Happy Wednesday and welcome to PI. Boy, these unprecedented times sure are becoming more… precedented. Let me know how the speaker vacancy impacts you: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: @caitlinoprysko. AN UPDATE TO TUESDAY’S INFLUENCE: In Tuesday’s edition of PI, we wrote that Bayer’s website has not been updated with political contribution disclosures after 2020. Under a global company policy adopted in 2021, Bayer no longer makes direct corporate contributions to individual campaigns, and no longer posts donations from its corporate PAC online aside from the legally required reports filed with the FEC, according to the company. — The company still gave more than $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, Republican Attorneys General Association and the Republican State Leadership Committee and the Democratic Governors Association, Democratic Attorneys General Association and Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee between 2018 and 2022, contributions that were not disclosed in the company’s final reports. AFP HEADS TO THE HILL: Americans for Prosperity is planting a flag closer to the Capitol as the Koch-funded conservative grassroots group preps a campaign and policy blitz ahead of next year’s elections. AFP will retain its current headquarters in Arlington, Va., but will move its government affairs team into a new 15,000-square-foot campus in the same building as the American Trucking Associations. The new space is meant to serve as a hub for staff, lawmakers and other allies to mingle, as the group readies to spend upwards of $70 million to defeat former President Donald Trump in the GOP presidential primary. FIRST IN PI — MFA LAUNCHES DEFENSE OF PRIVATE CREDIT: The Managed Funds Association is putting five figures behind a new ad campaign aiming to highlight the virtues of private credit funds, which are garnering a closer look from regulators following the bank collapses of this spring. — “Private credit is kind of like the economic Marines. When there is a shock to a system, the first group of lenders that comes back is private credit,” an executive from a Minnesota private credit fund says in the spot, which features a hotelier who relied on a loan backed by private capital as a lifeline during the pandemic. — The ad will run on connected TVs, in display ads and on social media, and is part of a broader MFA push to boost the alternative asset management industry. Our friends over at Morning Money wrote last week that the industry’s ears are burning after a recent speech from FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg called out the potential systemic risks posed by nonbanks, with regulators weighing the prospect of singling out individual firms for designation as “systemically important financial institutions,” a prospect the industry has sought to downplay. — “Private credit funds provide needed capital to the businesses that are the backbone of the U.S. economy,” MFA President and CEO Bryan Corbett said in a statement. “This video showcases how private credit helps create opportunities for workers and strengthen communities across the country.” ICYMI — NEWS EXECS RALLY FOR AI PROTECTIONS: “Dozens of newspaper, digital and magazine news executives descended on Capitol Hill last week to lobby members of Congress on copyright protections for their work in the era of artificial intelligence,” Axios’ Sara Fischer reports. — “Newspaper leaders can be hesitant to lobby directly, given that many of their outlets give political endorsements. But the threat of AI, combined with competition concerns around Big Tech, is pushing executives to band together and speak out. The Hill blitz was organized by the News/Media Alliance (NMA), one of the largest news publishing associations in the world, representing over 2,000 publishers.” (POLITICO parent company Axel Springer is a member of the group.) — “Executives from an array of outlets, ranging from state papers like the Idaho Press to large digital companies like Vox Media, held over 80 meetings with lawmakers across 25 states to discuss copyright protections for their work in the AI era, among other issues.” — “In her first interview since becoming president and CEO of the NMA in June, Danielle Coffey laid out a road map for how the group is planning to focus its advocacy efforts around AI,” with a focus on “IP protection, disclosures and transparency in training AI models, liability, and accountability and competition. … The main position the group takes is that any unlicensed use of content created by its members and journalists by generative AI companies is intellectual property infringement.” D.C. AG PROBING ARABELLA ADVISORS: D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb has launched an investigation into the the liberal dark money group Arabella Advisors in addition to his probe of the dark money network aligned with conservative legal activist Leonard Leo, POLITICO’s Heidi Przybyla reports. — In response to the inquiry into whether Leo had misused nonprofit tax laws for his personal enrichment, Republican attorneys general argued that Schwalb’s office should instead be investigating Arabella Advisors, a consulting firm founded by a former Clinton administration official that helps manage some of the top liberal dark money nonprofits. — Schwalb’s office has issued subpoenas in both investigations, which followed “dueling complaints from liberal and conservative watchdog groups filed with the IRS that began after POLITICO reported that the lifestyle of Leo and a handful of his allies took a lavish turn beginning in 2016, the year he was tapped as an unpaid adviser on judicial nominations to former President Donald Trump.” — “Arabella Advisors complies with the law and will cooperate with the District of Columbia Attorney General’s civil inquiry,” Arabella spokesperson Steve Sampson told Heidi. “We’re confident in the systems we have in place to ensure our business conforms with legal and regulatory requirements, and Arabella Advisors is proud of the work we do.” — The response contrasts with that of Leo, whose attorney David Rivkin told POLITICO that that Schwalb has “no legal authority to conduct any investigatory steps or take any enforcement measures” because the Leo-aligned nonprofits were organized outside of D.C.
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