan win. “It’s critical that Democrats and Republicans in Congress work together every time possible to deliver results for the people they serve,” he said. “Seating the Cherokee Nation Delegate is one such issue where Republicans and Democrats can work together.”
SPOTTED at a fundraiser hosted by BGR Group that raised $900,000 for the NRSC on Monday, per a tipster: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sens. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), John Thune (R-S.D.), Katie Britt (R-Ala.), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), and Todd Young (R-Ind.); BGR’s Haley Barbour, Dan Murphy, Justin Rzepka, Joe Lai, Erskine Wells, Bob Wood, Robb Walton and David Urban; Robert Fisher of Verizon, Brian Herrington of Scotts Miracle-Gro, Stefanie Holland of Qualcomm, Tony Cirillo of U.S. Acute Care Solutions, Scott Levy of Amedisys, Brooke Donilon of NCTA – The Web & Television Association, Ashley De Smeth of Grubhub, Missy Foxman of the Entertainment Software Association and Ellen McCarthy of Polaris.
— Deloitte has tapped Jason Salzetti to guide its government and public services practice, succeeding Mike Canning. Salzetti is currently a principal on the firm and most recently led Deloitte’s state, local and better education practice.
— Austin O’Boyle is now director of advocacy for Aristotle International. He was most recently senior manager for grassroots advocacy and stakeholder engagement on the National Apartment Association.
— Alexandra Dickinson and Hannah Levy were each promoted to partner at Beekeeper Group, and Craig Plazure and Landin Ryan were each promoted to vice chairman.
— The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association promoted three of its associate general counsels — Kevin Carroll, Melissa MacGregor and Kevin Zambrowicz — to deputy general counsel.
— Marina Torres, a former federal prosecutor and candidate for Los Angeles city attorney, has joined Willkie Farr & Gallagher as a partner within the law firm’s white collar defense practice.
— Retired Air Force Gen. John Hyten has joined Pallas Advisors as a senior principal. He was previously vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
— The North American Millers’ Association has hired Molly Miller as vice chairman of regulatory and technical affairs. NAMA also brought on Stephanie Grunenfelder as international trade consultant and promoted Kim Cooper as senior director of presidency affairs.
— Josh Cartin is now a partner at strategic advisory and risk intelligence firm TD International, where he’ll give attention to Asia. He most recently was chief of staff on the Global Engagement Center on the State Department.
— Gabriela Melendez-Olivera is now director of strategic communications for external affairs at Bitwise Industries. She previously was strategic communications director on the ACLU.
BMW Victory Committee (Reps. Jack Bergman,Lisa McClain,Tim Walberg)
None.
Alston & Bird LLP: Future Of Pharmacy Coalition LLC
Boundary Stone Partners: Regrow
Capital Park Partners LLC: United Protective Technologies, L.L.C.
Constantinople & Vallone Consulting LLC: Qualtek LLC
Donovan Strategies LLC: Antenna Research Associates
Fgs Global (US) LLC (Fka Fgh Holdings LLC): Community News Media LLC (On Behalf Of Standard General)
Ice Miller LLP: Binance Holdings Limited
Invariant LLC: Klarna Inc
J M Burkman & Associates: Donghua Sun
Nextnav Inc.: Nextnav Inc.
Olsson, Frank, Weeda, Terman & Matz, Pc: American Pistachio Growers (Formerly Known As Western Pistachio Association)
Powers Pyles Sutter & Verville, P.C.: Aria Care Partners
Spinnaker Government Relations Fka C.H. Fisher LLC: Trinity Repertory Company
Steptoe & Johnson LLP: Bakkt Holdings, Inc.
Steptoe & Johnson LLP: Northern Dynasty Minerals, Ltd.
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center Affiliate Of Advocate Health: Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center Affiliate Of Advocate Health
Big Fire Law & Policy Group, LLP: Oglala Lakota Housing Authority
Govbiz Advantage, Inc.: Harley-Davidson
Mr. Sebastian O’Kelly: Robertson Monagle & Eastaugh (Formerly Hoffman Silver Gilman & Blasco)
Mr. Sebastian O’Kelly: Sportfishing Association Of California
Susan Stohr: Jamestown Board Of Public Utilities
The Ob-C Group, LLC: Ant Group Company Ltd,
Zirkelbach Strategies: Amag Pharmaceuticals