Owner of besieged Ukrainian steel plant adds PR help, Ferox signs Qatar

From: POLITICO Influence - Friday May 27,2022 09:19 pm
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By Caitlin Oprysko

With Daniel Lippman

FARA FRIDAY: It’s been a minute since PI’s semi-regular round up of interesting FARA filings. So here’s what you may have missed if you, unlike your host, do not scour the Justice Department’s database daily. (I don’t blame you!)

— First, the days of rushing to offer pro bono services for work relating to Russia’s war in Ukraine appear to be over. SCM Consulting Limited, an affiliate of the company that owns a steel plant in Mariupol, Ukraine, that became the site of a standoff between Russian and Ukrainian militaries in a battle for control of the strategic port city, has hired Qorvis on a $60,000-per-month contract to provide public relations services, according to documents filed with DOJ this week.

— Close to a dozen Qorvis staffers will work to highlight the “operations and humanitarian efforts” of the steel plant’s parent company, System Capital Management, which reportedly employs more than 200,000 people, and its owner, Rinat Akhmetov . Akhmetov, who the filings say has “held an important role in political parties in Ukraine,” is the country’s richest man. He told Ukrainian media this week that he planned to sue Russia for as much as $20 billion in damages to his steel plants in the country.

— Qorvis will work to win the company earned media coverage and “assist with securing media interviews and proactive media engagement regarding events and projects as requested by the client,” according to the filings.

— SCM’s Azovstal steel plant was one of Ukraine’s last holdouts in Mariupol, with hundreds of Ukrainian fighters who had been “holed up in the facility for weeks under an intense Russian assault” finally evacuating the plant earlier this month, The Washington Post reported , calling the showdown “a desperate symbol of Ukrainians’ will to fight and die for their land, a key factor in Ukraine’s military successes against Russia’s larger, more powerful army.”

— The Qatari Embassy has hired Ferox Strategies, according to documents filed with DOJ earlier this month. Cristina Antelo and Mark Williams will help Doha bolster relations with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Congress and with the Biden administration. The yearlong contract is worth $20,000 per month, according to a copy filed with DOJ.

— Qatar’s lobbying spree has slowed way down compared with last year, when the Gulf nation signed or renewed contracts with eight firms in a bid to reverse its diplomatic fortunes following the Trump administration. Ferox is just the second firm Doha has retained this year, after hiring Becker & Poliakoff back in March.

Meanwhile Dan Sennott, a former GOP staff director for the House Armed Services Committee, and Nasim Fussell, who served as the international trade counsel for the Senate Finance Committee, have joined Holland & Knight ’s team representing the British Embassy, advising the U.K. on defense authorization and appropriations as well as other legislation that impacts the U.S-U.K. defense relationship, according to DOJ filings.

Happy holiday Friday and welcome to PI. We’ll be off Monday, but PI will be back in your inboxes Tuesday. In the meantime, send a tip or two, or three: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on Twitter: @caitlinoprysko.

 

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WHITE HOUSE AIDE HEADS TO FOX: Carissa Smith has started as vice president for government relations at Fox Corp., West Wing Playbook reported Thursday . Smith most recently was senior adviser on women and girls and health in the White House’s Office of Public Engagement. Before that, she worked on the Biden campaign and was a digital press secretary to late House Oversight Chair Elijah Cummings.

— Smith will, of course, not be the first former staffer of President Joe Biden on Fox’s government relations team. That team is led by Danny O’Brien , who served as Biden’s chief of staff in the Senate and was a key adviser to his 2008 presidential campaign.

ANNALS OF DARK MONEY: “Documents obtained by OpenSecrets shed new light on the mysterious ‘dark money’ groupDefending America Together , which has poured millions of dollars from undisclosed donors into recent midterm elections in Pennsylvania and Alabama,” OpenSecrets’ Taylor Giorno reports.

— “According to a certificate of incorporation obtained by OpenSecrets, Erick Todd used a personal mailbox address in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to incorporate Defending America Together, Inc. in Lewes, Del. Defending America Together was incorporated on Jan. 10, 2022, as a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization formed and operated exclusively for ‘the promotion of social welfare.’ These groups are generally not required to disclose their donors, and their ‘primary’ purpose is not supposed to be political activities.”

— “Defending America Together has not publicized any social welfare activities, but a corporation with the same name contributed $5 million to super PACs that spent big in the Alabama and Pennsylvania primaries.”

— “On Jan. 20, 10 days after Todd incorporated the group, Defending America Together made its first contribution. The group gave $1 million to America’s Promise, and it gave another $1 million to the super PAC on March 9. America’s Promise contributed over $3.1 million to the Alabama Patriots PAC, a different super PAC supporting Michael Durant in Tuesday’s Alabama Senate GOP primary. Defending America Together is the top contributor to America’s Promise, “ whose treasurer “is also the founder and CEO of More Perfect Union, a group that aims to elect moderate Senators from both parties.”

— “On March 15, Defending America Together contributed $3 million to the Pennsylvania Conservative Fund , which spent $3 million opposing celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz in the contentious Pennsylvania Senate GOP primary. Pennsylvania Conservative Fund raised $3.5 million ahead of the primary. The other $500,000 came from billionaire investor Thomas Tull.”

NRA MAY BE LANGUISHING BUT ITS LEGACY LIVES ON: The lede of this Washington Post story from Isaac Arnsdorf and Carol D. Leonnig sums up neatly how the decline of the National Rifle Association has paved the way for the movement to take on a life of its own in recent years : “Nearly a decade ago, the massacre of 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school threw the politics of gun violence into a state of suspension for a full week, as conservative politicians waited to hear from the powerful gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, before taking a stand,” they write.

— “This week, after another rampage, at a Texas elementary school that left 19 children and two teachers dead, Republican lawmakers didn’t wait for the NRA as they lined up within hours to rebuff any proposed gun-control measures.”

— “The NRA, which will host former president Donald Trump at its annual convention Friday in Houston, has been embroiled in lawsuits and infighting for the last four years, taking a toll on its budget and standing in Washington — and also creating space for more-extreme groups to gain traction.”

— “‘The NRA is not doing anything around the country anywhere; all their staff lawyered up and are fighting amongst each other,’ said Dudley Brown, a gun rights lobbyist who has long criticized the NRA for being too open to compromise. Brown’s rival group, the National Association for Gun Rights, has grown to 75 staff members and a $15 million budget, he said, up from about $6 million in 2019.”

— “For GOP voters and lawmakers, gun rights have become a central culture-war issue animating their movement. Arguments that once centered on hunting and rural traditions have turned into bitter battles over identity, with no need for a giant lobbying group like the NRA to stoke the flames.”

HOT ANTITRUST SUMMER: “A revised version of the American Innovation and Choice Online Act would firm up the bill’s cybersecurity and privacy protections — but not in any way that appeased the big tech companies lobbying against the effort,” POLITICO’s Emily Birnbaum reports.

— “Late Wednesday night, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) released the new draft of the legislation, an antitrust bill that aims to prohibit the biggest tech companies from discriminating against their rivals. While the bill as a whole remains largely unchanged, Klobuchar’s office worked to address some of the concerns that lawmakers have raised about it hitting companies outside of the tech industry and protecting user data.”

— “The new version includes two new provisions to ensure that telecom and credit card companies are not covered by the bill, ensuring that it is narrowly targeted toward Apple, Google, Amazon and Meta.”

— “The legislation also seeks to address the concerns about privacy and cybersecurity raised by both lawmakers and the tech titans. The major tech companies — most prominently Apple — have spent months arguing that the bill would harm privacy and cybersecurity, pointing out that the legislation would require tech companies to open up their platforms to third parties. For instance, it would allow people to download apps to their iPhones from a variety of app stores rather than only Apple’s app store. … Still, the bill’s most aggressive critics remain unwavering in their opposition.”

Jobs Report

— Economist Ted Gayer, executive vice president at the Brookings Institution, is set to become president of the Niskanen Center, Morning Money reports. Before Brookings, Gayer was a professor of public policy at Georgetown University, and is a George W. Bush Treasury and Council of Economic Advisers alum.

Matt Royer is now a director of paid digital media at SKDK. He most recently was media planning manager at DSPolitical and continues as the communications director of Young Democrats of America and executive vice president of Virginia Young Democrats.

Paul J. Angelo is now director of the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies at the National Defense University. He previously was a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Nidhi Thakar is joining Form Energy as its vice president of policy and regulatory. Thakar is currently senior director for resources and regulatory strategy and engagement at Portland General Electric. She was previously a senior adviser in DOE’s Loan Programs Office under the Obama administration.

Judith Solomon is retiring after 17 years with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, where she was most recently a senior fellow focused on the Medicaid program.

New Joint Fundraisers

Hayes Victory Fund (Rep. Jahana Hayes, Connecticut Democratic State Central Committee)
Hirono Tokuda Victory (Sen. Mazie Hirono, Tokuda for Hawaii)

New PACs

American Hemp Growers Super PAC (Super PAC)
Retake the house 2022 (Super PAC)
Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition Votes Action PAC (PAC)

New Lobbying Registrations

Alignment Government Strategies: Connect Housing Blocks
Calfee Strategic Solutions: Columbus Partnership
Hall, Render, Killian, Heath & Lyman, P.C.: Thedacare Health System
S-3 Group: Humana, Inc.
The Bridge Advisory Group: Everbridge
The Livingston Group, LLC: St Engineering North America, Inc.

New Lobbying Terminations

Fgh Holdings, LLC (Formerly Known As The Glover Park Group LLC): Atomenergoremont Plc
The Campbell Consulting Group: Tobaccoville USa, Inc.
Tiber Creek Group: Honeywell International Inc.

 

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