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Presented by Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l: Delivered daily, Influence gives you a comprehensive rundown and analysis of all lobby hires and news on K Street. | | | | | |  | | By Caitlin Oprysko | Presented by Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l | With Daniel Lippman KLARNA LOBBIES UP: Klarna, the Swedish “buy now, pay later” company, has hired its first Washington lobbyists, according to newly filed lobbying disclosures. The company retained a team from Cypress Advocacy that includes former House Financial Services staffers and a former Treasury official, and Forbes-Tate Partners in addition to registering the company’s first in-house lobbyist. — “Buy now, pay later” companies like Klarna, which allow customers to pay for even small purchases in often interest-free installments, have soared in popularity in the last few years, boosted by higher rates of online shopping since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. On Thursday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced an inquiry into the burgeoning payment model, with Director Rohit Chopra warning that “buy now, pay later is the new version of the old layaway plan, but with modern, faster twists where the consumer gets the product immediately but gets the debt immediately too.” — Klarna was one of five companies from which Chopra asked for information on the payment model, which the agency said has seen even more growth during the holiday shopping season and whose ease of use can result in shoppers quickly racking up debt without the same protections as credit cards, or unknowingly providing the BNPL companies with valuable payment data. The agency said the information it collects from Klarna as well as PayPal, Afterpay, Zip and Affirm will be used to “report to the public about industry practices and risks.” Happy Friday and welcome to PI. Have you or your firm signed any interesting clients lately? Drafting up any interesting memos for clients? Send them my way: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on Twitter: @caitlinoprysko. | | | | A message from Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l: Pilots are committed to keeping our skies safe, and that means keeping two pilots on every flight deck. Help keep the most vital safety feature on board: two highly trained pilots. Learn more. | | | ENTERING THE FRAY: It didn’t take long following American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s announcement that it would be wading into electoral politics with direct spending for the first time before the group got pulled into the quandary faced by all PAC managers since the Jan. 6 insurrection. — J Street , the liberal pro-Israel advocacy group, called on AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups to stay away from donations to the 146 Republican lawmakers who voted against certifying the presidential election results in January, calling it “critical that groups representing the pro-Israel and Jewish communities do absolutely all that we can to help defend free and fair elections and democratic institutions.” — “While leaders and organizations in the pro-Israel community will of course have significant differences over questions related to American foreign policy and the US-Israel relationship, there can be no excuse for aiding and endorsing elected officials and candidates who seek to tear down American democracy itself,” Jeremy Ben-Ami , the organization’s president, said in a statement, arguing that “no amount of ‘pro-Israel’ posturing on the part of far-right politicians can be cause to justify or ignore the threat they pose to democracy, to the American Jewish community and all vulnerable minorities.” AIPAC declined to comment. BUSINESS COALITION HAMMERS DEMS ON GILTI: A coalition of business groups that includes the Business Roundtable, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers warned senators in a letter this morning against Democratic efforts to hike taxes on earnings from abroad by multinational companies as part of the party’s reconciliation bill, which President Joe Biden conceded Thursday is not going to pass the Senate before the New Year. — “The House-passed version of H.R. 5376 would further tilt the playing field against American businesses by imposing significantly higher taxes under the Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (GILTI) provision,” the groups, known as the Promote America’s Competitive Economy — or PACE — Coalition, said in their missive to lawmakers. The group, most members of which have lobbied hard against the bill as a whole, argued that without other countries also moving to adopt foreign minimum taxes agreed upon by the OECD, “there should be no increases in GILTI taxes on the foreign earnings of American companies.” — Other trade groups who signed the letter include the American Petroleum Institute, Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers, Energy Workforce & Technology Council, Glass Packaging Institute, Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, Indiana Manufacturers Association, National Foreign Trade Council, State Business Executives and the United States Council for International Business. THE REPUBLICANS WHO HELPED KAYNE’S CAMPAIGN: “New documents show Kanye West ’s doomed White House campaign—styled as an ‘independent’ third-party effort—appears to have disguised potentially millions of dollars in services it received from a secretive network of Republican Party operatives, including advisers to the GOP elite and a managing partner at one of the top conservative political firms in the country,” The Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger and William Bredderman report. — “The Kanye 2020 campaign committee did not even report paying some of these advisers, and used an odd abbreviation for another—moves which campaign finance experts say appear designed to mask the association between known GOP operatives and the campaign, and could constitute a violation of federal laws.” — “At the heart of Kanye’s political operation was Holtzman Vogel , one of the most powerful and well-connected law firms serving major Republican political and nonprofit organizations today.” Work for the campaign by Jill Vogel, the firm’s managing partner, “is made clear in months of email and text communications revealed in a multimillion-dollar breach-of-contract lawsuit targeting the West campaign and consultants, first filed this spring in Texas state court and reviewed by The Daily Beast.” ROE GOES TO MAR-A-LAGO: “The political consultant who orchestrated Virginia Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin’s complicated, arm’s-length dance with [former President] Donald Trump recently made a pilgrimage to the former president’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida to smooth over some hard feelings, forge an alliance and tout his company ahead of Trump’s potential 2024 campaign,” three people familiar with their meeting told The Washington Post’s Laura Vozzella and Josh Dawsey. — “Political consultant Jeff Roe, who clashed with Trump in 2016 while working for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), at the time a Trump campaign rival, made the trip in recent weeks after the former president agreed to see him. Trump had complained to aides that he wasn’t getting enough credit for helping Youngkin (R) secure his Nov. 2 win, according to the three people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.” — “It was not clear whether Roe, founder of Axiom Strategies , made the trip at Youngkin’s behest. Roe declined to comment, as did a Youngkin spokesman. Roe has many other clients — and a palpable desire to capitalize on the win in Virginia, where he helped a political novice beat veteran Democrat Terry McAuliffe in a state that Joe Biden had won a year earlier by 10 points. Roe has taken a victory lap of sorts in recent weeks, party operatives and officials say, pitching his services ahead of the midterms and talking about how the Youngkin campaign won.” CORRECTION: Thursday’s Influence misstated the administration in which Christina Pearson served. It was the George W. Bush administration. PI regrets the error. | | | | A message from Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l:   | | | | | | — Ross Parman is now vice president for investor relations and government affairs at GPM Investments. He most recently was director of communications and government affairs at Altria. — James Braid is now chief of staff for Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.). He most recently was a government affairs fellow at the Conservative Partnership Institute, and is a Trump OMB, House Freedom Caucus and Ted Budd (R-N.C.) alum. — Mia Woodard is joining the Hub Project as director of federal and external affairs. She most recently was a legislative affairs and policy counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. — Geoffrey Cain is joining the Lincoln Network as a senior fellow working on tech and China issues, per Morning Tech. He was previously a TechCongress fellow for House Foreign Affairs ranking member Michael McCaul (R-Texas). — Robert Pohlman has been promoted to be vice president for strategy, communications, government relations and policy at energy company New Jersey Resources. He most recently was managing director for innovation and strategic initiatives for the company.
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| | | None. | | | Colorado Conservatives for Retaking Congress (Super PAC)
VA-10 REPUBLICAN NOMINEE FUND 2022 (PAC) | | New Lobbying Registrations | | Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP: Safesource Direct
Federal Street Strategies, LLC: ​Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, Inc.
Forbes-Tate: Jobsohio
Forbes-Tate: Klarna Inc.
Forbes-Tate: Spero Therapeutics, Inc.
Todd Strategy, LLC Dba Todd Strategy Group: Synthetic Biology Coalition
Whitmer & Worrall, LLC: Smr Automotive Systems USa Inc.
Whitmer & Worrall, LLC: X-Mat
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| | New Lobbying Terminations | | Becker & Poliakoff, P.A.: Gunbail, Inc.
Becker & Poliakoff, P.A.: Strategics Consulting, LLC (On Behalf Of City Of Gastonia, Nc
Easterseals New Jersey: Eastereals New Jersey
Franco Government Relations, Inc.: City Of Hialeah, Florida
The Advocacy Group: Nuclear Waste Partnership, LLC | | | | A message from Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l: Pilots are committed to keeping our skies safe, and that means keeping two pilots on every flight deck. Over a decade of research from NASA and the FAA proves that no computer can match the skill, instinct, and responsiveness of the pilot and co-pilot partnership. Help keep the most vital safety feature on board: two highly trained pilots. Learn more. | | | | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
