PUTALA SPLITS FROM PHRMA, COMCAST: Putala Strategies has parted ways with two major clients, newly filed disclosures show. According to the termination disclosures, Chris Putala, who previously worked for now-President Joe Biden on the Senate Judiciary Committee, parted ways with Comcast and PhRMA at the end of last year. — Comcast had been one of Putala’s longest-running clients, paying his firm nearly $3.4 million since 2009, when the telecom giant retained Putala to lobby on its bid to buy NBC Universal, disclosures show. More recently, Putala reported working on telecom provisions in the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the Inflation Reduction Act and privacy and antitrust issues. — PhRMA was among the flood of new business Putala began receiving after Biden’s election. The drugmakers’ lobby hired Putala in 2021 as congressional Democrats ramped up their push to allow Medicare to negotiate the price of drugs. A version of that policy was signed into law last year, handing the pharmaceuticals industry one of its most significant losses in decades — and White House visitor logs show Putala was on the South Lawn the day of the signing ceremony. — The drug lobby also split recently from two other outside lobbying firms, including another Biden-connected lobbyist it brought on since the election. Ricchetti Inc.’s Jeff Ricchetti, the brother of Biden senior counselor Steve Ricchetti, reported receiving $240,000 from PhRMA over the past year. Baker & Hostetler, which had lobbied for the trade group since 2017, also ended its contract with the PhRMA at the end of the year, disclosures show. PhRMA declined to comment on the terminations. — Putala has signed several new clients recently, however: the energy investment firm Eolian, energy storage developer esVolta and battery storage company Plus Power. He’ll lobby for all 3 on Section 301 tariffs related to “certain storage battery technologies necessary to ensure a reliable and efficient electric grid,” according to disclosures filed over the weekend. CORNERSTONE ADDS WHITE HOUSE AIDE: Shuwanza Rebecca Goff will join Cornerstone Government Affairs next month. She was previously deputy assistant to the president at the White House, where she served as the liaison to the House. House leadership — on both sides of the aisle — praised Goff, as she heads through the revolving door. — “It was my privilege to get to know Shuwanza during her time in the House of Representatives,” McCarthy said in a statement provided by the firm. “She developed strong relationships with Members and staff on both sides of the aisle, demonstrated deep understanding of the institution, and exhibited good judgment and expertise. Both the House and the White House benefited from her intellect, hard work and dedication.” FIRST IN PI — NARRATIVE ADDS DESARNO: Nick DeSarno has decamped for Narrative Strategies, where he’ll be a senior adviser. He spent the past seven years at the Public Affairs Council, the trade group for public affairs professionals, as its director of digital and policy communications and head of its global consulting practice. — Narrative is also expanding its recently launched creative practice, adding Brad Blackburn as head of video production and Annie Bentley as graphic designer. Blackburn previously ran his own production company and is an OnMessage alum, and Bentley was most recently at Tier One Partners. ANTI-WOKE ENTREPRENEUR EYING PRESIDENCY: Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur who made hundreds of millions of dollars in biotech before becoming an anti-woke intellectual, is planning to run for president, Daniel reports. He recently visited Iowa, speaking to farmers and local Republican politicians, and has more trips planned to New Hampshire and back to Iowa later this month. — Ramaswamy, who was dubbed by The New Yorker as the “C.E.O. of Anti-Woke, Inc.,” is now the founder of Strive, a new asset management firm that competes against the likes of BlackRock but differentiates itself by telling companies to stay out of politics. — “I believe that I’ve developed a vision for American national identity that I have deep conviction for and is the product of my own journey of having lived the gifts that this country has afforded me,” Ramaswamy told Daniel in Iowa. “And the combination of both doing it intellectually and having personally experienced that vision of our nation makes me well suited to articulate that and deliver on it.” — Ramaswamy’s growing team now consists of nearly 20 people, including former Pennsylvania GOP Senate candidate Kathy Barnette to lead his potential grassroots efforts and Tricia McLaughlin, who led communications for Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s 2022 reelection campaign, as his press secretary. — He’s hired Republican operative Rex Elsass’ political consultancy The Strategy Group, based near Ramaswamy’s home in central Ohio, to run his potential operation, and Elsass’ top deputy Ben Yoho is expected to serve as “CEO” of any future campaign. TRUMP INC.: “In early 2021, as Donald Trump exited the White House, he and his son-in-law Jared Kushner faced unprecedented business challenges,” Michael Kranish writes for The Washington Post. One ally, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, “moved quickly to the rescue.” — “The day after leaving the White House, Kushner created a company that he transformed months later into a private equity firm with $2 billion from a sovereign wealth fund chaired by” the crown prince. “Kushner’s firm structured those funds in such a way that it did not have to disclose the source, according to previously unreported details of Securities and Exchange Commission forms reviewed by The Washington Post. His business used a commonly employed strategy that allows many equity firms to avoid transparency about funding sources, experts said.” — “A year after his presidency, Trump’s golf courses began hosting tournaments for the Saudi fund-backed LIV Golf. Separately, the former president’s family company, the Trump Organization, secured an agreement with a Saudi real estate company that plans to build a Trump hotel as part of a $4 billion golf resort in Oman.” — “The substantial investments by the Saudis in enterprises that benefited both men came after they cultivated close ties with Mohammed while Trump was in office,” and “Democrats who have launched congressional investigations into Trump’s and Kushner’s ties to Saudi Arabia … expressed concern that such business ties could leave them beholden to the crown prince if they return to the White House.”
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