THE QATARI MONEY BEHIND ADVISERS TO FAMILIES OF GAZA HOSTAGES: Some of the families trying to free their loved ones held hostage by Hamas in Gaza are getting advice from individuals and entities that have received funding from Qatar, Daniel reports — an unusual arrangement given Qatar’s role as one of the chief mediators between Hamas and Israel and that the country is home to Hamas’ political leadership. — As hostage families work to keep their relatives in the news and urge the Qataris to get Hamas to release them, a consultant working for the Qataris, Jay Footlik, has also met with the families in both Washington and Israel to prep them for their meetings with Qatari officials and also help organize them, according to two people familiar with the matter. — Footlik’s consulting firm ThirdCircle Inc. has been registered under FARA since 2019 to help arrange trips to Qatar for American elected officials on behalf of the Qatari Embassy, which pays the firm $40,000 per month, according to filings with the Justice Department. — Footlik, a former special assistant to former President Bill Clinton and liaison to the American Jewish community, told PI his work with the hostage families began because he had a long-standing relationship with Israeli businessperson Eytan Stibbe, who asked for his assistance since Footlik had relationships with Qatar. — He said that he then contacted Qatari ambassador Meshal Al-Thani and asked if he would meet a relative of several of the Israeli hostages, Avichai Brodutch. Al-Thani immediately agreed and soon asked Footlik to help facilitate direct communication with hostage family members who wanted to meet with Qatari officials, he said. — “Since that initial meeting with Avichai Brodutch, we have been working tirelessly, really around the clock, at the request of Israeli families being held to meet with Qatari officials, and I’m proud of the work that I’m doing. If it saves even one life, it’s all worth it,” he said in an interview. “The Qataris have been instrumental in working with the U.S., the Israelis and others to secure the release of the first 109 to come out, and I think it’s natural to come back to ask them to continue to use their relationships to try to bring everybody home.” — The hostage negotiating group Richardson Center for Global Engagement, which the late New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson founded, has also received significant amounts of money from Qatar. Mickey Bergman, the vice president of the center, has also been a frequent adviser to many of the families and has reportedly advised them to not criticize Qatar. — The Richardson Center said the partnership began in Qatar with an initial contribution in 2019 of $900,000 that helped the organization increase its capacity and get more hostages home. That same level continued for 2020 before declining; the last donation was $250,000 in early 2023. — “The Richardson Center is a nonprofit organization and works on behalf of families at their request and at no cost to them. Beginning Oct. 8, we’ve been approached by dozens of families to assist them in getting their loved ones,” Bergman said in an interview, adding that its relationship with Qatar had been disclosed and is “one of the pillars of our strategy about why we can help them.” — One family member of a hostage said they’ve found Bergman — who is close to State Department hostage envoy Roger Carstens — to be very useful in working hard to advocate for their relatives’ release. The person also said that he’s been transparent about the center’s funding. Happy Wednesday, and welcome to PI. Send lobbying tips: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on the platform formerly known as Twitter: @caitlinoprysko.
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LOTS OF YELLING, LITTLE PROGRESS: “Senators lit into the CEOs of Meta, X, TikTok, Snap and Discord on Wednesday morning, attacking them on their ability to keep kids safe from sexual exploitation online and drug sales on their sites — as well as the mental health impact of their immensely popular platforms,” our Rebecca Kern, Ruth Reader and Mohar Chatterjee write. — “By midday, however, the grilling had started to reveal the manifest challenges to any kind of fix. The apparent bipartisan consensus about the problem — both Republican and Democratic senators took aggressive shots at the companies — masks larger issues in Congress moving any kind of new rules forward. The industry has largely opposed any new laws aimed at protecting kids, and CEOs offered at best partial support for multiple bills currently stalled in the Senate.” FIRST IN PI — ACCOUNTABLE LAUNCHES OVERDRAFT CAMPAIGN: Liberal watchdog group Accountable.US is coming to the defense of the Biden administration’s new proposal to rein in fees charged by banks for overdraft services. The group is launching a digital ad buy that begins tomorrow and will run through February criticizing the banking industry’s protestations of the proposed CFPB rule. — The ads will be served up to smartphones, tablets and laptops within a certain radius of the Capitol and Union Station, and Accountable.US plans to project it onto the headquarters of the Consumer Bankers Association next week, urging viewers to “be a bank lobbyist’s worst nightmare” and read up on the practice. — The ads will direct viewers to a landing page that highlights a recent report from Accountable.US in which the group found overdraft fees brought in at least $2.3 billion last year for the 10 largest banks who still charge them. The initial buy is five figures, but could expand, the group said. FLYING IN: “The companies and crews digging ditches and laying fiber optic cable to expand the nation’s broadband networks are calling on Washington to address immigration reform in order to address a shortage of workers,” our John Hendel reports. — “The Power & Communication Contractors Association will visit lawmakers and agencies in Washington, D.C., this week to make the case for legislation that would create a path allowing undocumented workers to help perform these key tasks. Twenty-five association members will be on the Hill to discuss the difficulties they’re facing in finding workers to build out the nation’s broadband network.” — “Association CEO Tim Wagner told POLITICO he believes the U.S. is short by hundreds of thousands of workers needed for construction in the coming years,” a shortage that comes “as the Biden administration is set to dole out more than $42 billion in broadband infrastructure grants to all the states to support the buildout of internet networks,” on top of other projects. — The trade group “will focus this week’s lobbying in favor of a bipartisan immigration bill called the Dignity Act, H.R. 3599 (118) , which the group supports due to its provisions giving a path for undocumented immigrants to work in the country,” and will be “targeting meetings with Hill offices who have not co-sponsored the legislation, according to Wagner.” PATAGONIA’S NEW PATH: “A little more than $3 million to block a proposed mine in Alaska. Another $3 million to conserve land in Chile and Argentina. And $1 million to help elect Democrats around the country, including $200,000 to a super PAC this month. Patagonia, the outdoor apparel brand, is funneling its profits to an array of groups working on everything from dam removal to voter registration,” according to The New York Times’ David Gelles and Ken Vogel. — “In total, a network of nonprofit organizations linked to the company has distributed more than $71 million since September 2022,” an influx of giving made possible by “an unconventional corporate restructuring in 2022, when Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouinard, and his family relinquished ownership of the company and declared that all its future profits would be used to protect the environment and combat climate change.” — “Patagonia and the Chouinards set up a series of trusts, limited liability corporations and charitable groups designed to protect the independence of the clothing company while distributing all of its profits through an entity known as the Holdfast Collective,” which received an initial dividend from the company of $50 million in 2022, and another, undisclosed sum, last year. “Each year going forward, Patagonia will transfer all the profits it does not reinvest in the company to Holdfast.” — But “for a group that is distributing so much money, the Holdfast Collective has so far managed to remain largely under the radar, unknown to several philanthropy experts and Democratic fund-raisers who were asked about it.” LIVE NATION DOUBLES ITS LOBBYING OUTLAYS: “Live Nation Entertainment more than doubled its federal lobbying spending to $2.4 million in 2023 from $1.1 million in 2022 as it navigated legislative and regulatory efforts to break up its power in the live entertainment and ticketing industry,” The Hill’s Taylor Giorno reports. — “The lobbying blitz comes on the heels of the infamous Taylor Swift ‘Eras Tour’ presale that crashed Ticketmaster in November 2022, which prompted congressional scrutiny of the ticket vendor’s parent company.” — “It’s no secret we’ve stepped up our advocacy efforts this past year. More than ever, Congress is focused on ticketing policies, and there is an unprecedented amount of lobbying going on by ticket resellers and competitors attempting to use legislation to protect ticket scalping and deceptive sales practices to advance their own competitive interests,” Dan Wall, Live Nation’s executive vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs, told The Hill. IT COMPANIES LAUNCH NEW COALITION: A quartet of government IT stakeholders has launched a new coalition aimed at increasing competition and diversifying cloud providers and IT infrastructure used by the federal government. The Small Business Multi-Cloud Coalition comprises software providers Aretec and Westwind Computer Products and industry consultancies ATX Defense and Daston. — The coalition wants the government to shift away from single cloud providers toward a multi-cloud approach that could help rivals (both big and small) compete with behemoths like Amazon Web Services and spark improvements and efficiency in cloud offerings. The coalition will also advocate for “harmonizing cybersecurity and risk management compliance while prioritizing modern cybersecurity strategies.” SPOTTED: At Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck’s annual fundraising dinner for the NRSC at Altria’s D.C. office, per a PI tipster: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), NRSC Chair Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), John Thune (R-S.D.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.); and Norm Brownstein, Will Moschella, Brandt Anderson, Rosemary Becchi, David Bernhardt, Geoff Burr, David Cohen, Steve Demby, Leah Dempsey, Bill Duhnke, Will Dunham, Emily Felder, Jon Hrobsky, Charlyn Iovino, Joe Jaso, Greta Joynes, Melissa Kuipers Blake, Marc Lampkin, Doug Maguire, Elizabeth Maier, Bill McGrath, Brian McGuire, Tripp McKemey, Lauren Mish, Travis Norton, Ed Royce, Preston Rutledge, Adam Steinmetz, Jon Towers, Mark Warren and Ari Zimmerman of Brownstein along with other friends and clients of the firm.
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