With Daniel Lippman MILLER STRATEGIES ADDS 3: One of the lobbying shops that perhaps stands to gain most from Kevin McCarthy’s ascension to House speaker is growing its ranks ahead of a potential surge in business. Miller Strategies, which is run by longtime McCarthy confidant and fundraiser Jeff Miller, hired Stephen Ruppel, most recently McCarthy’s political director, as an associate principal. — Annie Buckner,who served as a field coordinator and political aide at the RNC, has joined the firm as an operations associate while Chloe Judge,who’s worked for former Republican Senate candidates Blake Masters and Morgan Ortagus as well as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump, will be a client relations associate at the firm. — "We pride ourselves on punching above our weight for a small firm,” Miller said in a statement. “That's a direct result of hiring folks who not only have the right experiences, but who are willing to outwork anyone in town on behalf of clients. Our new personnel fit that mold, and Miller Strategies is going to do GREAT things with Republicans in the 118th Congress as a result.” — Though voters gave the GOP a smaller House majority than anticipated in November’s midterms — which at points last week appeared to threaten McCarthy’s leadership ambitions — Miller’s firm appears to be readying for a McCarthy bump that may have already begun. As PI reported last year, Miller Strategies signed eight new clients in the back half of 2022, including the Federation of American Hospitals, the embattled PGA Tour, cloud software giant Oracle, and an AI developer of facial recognition software for use in schools. — The firm was on track to earn around $8 million in lobbying revenues in 2022 from clients such as Apple, PhRMA, Altria, Dow Chemical, SpaceX and Southern Company. Good afternoon and welcome to PI. Send K Street intel: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on Twitter: @caitlinoprysko. HOW SANTOS ‘DUPED’ DONORS: “Wealthy donors received calls and emails from a man who said he was Dan Meyer, McCarthy’s chief of staff, during the 2020 and 2022 election cycles,” people familiar with the matter told CNBC’s Brian Schwartz. In reality, the emails came from Sam Miele,a fundraiser working for scandal-ridden Rep. George Santos(R-N.Y.), “according to one GOP donor who contributed to Santos’ campaign.” — “The impersonation of the top House Republican’s chief of staff adds to an emerging picture of a winning congressional campaign propelled by fabrications and questionable tactics. Santos now finds himself in the sights of investigators and in danger of losing his political career even after he’s been sworn into office. In raising money for his campaign, Santos fed donors the same falsehoods he gave voters, campaign fundraisers and others say.” — “At private events with GOP donors and political leaders, Santos would flaunt or hint at key parts of his resume that have turned out to be false, according to records and people familiar with the matter. The Republican would also tout his business record that’s now in question, including claims that he worked on Wall Street, as a way to encourage donors to contribute to his campaign, according to financiers and party operatives familiar with the matter.” — “‘We were duped,’ said a Republican political strategist close to GOP donors and the leadership of the Republican Jewish Coalition. The group banned Santos from future events after the revelation that the congressman falsely claimed to be Jewish.” — “The lies and embellishments helped Santos and his allies raise nearly $3 million for his winning 2022 campaign to represent New York’s 3rd District. The donations were spread between Santos’ campaign, a pro-Santos leadership PAC and two joint fundraising committees that were created to bring in money for his campaign, his leadership PAC and the Nassau County Republican Committee, according to Federal Election Commission filings.” MAKE IT RAIN: Santos is facing a flurry of ethics and campaign finance complaints stemming from his falsehoods, per Insider’s Bryan Metzger. The liberal money-in-politics advocacy group End Citizens United will lodge complaints with the FEC, Justice Department and Office of Congressional Ethics, urging investigators with each body to “immediately begin investigations and hold him accountable for his shady and unlawful actions.” — “The group's complaint with the Department of Justice argues that Santos violated the Ethics in Government Act by not only filing a required financial disclosure almost a year late, but likely making several omissions related to various purported assets he holds. The complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics … argues that the Republican congressman violated federal law by soliciting campaign contributions in exchange for attending a swearing-in event on Capitol grounds.” — “And the group's complaint with the Federal Election Commission focuses on a purported $700,000 personal loan that he made to his campaign that the group says either came from a ‘shell company’ or was a prohibited corporate contribution. It also argues that nearly 40 payments of $199.99 made by his campaign represented an effort to skirt federal laws that require campaigns to keep receipts of purchases for $200 or more,” and echoes an FEC complaint filed today by the Campaign Legal Center. — The Democratic super PAC American Bridge also filed a complaint with OCE that accuses Santos of falsifying his financial disclosures. NEW YEAR, NEW FIRMS: Education lobbyist Lindsay Fryer has left Penn Hill Group after half a decade to launch her own firm, Lodestone DC. Fryer was previously a senior education adviser to former Senate HELP Chair Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), where she was a top negotiator on the Every Student Succeeds Act. The new firm will offer strategic consulting, lobbying, and government relations focusing primarily on education and workforce policy. — Scrivner Leon Group’s Pete Leon is also striking out on his own, launching his solo consultancy Leon Consultants this month following the retirement of his longtime business partner Mike Scrivner. So far two clients — Comcast Corp. and Iroquois Gas Transmission System — have re-signed with the new firm. TIK TOKIN’ ON BIDEN’S DOOR: “ TikTok and ByteDance lobbyists have visited the White House at least eight times between July 2021 and August 2022, White House visitor logs show, providing a window into how the Chinese government-linked social media operation has gained influence in Washington,” amid discussions about banning the app or requiring parent company ByteDance to spin off its U.S. operations, the Washington Examiner’s Gabe Kaminsky reports. — It’s not clear “whether the lobbyists went to the White House on TikTok business or for another client, the visits are ‘unequivocally’ worrisome, according to Kara Frederick,” a tech expert at the Heritage Foundation and a former Facebook security official. — ByteDance lobbyists who visited the White House included Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas’ Paul Thornell and Rosemary Gutierrez as well as a pair of former members of Congress, K&L Gates’ Bart Gordon and Crossroads Strategies’ John Breaux and TikTok federal government affairs manager Jason Samuels .
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