With Daniel Lippman FARA FRIDAY: When news broke earlier this week that former U.S. diplomat Richard Olson planned to plead guilty to violating lobbying and ethics rules for his work on influence efforts on behalf of the Qatari government, the lack of FARA charges in the case quickly raised eyebrows around town. — Olson, who during the Obama administration served as both the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates and as a special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, is accused of violating a yearlong cooling-off period following his retirement from government service — during which he was barred from representing foreign governments in front of U.S. officials or advising a foreign government behind the scenes — and for failing to disclose gifts from a Pakistani-American businessman and lobbyist on required financial disclosures. — According to prosecutors, Olson helped devise Qatar's strategy to lobby the U.S. to establish U.S. Customs and Border Protection pre-clearance facilities at Doha International Airport, and met with sitting House members to lobby the lawmakers on taking Qatar's side in a diplomatic dispute with other Gulf powers including Saudi Arabia and the UAE. — It's possible that though prosecutors could show Olson violated FARA in the arrangement, they could not prove that the former ambassador knowingly and willfully did so, which is the standard for bringing a FARA case, said Matthew Sanderson of Caplin & Drysdale, who advises clients on foreign lobbying law. — "I don't know that there's anything to do other than speculate at this stage," he said in an interview, but it's much more cut and dried to prove Olson failed to disclose gifts. "With the post-employment restriction, it's not a knowing and willful violation in order to be rung up for that, whereas FARA requires knowing the law and knowing that you didn't register," Sanderson told PI. "This just requires, you know, representing a foreign government." — "Maybe they just decided to take the easier wins on those two fronts," he said of federal prosecutors. — Josh Rosenstein, a lawyer at Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock who advises clients on FARA compliance, told PI that it's also possible prosecutors agreed not to bring FARA charges against Olson in exchange for his guilty plea. "There's a lot there that he was not actually brought up on charges for," Rosenstein said. "Primarily, right, is the potential of a FARA violation." — FARA charges historically "had been used as sort of bargaining chips as part of a plea deal," Rosenstein added. "You'd see FARA violations, but then you see those charges actually be dropped in exchange for guilty pleas on other charges. But "as FARA has gained more prominence," thanks to the string of cases that resulted from special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe, "FARA violations are becoming more and more common in terms of actual charges listed," he noted. — The Olson charges, aside from showing a continued interest in going after illegal foreign lobbying, have a political angle too, Rosenstein said. It shows "DOJ is going after defendants for … ethics issues on a bipartisan basis, right?" While Republicans have complained that aggression in prosecuting illegal foreign lobbying has ensnared many a Donald Trump ally, "I think to some extent, this undercuts any arguments of like, the public corruption folks at DOJ, the U.S. Attorney's offices, are limiting their inquiries into wrongdoing by like, Trump acolytes." Good afternoon and welcome to PI. What's going on out there? Let me know: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on Twitter: @caitlinoprysko.
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SPEAKING OF MUELLER: "The Justice Department is suing Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chair, for almost $3 million in penalties related to his alleged failure to file reports disclosing more than 20 bank accounts he controlled in foreign countries, including Cyprus, the United Kingdom and St. Vincent and the Grenadines," our Josh Gerstein reports. — "According to the civil suit filed in federal court in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Thursday, the Treasury Department assessed the penalties against the longtime lobbyist and political consultant in July 2020, exactly five months before then-President Donald Trump pardoned his former adviser on criminal tax, bank fraud, conspiracy and obstruction of justice convictions. That case was pursued by special counsel Robert Mueller, whose probe of alleged Russian influence on Trump's 2016 campaign was the focus of intense and bitter criticism from Trump." — "During a 2018 jury trial in Alexandria, Va., on some of the various criminal charges, Manafort was found guilty of failing to file a Foreign Bank Account Report for 2012, but the jury failed to reach a verdict on the same charge for 2013 and 2014. Jurors split 11-1 in favor of convicting Manafort on those counts, according to the verdict sheet and juror interviews." — "The Justice Department's suit signals that federal attorneys have concluded that Trump's pardon does not cover the 2013 and 2014 charges, as well as the other eight counts the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict on. On the same day, Trump left office in January 2021, a former Mueller deputy, Andrew Weissmann, published a legal commentary on the Just Security website arguing that Trump's pardon of Manafort was poorly worded and failed to cover the charges he was never convicted on in Virginia." COMING TO A HILL OFFICE NEAR YOU — ELON MUSK?: Our Emily Birnbaum dives into the "brash, often disrespectful approach" to lobbying that policymakers in Washington could potentially come to expect from Twitter's government affairs shop once Elon Musk is at the helm of the social media platform. — "Now that Musk has initiated the process of buying Twitter, the company's presence in Washington is likely to change drastically, according to six lobbyists and government officials who have dealt with him in his roles as CEO of Tesla and SpaceX," Emily writes. "They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations and their former employers." — "Musk has a much more sharp-elbowed approach to leadership than former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who left the policy work mainly to his C-suite and allowed Twitter's lobbyists to cultivate a friendly, socially aware reputation on Capitol Hill. He's also much more hands-on than tech CEOs like Apple chief executive Tim Cook and Meta co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, who largely defer to their government affairs shops in Washington." — "Throughout his many regulatory battles, Musk routinely big-foots his SpaceX and Tesla government affairs teams and becomes personally engaged in policy issues important to his companies … He publicly mocks government regulators, lawyers and lawmakers on Twitter and during media appearances, much to the chagrin of his public relations and lobbying operations." BLACK LEADERS SQUARE OFF OVER MENTHOL BAN: "Concerns about over-policing threaten to stall a ban on menthol cigarettes and undermine a major tobacco regulation a decade in the making," and which the FDA formally rolled out on Thursday, POLITICO's Katherine Ellen Foley and Eugene Daniels report. — "The Rev. Al Sharpton, civil rights attorney Ben Crump and relatives of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis in 2020, have argued that the rules, should they take effect, would give law enforcement another reason to target Black people — potentially endangering Black lives." — "'What we said is, "Y'all have got to consider unintended consequences." Imagine some cop pulling a kid over saying, "Where did you buy or get that Kool cigarette?"' Sharpton told POLITICO Thursday after the FDA announcement." — "In a statement, the president of the NAACP, Derrick Johnson , lauded the administration for the proposed rules. 'The effects of menthol have been devastating and fatal for far too many Black people,' it read. 'Big Tobacco specifically targets our communities, and we are fed up.' But the concerns over chronic disease do not, for many, displace the more immediate fear of a potential law enforcement crackdown that could lead to arrest, jail or violence." — "'FDA has very publicly stated that they don't have any intent to criminalize people who are simply possessing menthol products, but they don't understand the link between enforcement on the ground and law enforcement interventions,' said Diane Goldstein, the chair of the board of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, a nonprofit group focused on criminal justice and drug policy reforms. LEAP has received funding from R.J. Reynolds, a company that produces Newport menthol cigarettes, but says it does because it is a nonprofit group and that the donations do not affect policy positions." SPOTTED at a BGR party to welcome David Urban to the firm on Thursday, according to a PI tipster: David and Kellie Urban, Haley Barbour, Bob Wood, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, former HHS Secretary Alex Azar, Chief of the National Guard Bureau Gen. Dan Hokanson; Reps. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), Mark Green (R-Tenn.), G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.), Dan Meuser (R-Pa.), Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) and Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.); Franco Nuschese of Café Milano, Mitch Rose of Comcast, Jonathan Swan of Axios, Ashley Gunn of Miller Strategies, Josh Dawsey of The Washington Post, Tim Pataki of CGCN, David Drucker of the Washington Examiner and Bell Helicopter's Kraig Siracuse. CORRECTION: Thursday's Influence misspelled the American Bakers Association . PI regrets the error.
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