With Daniel Lippman U.S.-FUNDED BROADCASTER LOBBIES FOR JOURNALIST’S RELEASE: U.S.-funded media outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has retained Covington & Burling for help securing the release of one of its journalists who was detained in Russia last year on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent. Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor based in Prague who holds U.S. and Russian citizenship, traveled to Russia in May to visit her mother, and after being barred from leaving, was arrested in October, according to her employer. — Covington’s Kate McNulty, Stephen Rademaker and Alan Larson, all former State Department officials, began working to free Kurmasheva on Nov. 6, according to a newly filed disclosure. (Covington has previously represented RFE/RL pro bono in a lawsuit against the Russian government in the European Court of Human Rights over Moscow’s foreign agent law, which press freedom advocates allege is used as a political cudgel to subdue political opposition.) — Last month, a Russian court extended Kurmasheva’s pretrial detention, and Thursday marked her 100th day in custody. Her husband and the State Department say Russia has denied requests for consular access. — “100 days in detention in Russia is 100 days too many,” Kurmasheva’s husband, Pavel Butorin, told CNN’s Jake Tapper yesterday. By way of letters passed through government censors, “we know some things about her conditions,” Butorin said. “She sometimes says that she's fine, but there's nothing fine about her detention in Russia.” — Allies, including members of Congress, have pushed for the State Department to designate Kurmasheva as “wrongfully detained,” a designation meaning that the U.S. government views a detainee “as the equivalent of a political hostage and reflects its belief that the charges are fabricated.” The State Department has applied that label in the case of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who this week marked 300 days in a Russian jail facing allegations of espionage. — Gershkovich’s arrest has been the focus of a formal lobbying effort as well. News Corp., which owns the Wall Street Journal, retained Resolution Public Affairs beginning last March to lobby on, among other things, “issues regarding reporter security abroad, specifically related to the detention of Evan Gershkovich in Russia,” according to multiple disclosures. — The News/Media Alliance, an industry group that counts News Corp. as a member, reported lobbying for Gershkovich’s release and on educating policymakers about press freedom violations more broadly last quarter. The Jewish Federations of North America reported lobbying on congressional resolutions demanding his release, as did News Corp.’s in-house lobbying team. TGIF and welcome to PI. Send lobbying tips: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on the platform formerly known as Twitter: @caitlinoprysko. INTEL HIRES HOLLAND & KNIGHT: Intel Corp. has added another one of K Street’s top lobbying firms to its roster of hired guns as the chipmaker continues expanding its advocacy footprint. Holland & Knight’s Rich Gold, Todd Wooten, Scott Mason, Yasmin Nelson and Marissa Serafino began lobbying at the beginning of the year on CHIPS and Science Act funding and implementation related to federal semiconductor manufacturing incentives and supply chains, as well as bills that would revive allow businesses to once again immediately deduct their research and development expenses, according to a disclosure filing. — The chipmaker now has eight outside firms on retainer — five of which have been brought on since 2022. Intel’s lobbying expenditures have soared over the past few years as work on what eventually became the CHIPS and Science Act picked up. The company spent $6.9 million on lobbying in 2023 — less than its all-time high of $7.1 million in 2022 but much higher than the $4.1 million dropped in 2021. STOLTENBERG PLANS A PIT STOP AT HERITAGE: As concerns mount that Donald Trump might pull the U.S. out of NATO if he’s reelected in November, the military alliance’s leader, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, is slated to speak next week at the Trump-friendly Heritage Foundation — the latest pilgrimage by a global ally to appeal to increasingly isolationist conservatives. — The stop is part of a trip to the U.S. where he's also meeting with top congressional leaders and administration officials, and comes as a supplemental to provide more military aid to Ukraine remains tied up with stalled immigration negotiations on the Hill. — After leaving Washington, Stoltenberg will travel to a Lockheed Martin manufacturing facility in Alabama and U.S. Special Operations Command headquarters in Florida — two red states that have been among the top beneficiaries of previous rounds of U.S. aid to Ukraine, according to figures the White House circulated last year. — “While The Heritage Foundation has had long-standing concerns with President Biden’s undated blank check approach to Ukraine and has wanted to see European allies do more to support their neighbor, we welcome this opportunity to hear first-hand from the Secretary General,” Victoria Coates, a vice president at Heritage and Trump’s former deputy national security adviser, told Daniel in a statement. BIDEN AI ORDER FACES A GAUNTLET: “The tech lobby, GOP lawmakers and conservative activists are trying to kneecap President Joe Biden’s executive order on artificial intelligence just days before its first major deadlines hit,” our Mohar Chatterjee and Brendan Bordelon report. — “Their target: Biden’s use of emergency powers to compel tech companies to provide information to the Commerce Department about advanced AI projects that use immense computing power — a requirement that industry advocates oppose.” — “The administration argues that the national security threat posed by AI warrants using the Defense Production Act, a law that gives the federal government broad powers over private companies. But to Biden’s critics, the effort to shape Washington’s response to a 21st century technology by tapping a 74-year-old law is a textbook case of executive overreach.” — “‘There’s not a national emergency’ on AI, Sen. Mike Rounds told POLITICO. The South Dakota Republican has worked closely with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to draft AI legislation but said Biden’s use of the DPA to regulate AI is ‘not necessarily what the Defense Production Act was made for in the first place.’” — “Lawmakers are slowing down AI regulation and say they’re exploring changes to the DPA. A group tied to the conservative Koch network has peppered the Commerce Department with information requests and a lawsuit. And tech lobbyists have indicated they could mount a legal challenge once the Commerce Department begins exercising its newfound AI authority at the end of January.” ANNALS OF THE #RESISTANCE INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: “In early 2017, the shock of Donald Trump’s first election sparked a burst of activity that profoundly altered Washington: Donations to progressive advocacy groups soared. Traffic to political media spiked. Protests filled the calendar. A day after Trump’s unimpressively attended inauguration, the massive Women’s March became the second-busiest day in the history of the capital’s Metro system,” our Michael Schaffer writes. — “But now, as a second Trump term becomes an increasingly real possibility, there’s no consensus that anything similar would happen in January 2025 — something that could make Washington a very different place in the event the 45th president returned. It’s a prospect that ought to terrify members of the putative resistance — yet it remains bafflingly absent from many conversations among groups that channeled the wave of energy seven years ago.” PROGRESSIVES FACING AIPAC ONSLAUGHT CALL FOR REINFORCEMENTS: “Progressive lawmakers who have condemned Israel’s assault on Gaza are demanding Democratic leadership do more to combat a multimillion-dollar election-year backlash funded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Washington’s most powerful pro-Israel group,” HuffPost’s Molly Redden reports. — “Several House incumbents, including some of the party’s rising progressive stars, are facing primary challengers funded by AIPAC, which has raised millions from Republicans. The three largest individual donors to its super PAC, United Democracy Project, are longtime Republican supporters who have given the party millions of dollars, its latest disclosures showed.” — “This year, the group is fixated on unseating members of the so-called Squad, including Reps. [Cori] Bush, Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Summer Lee (D-Pa.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), who are among the most outspoken critics of Israel’s strikes on Gaza. Donors associated with the group have reportedly offered to raise up to $20 million for candidates willing to challenge Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American member of Congress.” — “In recent weeks, one lawmaker facing AIPAC attacks canceled their payment of quarterly dues that all Democratic members of Congress pay to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, a campaign aide told HuffPost, in order to conserve cash for the onslaught.”
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