MARK YOUR CALENDARS: The Justice Department’s advance notice of proposed rulemaking for a potentially major rewrite of the Foreign Agents Registration Act hit the federal register this morning, setting off the 60-day public comment period. Those hoping to weigh in on the new rules — which will touch on an array of the statute's provisions from the legal, commercial and academic exemptions to labeling requirements for informational materials disseminated on social media and online platforms — will have until Feb. 11 to do so, per the notice. Q STREET ELECTS NEW BOARD: Q Street, the professional nonprofit association of LGBTQ lobbyists, has elected Sheila E. Isong of Giffords and David Reid of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck to its board. Yesenia Chavez of Purple Strategies, Jennifer Kane of Altria and Diego Sánchez of The Raben Group were reelected. They join Q Street President Ben Grove of Thompson Coburn Lobbying & Policy and Secretary Sabrina Kent of the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce on the board for 2022. BOOKMARK THIS: Insider has launched a new series, Conflicted Congress, that “chronicles the myriad ways members of the US House and Senate have eviscerated their own ethical standards, avoided consequences, and blinded Americans to the many moments when lawmakers' personal finances clash with their public duties.” — The series includes a tool that rates every member on their potential for conflicts of interest based on the personal finances of the member and their top staffers, and debuted with half a dozen articles today outlining lawmakers’ ties to the defense industry, Facebook, companies with ties to the fossil fuel industry, companies closely involved in the Covid response and more. A LOOK AT MANCHIN’S BLIND TRUST: Documents filed by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) show that the blind trust in which earnings from his family’s coal business have been placed for years “is much too small to account for all his reported earnings from the coal company, as of his latest financial disclosure report, which covers 2020 and was filed in May,” according to The Washington Post’s Michael Kranish and Anna Phillips. — “Manchin’s latest financial disclosure report says that the West Virginia family coal business that he helped found and run, Enersystems , paid him $492,000 in interest, dividends and other income in 2020, and that his share of the firm is worth between $1 million and $5 million. He signed a sworn statement saying he is aware of these earnings, underscoring that he is not blind to them. — “By contrast, Manchin set up a blind trust with $350,000 in cash in 2012. In his latest financial disclosure report, the senator reported that the Joseph Manchin III Qualified Blind Trust earned no more than $15,000 last year and is worth between $500,000 and $1 million. By design, it is not possible to know precisely what’s in the blind trust. But the financial disclosure records show that it doesn’t include all of Manchin’s income from Enersystems,” which ethics experts told the Post “calls into question the impartiality of a senator who in October forced Biden to drop the plan in his Build Back Better bill to phase out the same kinds of coal plants that are key to his family company’s profitability.” — A spokesperson for the senator, who declined to be interviewed by the Post, told the paper Manchin “is in full compliance with Senate ethics and financial disclosure rules.” INTERESTS BENEFITING FROM SAUDI ARMS SALES SPENT MILLIONS ON INFLUENCE EFFORTS: “On Tuesday night, the Senate rejected a bipartisan amendment to the annual defense authorization bill that would have blocked the first major arms sale to Saudi Arabia in President Joe Biden’s administration,” OpenSecrets.org’s Anna Massoglia reports, clearing a path for the $650 million arms deal in “a win for Saudi influence operations and defense industry interests that have spent millions in lobbying in 2021.” — “Foreign agents of Saudi Arabia have already reported more than $10 million in spending on foreign lobbying and influence operations in 2021. Saudi interests’ spending on foreign lobbying and influence operations has topped $87 million since 2018, the year Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed, according to Foreign Agents Registration Act data. — “Saudi Arabia has continued to build up its foreign influence operations in the U.S., and has hired new foreign agents with close ties to the Biden administration,” like Teneo, which has a strategic partnership with WestExec Advisors, the consulting firm that has supplied the Biden administration with numerous top officials. — And “Raytheon, the primary manufacturer making money from the Saudi arms sale, has given over $4.5 million to the campaigns and leadership PACs of senators who voted against blocking the sale over the lifetime of their political careers. The defense industry giant has spent $12.7 million on federal lobbying in 2021 so far, making it the highest lobbying spender of the defense industry this year. Defense contractors and weapons companies have collectively spent $98.9 million on lobbying in the first three quarters of 2021.” HUSCH BLACKWELL EXPANDS TO DENVER: Missouri-based Husch Blackwell Strategies is expanding to Denver with local lobbying firm Axiom Politics, becoming HBS Colorado. Axiom’s Micki Hackenberger will lead the office, HBS’ eighth, working with Erin Goff, Lisa LaBriola and Tamara Mohamed. The Denver offices is the second HBS has opened in a state capital in the last year, joining the firm’s Phoenix office. SPOTTED at American Conservative Union and Cove Strategies’ Matt Schlapp and Mercedes Schlapp 's annual Christmas party on Saturday night at their house in Alexandria, per a PI tipster: Stephen and Katie Miller; Reps. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Billy Long (R-Mo.); Wolf Global Advisors' Chad Wolf; Newsmax's Sean Spicer; PCG's Katrina Pierson; Steve Biegun; Boeing's Ziad Ojakli; Sheridan Strategies' Devon Spurgeon; DCI Group's Kelly Love; Stanton Park Group's Bryan Wells; CRC Advisors' Adam Kennedy, Laura Schlapp and Mike Martin; BBC's Suzanne Kianpour; Judd Deere; Daravi Strategies' Roma Daravi; and ACU's Laura Nasim. | 
