TWITTER WHISTLEBLOWER TO HIT THE HILL: “Twitter’s former chief security officer is set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee next month following the public release of his allegations that the company repeatedly failed to protect its users’ data,” POLITICO’s Rebecca Kern reports. — The panel “announced a hearing on Sept. 13 featuring the testimony of Peiter Zatko, whose whistleblower complaint made public on Tuesday alleges ‘egregious’ privacy and security violations at the company.” — “The hearing is the first of likely numerous investigations expected by Congress in the coming months, as lawmakers probe the implications of the cybersecurity vulnerability claims Zatko — a renowned cybersecurity expert — made against his former employer.” — “‘Mr. Zatko’s allegations of widespread security failures and foreign state actor interference at Twitter raise serious concerns. If these claims are accurate, they may show dangerous data privacy and security risks for Twitter users around the world,’ Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a joint statement. Twitter has called the allegations ‘riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies.’” — Meanwhile Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, “said he has concerns about how the security allegations could impact the November midterms.” TWITTER LOBBYIST MOVES TO GOOGLE: As scrutiny of the platform ratchets up on the Hill, Twitter will be down one of its in-house lobbyists. Reggie McCrimmon, a public policy manager at the company for nearly three years, has joined Google as a government affairs and public policy manager for Google Play focused on content and safety. — McCrimmon, who’s also a Congressional Black Caucus and G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) alum, said in an interview that while his role will continue to consist of coalition building and looking for allies in Washington, a big part of the role will include working with product teams to relay intel, “helping them understand regulatory threats and the best way to make sure that we are putting our best foot forward.” He added that he loved working at Twitter, but that he was eager to hone a different area of expertise. WHAT’S ON STEVE WYNN’S MIND?: RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel on Wednesday sought to juice some of the party’s biggest donors amid worries about Republican fundraising in marquee Senate races, POLITICO’s Alex Isenstadt reports, a plea to which megadonor and casino magnate Steve Wynn responded with a curious inquiry: Whether there are any dark-money nonprofits that contributors could give to. — Such 501(c)4 groups, of course, are not required to disclose their donors, unlike traditional PACs. They also aren’t allowed to operate primarily as a political organization. — According to a recording of the call obtained by Alex, Wynn, who in 2018 stepped down from his role as the RNC’s finance chair amid sexual misconduct accusations the casino magnate has denied, argued that some donors “‘are self-conscious for reasons that are personal to them, business people and folks like that’ and would rather give anonymously.” — Per Alex, “the billionaire also offered up some messaging advice. Republican candidates, he said, should run aggressive TV ads casting Democrats as advocates of tax policies that would hurt lower-wage earners and small businesses. ‘Hard-hitting kind of spots with a man’s voice, no soft pedal,’ Wynn suggested, before giving a sample script: ‘“They’re coming after you if you’re a waiter, if you’re a bartender, if you’re anybody with a cash business … they’re coming after you.”’” PI LEGAL CORNER: The grant consulting and lobbying firm McAllister & Quinn has dropped a lawsuit against six of its former lobbyists accusing them of violating their contracts as well as trade secrets statutes when they left to join a rival lobbying firm earlier this year. — In the suit filed in February, McAllister & Quinn accused Jessica Venable, Scott Tominovich, Chris Fish, Joo Young Lee, Casey Newell and Jake Parduhn of secretly coordinating their departures from the firm and arranging to bring more than two dozen clients to Thorn Run Partners with them. McAllister & Quinn also accused their former staffers of improperly retaining reams of documents the firm said contained “confidential and trade secret information” relating to its specialization in grant consultancy. — Venable, Tominovich, Fish, Lee, Newell and Parduhn moved to have the case thrown out in March. But the two sides came to an agreement that McAllister & Quinn would drop the case upon certification that its former employees had permanently deleted the internal documents in their possession, which happened in July, according to court filings. SUMMER READING: The New York Times Magazine has an excerpt out today of David Enrich’s upcoming book “Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice” that explores how the law firm Jones Day , through its attorneys’ penetration of the Trump administration, “is now taking advantage of a judicial revolution that it helped set in motion. The power of that revolution, which is spreading to courtrooms and statehouses around the country, is now on vivid display,” Enrich writes, and the firm’s “influence seems poised to grow.”
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