CRYPTO PACS PIVOT TO THE SENATE: “A network of super PACs funded by the cryptocurrency industry is backing industry-friendly candidates in three battleground Senate races, including in Ohio, where it plans to support the GOP challenger to Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown,” per our Jasper Goodman. — “Defend American Jobs — one of three affiliated super PACs funded by the industry — announced Tuesday it will spend at least $12 million backing Republican Bernie Moreno, whose race against Brown could determine control of the Senate.” — The industry’s foray into the battleground states isn’t limited solely to Ohio or to backing Republicans, however: “A sister crypto PAC, Protect Progress, is set to launch a pair of $3 million ad campaigns backing the Democratic Senate candidacies of Reps. Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan.” TOP-ED: Sue Mi Terry, the former CIA analyst and well-known Asia policy expert who was charged last month for failure to register as an agent of South Korea, got some backup on Monday from a familiar name in the world of FARA prosecutions: former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig. — Craig, who was acquitted on FARA charges in 2019, at the outset of the Justice Department’s clampdown on enforcement, railed against Terry's indictment in an op-ed for Just Security, lamenting how the charging document “reads like an illustrated spy novel, complete with grainy and surreptitious photos with her foreign ‘handlers,’” which may play well in the media but obscures what Craig argues is a “shockingly weak” case against her. — The upshot is “shaming, humiliating and destroying an individual who in the eyes of the law, must still be presumed to be innocent,” said Craig. He also warns that Terry’s prosecution will have broader ramifications in the think tank world, calling the charges “in no way worth the chilling effect it can have on scholars across this space.” — His argument echoes points raised by our Michael Schaffer last month — that DOJ appears to be criminalizing certain relatively routine activity in the policy expertise world, which Craig writes requires one to “maintain close associations and good connections — with American officials as well as with foreign officials — to speak or write authoritatively about any given situation in the world.” — “Those skill sets, particularly when it comes to sourcing with foreign contacts, could now become grist in the mill for overly ambitious prosecutors,” Craig continues. “I know what that’s like.” INSURERS KICK OFF MEDICARE ADVANTAGE BLITZ: “The top trade group for health insurers is mounting a seven-figure lobbying blitz to ward off congressional scrutiny of Medicare Advantage and have the government pay higher rates to the privately run alternative to Medicare,” our Kelly Hooper reports. — “Beginning next month, AHIP — which represents the nation’s leading health insurers — plans to tout the benefits of Medicare Advantage over traditional fee-for-service Medicare through new digital advertising, a social media campaign, and encouraging older Americans to head to their district offices to buttonhole representatives. The campaign will convey a simple message: Medicare Advantage gives seniors better health care at lower costs, and should be protected.” — “AHIP’s members want more favorable payment rates from the federal government in 2026,” but the campaign also “comes as Congress takes a closer look at Medicare Advantage and the frequency with which insurers deny care to patients” after “some hospitals have dropped Medicare Advantage plans, citing high rates of prior authorization denials and payment delays.” CORPORATE PAC CAPERS AT IT AGAIN: Raw Story’s Dave Levinthal reports that “an ‘unknown and unauthorized external party’ stole nearly $7,500 from Marriott International's federal political action committee — the latest in a string of thefts affecting high-profile politicians, corporations and unions.” — “The thefts, which took place on Feb. 20 and March 12, according to federal documents reviewed by Raw Story, were not an inside job, the Marriott International Inc. Political Action Committee told the Federal Election Commission.” — “‘The transactions were external fraudulent activity and not the result of committee staff misappropriating funds or due to a failure to implement internal controls,’ Marriott International's PAC wrote the FEC on Aug. 6 following an inquiry from the agency in July. ‘In fact, the Committees internal controls contributed to the quick identification, reporting, and remedy of this issue.’” — “Marriott International's PAC ‘has worked with its bank to block unauthorized ACH transactions and implement additional fraud prevention measures offered by the bank,’ it told the FEC last week. ‘There have been no subsequent fraudulent debits against the committee's bank account.’” ICYMI — MUSK’S TESLA LOBBIES FOR EV RULES TRUMP WOULD SCRAP: “When Elon Musk endorsed Donald Trump for president last month, the Tesla founder and chief executive backed a candidate who vows to ‘drill, baby, drill,’ ‘end the electric vehicle mandate’ and reduce subsidies of the sort that helped Tesla become the U.S.'s dominant EV manufacturer,” Reuters’ Chris Kirkham writes. — “So instrumental have government loans, tax breaks and other EV policies been to Tesla's fast growth that despite Musk's gradual embrace of the former president and his Republican Party rhetoric in recent years, the company continues to lobby the U.S. and state governments for benefits championed by the Democratic Party.” — “In February, for instance, Tesla in a filing with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, urged the Biden administration to allow California to pursue stricter vehicle emissions rules than the rest of the country – an idea Trump opposes.” — “Months earlier, in a previous filing with the agency, Tesla lobbied the government for regulations that would ban the production of most new gasoline cars by 2035 – the so-called ‘EV mandate’ that Trump and others on the American right have criticized.” TRUMP’S MAN IN THE OIL FIELDS: The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey and Maxine Joselow have a piece out today that chronicles how oil tycoon Harold Hamm “has emerged as a central figure in cajoling the oil industry to finance Trump’s reelection bid, and in communicating to the ex-president what the oil industry wants to improve its fortunes in a second Trump term.” — “His message appears to be resonating with some of the country’s wealthiest oil magnates, who are banking on Trump’s promises to reverse dozens of Biden’s environmental rules and policies.” — “The money has been flowing in. The oil and gas industry has contributed more than $20.3 million to the Trump campaign, pro-Trump super PACs and the Republican National Committee in the 2024 cycle, according to data from OpenSecrets. Trump is expected to do more oil and gas events later this year, aides say.”
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