CYBER COMPANY HIRED LOBBYISTS AMID LAYOFFS: A newly shuttered Beltway cybersecurity company co-founded by a former NSA director spent $120,000 on lobbyists last year as it laid off dozens of its staff in an apparently unsuccessful bid to keep its doors open, Daniel reports. — As IronNet was laying off dozens of employees last year, the company, whose founders include former NSA honcho Keith Alexander, hired Public Strategies Washington to lobby the House, Senate and General Services Administration on “cybersecurity modernization” and fiscal 2023 appropriations, among other matters. — PSW was paid by IronNet a total of $120,000 during the second, third and fourth quarters last year. IronNet said in June 2022 that it had laid off 17 percent of its employees; less than three months later, it laid off another 35 percent of its staff. — The company is being sued by investors who say they lost money after IronNet incorrectly predicted significant revenue soon after it went public in 2021. Last week, IronNet told the SEC it has “ceased all activities of the Company and its subsidiaries and terminated the remaining employees of the Company and its subsidiaries” and was exploring a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing. INVARIANT ADDS EPW AIDE: Annie D’Amato has left the Hill, where she was Democratic counsel on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, to join Invariant’s energy and environment practice. D’Amato will also work on sustainability and recycling issues in the firm’s consumer products practice. — In an interview, D’Amato said her decision to leave the Hill stemmed in part from the impending retirement of her former boss, EPW Chair Tom Carper (D-Del.), but also from a desire to work on the implementation of recent landmark environmental legislation like the infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act, both of which carry her fingerprints on provisions including drinking water and wastewater infrastructure and recycling infrastructure. — “With a divided Congress, there's a lot of opportunity right now in the implementation of those big pots of money, the funding that we were able to secure last Congress,” she told PI. “While the House and Senate are still figuring out how to work together in the 118th Congress, the eyes really are on the private sector and the states to take that vision that was handed out in the [infrastructure] bill and IRA and make it real. … I think I'll have a lot of opportunity to kind of see our work across the finish line from the outside.” MORE MCCARTHY REACTION FROM K STREET: Reaction is still pouring in as lobbyists assess the fallout of Tuesday’s vote to bump former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his post and the impending speaker fight, which TwinLogic Strategies’ Elizabeth Frazee warns better wrap up soon. — A drawn-out campaign for the gavel could prompt the business community to “move on to focus on the Senate and Administration,” she argued to PI, which “will hurt fundraising and the prospects of Republicans maintaining the majority in the House. That’s not rocket science — the business community deplores chaos in Washington.” — John Stanford of Prism Group echoed that, writing in an email that “[t]o the extent there is any silver lining in this chaos, the Members who came to Washington to govern are finding their voice.” There’s some hope that the so-called “get s*** done” wing of both parties will be able to use this week’s events to wrest back control of Congress, he added. — Hogan Lovells Democratic lobbyists Ivan Zapien, Tim Bergreen and Ches Garrison have a (predictably) more sober take from the other side of the aisle, writing in a memo to clients today that “given the intramural conflict in the House Republican conference and the intermural contempt between the two parties in the House, we struggle to see a clear path for Congress to name a post office, much less reach a spending deal.” — While Zapien, Bergreen and Garrison also hope that this week’s events serve as a “pressure release” for the House, “we can’t help but look ahead at Congress’ dysfunction and its to-do list and gulp apprehensively (or reach for a drink),” the trio write. — And over at Bloomberg, Kate Ackley reports on how K Street is feeling about the two (realistic) speaker candidates: “Lobbyists said privately that if their industry had a vote, it would likely go for Scalise over Jordan, even as Jordan’s image is less rabble rouser than in past years,” but Speaker pro tempore Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) would also have plenty of fans on K Street if he reversed course and decided to run. BUSINESS LOBBIES LAY LOW ON MCCARTHY OUSTER: Washington’s powerful business lobbies have been remarkably quiet this week on the McCarthy morass, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce “expressed deep concern on Wednesday about the historic ouster,” CNN’s Matt Egan reports. — “Chief policy officer Neil Bradley said the leadership vacuum creates an ‘almost unprecedented level of uncertainty because there are things that must get done in the next 45 days.’” — “The ouster raises the risk of a government shutdown when funding lapses on November 17, he said, while also expressing concern about the impact on aid to Ukraine, a key priority for the business community. ‘Part of what advantages American business is American global leadership. Defending a free country like Ukraine is an important element in global leadership,’ Bradley said. ‘To the extent that aid to Ukraine is being walked back, it begins to cede US global leadership — on all fronts.’” — The Business Roundtable, one of Washington’s other largest business lobbies, declined CNN’s requests for comment on the leadership shakeup. ANNALS OF FUNDRAISING: “As Republicans debated removing Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from the speakership this week, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) took fire on the House floor for using his bid to oust McCarthy as an opportunity to raise money for himself. Gaetz fired right back, shaming his colleagues who ‘grovel and bend knee to the lobbyists and special interests who own our leadership,’” The Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger writes. “But as much as Gaetz postures that he’s raising small dollars from working Americans, he also has other donors in mind.” — “Last month, as Gaetz and his faction of right-wing anti-institutionalists were plunging the government headlong towards a shutdown, he leveraged the moment to hold an invitation-only joint fundraising event with a select group of big conservative donors, some of whom have engaged in the exact type of swampy, ‘pay-to-play’ politics that Gaetz has made a career of bashing.”
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