TUBERVILLE CHIEF, DOJ ALUM HEADS TO K STREET: Stephen Boyd has joined Horizons Global Solutions, the boutique government relations firm founded by fellow Trump DOJ alum David Lasseter, as a partner focusing on aerospace, defense, intelligence, law enforcement and investigative issues. — Boyd is wrapping up nearly two decades in the public sector, most recently serving as chief of staff to Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). Before that, he was an assistant attorney general in the legislative affairs office at the Justice Department and served as former Rep. Martha Roby's (R-Ala.) chief of staff. He was also a longtime aide to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions during his time in the Senate and as the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, where Boyd handled comms during two Supreme Court nomination fights. — Boyd said in an email that while he was glad to help Tuberville launch his new office following his time at DOJ, "an opportunity to build a great consulting firm with a friend and former law school classmate and DOJ colleague doesn't come around very often," especially with Republicans taking over committee chairships next year. — Boyd will remain in D.C., while Lasseter runs the firm from Huntsville, Ala., a major defense and aerospace hub home to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, the new FBI HQ2, and the likely U.S. Space Command headquarters. INSIDE GOP MEGADONOR'S NONPROFIT: Restoration Action Inc., the dark money group backed by the far-right financier Richard Uihlein, brought in more than $20.5 million in revenue last year , according to an IRS filing by the group obtained by The Daily Beast's Roger Sollenberger — "double what the group raised in 2020, and light years beyond its $64,000 haul in 2019." — "As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, Restoration Action doesn't have to disclose the names of its donors, though it is tied to the larger Restoration of America network, funded almost exclusively by the Uihleins ," who were the biggest overall GOP donors in the midterms. "And the document shows that in 2021, one anonymous donor accounted for $19,860,445 of Restoration Action's total revenue." — "More notable than the influx of cash, however, is the spike in spending. The nonprofit not only doubled its income from 2020 to 2021, it also began handing out more money. In the year after the Jan. 6 insurrection, Restoration Action gave more than $9.6 million to conservative causes, most of them laser-focused on so-called 'election integrity' projects. The year before, that number was a little shy of $1.4 million." — The filing also reveals that the nonprofit hired Arizona Republican Gina Swoboda as an executive director last year and paid her $108,750 in salary. Swoboda is a former Trump campaign official and current Arizona GOP vice chair who now serves as "election integrity" coordinator for defeated Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake. She also runs "a wholly controlled offshoot called the Voter Reference Foundation (VoteRef), the Center for Responsive Politics reported." — "While Restoration Action isn't required to list its donors, it does disclose the groups it funds. And they're associated with fringe causes, including election deniers." CIVIL RIGHTS AND LGBTQ GROUPS PUSH BACK ON KIDS SAFETY BILL: A coalition of more than 90 progressive activist, civil rights and LGBTQ advocacy groups is urging Senate leaders not to wrap the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act into any year-end omnibus package. — In a letter this morning to Schumer and Senate Commerce leaders Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), groups including Fight for the Future, the ACLU and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, asked the senators "not to move KOSA forward this session, either as a standalone bill or attached to other urgent legislation." — While the letter's signatories "believe that the privacy, online safety, and digital well-being of children should be protected," the bill from Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) "would undermine those goals for all people, but especially children," the coalition argued. — They write that the bill would rely on "forcing providers to use invasive filtering and monitoring tools" and could incentivize more data collection on children and adults while weakening schools' ability to use certain education technology and potentially empowering state officials to curb access to LGBTQ resources for minors. — KOSA advanced out of the Commerce Committee unanimously this summer, and has been mentioned in chatter about tech legislation that could move during the lame duck or under a divided Congress next year.
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