INHOFE'S CHIEF HEADS TO K STREET: Luke Holland, who's worked for the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee for more than a decade, is heading to K Street now that his longtime boss is set to retire. Holland most recently served as chief of staff to Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and unsuccessfully ran to replace him in the Senate next year. He's joining The Nickles Group, the lobbying firm run by former Sen. Don Nickles. JETBLUE HIRES BLOOM: JetBlue has added the antitrust lobbyist Seth Bloom to its bench of hired guns as the airline fights antitrust scrutiny in Washington on several fronts. The airline brought on Bloom, a former general counsel for the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, last month, according to newly filed disclosures, days before the company wrapped up a trial challenging an alliance with fellow airline giant American Airlines. — Federal antitrust regulators sued last year to block the alliance allowing the "carriers share passengers, jets and revenue in certain routes between New York and Boston," The Washington Post reported. During closing arguments in the trial, "prosecutors pointed to an economic analysis that predicted between $500 million and nearly $700 million in higher fares for consumers on the routes encompassed in the Northeast Alliance," an assertion attorneys for the airlines rebuffed. — Bloom is lobbying on a different antitrust issue for the airline, according to disclosures: JetBlue's proposed merger with the budget carrier Spirit Airlines. The Justice Department is reviewing JetBlue's $3.8 billion takeover bid, which last month became the target of a lawsuit from a coalition of customers and flight attendants. — JetBlue also retains JTR Strategies, Federal Hill Group, Thorn Run Partners and Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott. But the airline follows in the footsteps of other major corporations who've hired Bloom Strategic Counsel amid antitrust pressures or high-profile mergers, including Apple, Aetna, Amazon, Comcast, Sprint, Microsoft and Molson Coors. ICYMI — PRIVATE EQUITY-BACKED CHILD CARE MAKES A D.C. PLAY: "Millions of American families are coping with a child care shortage brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. But one end of the business is thriving: national chains, some charging silver-spoon prices." — Now those chains, many of which attracted new investors since the pandemic, are working to shape policy debates over how to address labor shortages and skyrocketing rates within the industry, The New York Times' Dana Goldstein reports. — "Through a lobbying consortium, they were particularly aggressive in negotiations over President Biden's Build Back Better bill, which ultimately did not pass. The consortium said publicly that it supported the bill's child care proposals, which would have lowered costs for many families. But in lobbying meetings, it argued to policymakers that the bill's numbers did not add up." — "Senate staffers said they assured the consortium and other child care groups that through the regulatory process, Congress would provide enough federal dollars to make the plan workable for providers, including for the chain companies. Nevertheless, the legislation could have limited profits for the big chains." — "After Senator Joe Manchin, a centrist Democrat from West Virginia, essentially killed the legislation by opposing it," executives from members of the Early Care and Education Consortium donated to Manchin's leadership PAC and attended a dinner with Manchin, where they "expressed their wish for federal child care funding to be included in the bill that became the Inflation Reduction Act but said it should be targeted toward lower-income families." HOW DEMOCRACY FOR AMERICA FELL APART: "As the liberal group Democracy for America approached insolvency following the midterm elections, staffers faced a related problem: their CEO, Yvette Simpson, was on vacation at a vineyard in California," Daniel reports. — "Weeks earlier Simpson had told two members of the development team that $320,000 needed to be raised for DFA to make it through the year, according to two former employees. But as the group's dire financial state started to become clear to staff, she attended a leadership training paid for by the organization and a personal multi-day sommelier education course in Napa Valley, according to five former employees." — "Eventually, she held an all-staff Zoom call while in Napa, in which she announced that DFA was running out of cash, according to an audio recording." The organization "has been hurt this year by a host of other issues that extend beyond Simpson's management." — "And some former staffers praised aspects of Simpson's performance: They credited her with embracing a diverse range of candidates and her detailed knowledge of grassroots organizing. But according to internal memos and Slack messages reviewed by POLITICO, 10 employees at DFA pinned much of the blame for its demise over the past several months on Simpson." — "'[A]s we understand it, no effort was made by you to meet or call with donors' for the first three weeks of November, the entire non-leadership staff of 10 people wrote in a memo to her a few days before she resigned. 'You should know that your staff no longer has confidence in your ability to lead this organization.'" FTX LATEST: "Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are seeking information from Democrats and Republicans about donations from the disgraced cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried and two former executives at the companies he co-founded," per The New York Times' Ken Vogel and Ken Bensinger. — "In the days after Mr. Bankman-Fried was arrested on Monday and charged with violations including a major campaign finance scheme, the prosecutors reached out to representatives for campaigns and committees that had received millions of dollars from Mr. Bankman-Fried, his colleagues and their companies." — The Democratic law firm Elias Law Group , whose clients include the "party's official campaign arms, its biggest super PACs and the campaigns of high-profile politicians such as Representative Hakeem Jeffries — received an email from a prosecutor in the United States attorney's office for the Southern District of New York" seeking information for the investigation. — "Prosecutors are also investigating donations to Republican campaigns and committees" as well as contributions from Ryan Salame, another former FTX executive who gave massive sums to Republicans, former FTX engineer Nishad Singh and from FTX and the crypto hedge fund Alameda Research. — Prosecutors' outreach to campaigns, which have not been accused of wrongdoing, have focused on "records that could be used to determine whether the FTX executives lied in their responses to disclaimers commonly featured on political committee websites. The disclaimers ask donors to attest that the money they are giving is their own, and that they are not being reimbursed by a corporation or another person, which would be illegal."
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