FIRST IN PI — DAVIS BUILDS OUT HIS LOBBYING TEAM: Former Rep. Rodney Davis has begun to build out his team of lobbyists over at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, stocking up on staffers who used to work for the Illinois Republican and other GOP leaders on the Hill. — Joining the Chamber’s government affairs team are Tim Monahan, Nick Crocker and Andrea Porwoll, all of whom worked under Davis on the House Administration Committee at one time or another. Monahan most recently was a senior vice president at Atlas Crossing and before that worked for former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, helping oversee the transition to House Speaker Mike Johnson. — Porwoll was most recently vice president for communications and public affairs at Bullpen Strategy Group and before that, served as a spokesperson for McCarthy during his speakership. Crocker heads to the Chamber after more than a decade on the Hill, where he was most recently senior adviser and coalitions director with the House Energy and Commerce Committee. — The hires are the latest sign of the Chamber’s efforts to make inroads with congressional Republicans after years of friction with the increasingly populist conference. A thaw in relations couldn’t come at a better time, with work already having begun on the marathon negotiations to renew key provisions from the 2017 tax overhaul. WHO’S BEHIND THE AI LOBBYING SOFTWARE LOBBYMATIC: Daniel has the exclusive wild backstory behind the AI lobbying software LobbyMatic that’s been bombarding Twitter feeds around town for months. The startup is covertly run by Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, the far-right conspiracy theorists and convicted felons who are using pseudonyms in their new business, according to four former employees as well as photo and email evidence. — In his role as a founder and CEO of the new firm, Wohl uses the name “Jay Klein,” according to the former employees and emails obtained by POLITICO. Burkman uses the pseudonym “Bill Sanders,” the former employees said. Two of the former LobbyMatic employees resigned after learning of Klein and Sanders’ true identities, while the other two learned only after they had left the company. — The startup temporarily signed up at least three brand-name clients: Toyota, consulting firm Boundary Stone Partners and drug company Lantheus, according to two of the former employees. — In a video posted on X on Monday under the handle @TheLobbyistGuy, Wohl did not directly address his and Burkman’s use of pseudonyms but said he did not “want my past involvement in partisan politics a half a decade ago to distract from what is a phenomenal product that's being rapidly adopted by K Street.” Happy Tuesday and welcome back to PI. Are you one of the “prestigious lobbying firms and corporate government relations offices” that’s been using LobbyMatic? Reach out: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on X: @caitlinoprysko. FIRST IN PI — BROWNSTEIN ADDS 2: Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck is bringing on two policy staffers on the Hill with key areas of expertise. Lauren Flynn is joining the firm as a policy director from the House Appropriations Committee, where she was staff director for the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee. Flynn has also worked on the subcommittee’s Senate counterpart as well as for Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) and the Treasury Department. — Maxwell Huntley will be a senior policy adviser, and joins from the House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee. Before that, Huntley advised several lawmakers on issues related to national security and defense, including Kennedy and Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), vice chair of the Armed Services Committee. — Both hires bring experience working on some of the few bills Congress is guaranteed to act on in a given year — appropriations and defense authorizations. That means both issues — already of outsize importance to stakeholders — have evolved to become major K Street targets for tacking on additional legislative priorities. DEM CHIEFS HEAD DOWNTOWN: A pair of top Democratic aides are also part of the crowd heading to K Street. Stacey Leavandosky is joining Federal Street Strategies after more than 30 years on the Hill — the last 18 of which were spent as chief of staff to Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.). — And Matt VanKuiken, who’s spent the past eight years as chief of staff to retiring Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), is joining investment giant BlackRock as director of government affairs and the company’s lead Democratic lobbyist. VanKuiken also served on the Biden transition as a nominations navigator. VALLEY TALK: The Washington Post’s Cristiano Lima-Strong and Cat Zakrzewski report that “as Vice President Kamala Harris campaigns for the presidency in an election animated by populist energy, some of her chief advisers and donors are positioned against one of the Biden administration’s highest-profile efforts in that vein: reining in Big Tech.” — “Power players in the tech hothouse of Northern California have long nurtured the political rise of Harris, a native of Oakland, Calif. Donors who made their fortunes in the tech industry helped fuel Harris’s ascent from San Francisco district attorney to the White House, and her inner circle includes several officials who have worked for Google, Uber and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic initiative.” — “Top industry lobbyists and venture capitalists were in Chicago last month to fete Harris at the Democratic National Convention. They hope their close ties to the nominee might return the industry to its halcyon days during the Obama administration, which embraced innovation in Silicon Valley.” HAVING IT BOTH WAYS: Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld still does legal work for Chinese lidar maker Hesai Group despite dropping the company as a lobbying client in February amid threats of getting blacklisted by Congress, Daniel reports. — In a court filing Aug. 21 as part of Hesai's lawsuit against the Defense Department to get itself taken off a DOD list of Chinese companies that are linked to the Chinese military, Akin listed four attorneys who are working on the case on behalf of the company, James E. Tysse, Caroline L. Wolverton and Lide E. Paterno from their D.C. office and Zach ZhenHe Tan of Akin’s San Francisco office. (Prompted by the litigation and Hesai’s claims the Pentagon didn’t prove any Chinese military ties, the Pentagon is reportedly going to drop Hesai from the list, although it hasn’t taken that step officially.) — The government relations part of the firm started lobbying for Hesai in August 2023 and made $300,000 in fees from the company. But it stopped representing them in February as part of a wave of lobbying terminations sparked by PI reporting that several members of Congress were considering banning the firms from meetings with their offices. Spokespeople for Akin Gump and Hesai declined to comment. CRYPTO BOOSTERS RAISE CASH FOR HARRIS: Meanwhile, Reuters’ Hannah Lang reports that crypto executives and investors “are planning to raise at least $100,000 for the Democratic presidential nominee at a Sept. 13 Washington fundraiser.” — “The grassroots event is scheduled to take place between the Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Hispanic Caucus conferences, and aims to bring together a diverse group of donors, the organizers told Reuters. Tickets to the fundraiser range from $500 to $5,000, said Cleve Mesidor, founder of the National Policy Network of Women of Color in Blockchain and one of the organizers.” — It’s “the latest sign that at least some in the industry are rallying behind her rather than Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has courted big crypto donors with friendly policy pledges. The organizers include Tiffany Smith, co-chair of the Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Working Group at law firm WilmerHale and Rahilla Zafar, a crypto founder who has also worked in artificial intelligence. They are hoping that, if elected, Harris will ease up on crypto after the Securities and Exchange Commission under Biden cracked down on the sector.” COMING TO A STATEHOUSE NEAR YOU: “As state legislators around the country seek to regulate teen smartphone use, Apple is gearing up for a battle with app makers and legislators over child safety. The question at the heart of the fight is whether regulation of teen social-media use should happen entirely within apps or whether smartphone makers and app stores also have a role to play,” The Wall Street Journal’s Jeff Horwitz and Aaron Tilley report. ORBÁN'S ALLIES: Over the weekend, our Heidi Przybyla and Nicholas Vinocur looked at the broad "initiative by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to expand his influence around the world. It has included his repeated overtures to former President Donald Trump, who praised Orbán in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in late July," in addition to forging ties to conservative groups jockeying for sway in a second Trump administration, such as the Conservative Partnership Institute and the Heritage Foundation. — "Hungary’s attempts to influence the policy debate in Washington are echoing right now in Brussels, where Orbán’s followers have seeded several anti-European Union, right-leaning media outlets and think tanks, the best known of which is MCC Brussels. Launched in 2022, the think tank is funded by Orbán’s government, and the prime minister’s political director, Balazs Orban, who is not related, chairs its board of trustees. MCC has led campaigns seeking to undermine EU action on climate change and backing farmer protests which rocked the EU capital last year." — "While many of the overtures to U.S. conservatives are ostensibly about policies like global migration and promoting religious values, the message often quickly turns to pro-Russian foreign policy goals. They include curbing Western support for Ukraine and, implicitly, weakening support for NATO."
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