With Daniel Lippman WALL STREETERS BRING ON MORE LOBBYING HELP: Ameriprise Financial has hired 1607 Strategies to lobby on issues related to brokered deposits, or funds directed to a bank by a third party. The banking and fintech industries have been fighting an effort by the FDIC to reverse Trump-era changes to loosen regulation of such deposits, which would make it easier for Wall Street firms to partner with fintechs. Their effort bore fruit today when the FDIC agreed to extend the comment period on their proposed rule, our Michael Stratford reported. — Travis Johnson, a former David Vitter (R-La.) aide and Senate Banking subcommittee staff director, will work on the account along with former Ted Cruz (R-Texas) aide Hailey Miller, disclosures show. — One of Wall Street’s top trade associations has added new lobbying firepower as well. Financial services firm Rich Feuer Anderson began lobbying for the American Bankers Association last week on general legislative and regulatory issues affecting the banking industry, according to a disclosure. — Former Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Jared Sawyer, former House Financial Services staffers Ben Harney and Jennifer Rust (Read) and former Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) aide Andrew Palmer will all work on the account for ABA. ABA also retains Morrison & Foerster, Harbinger Strategies, OGR, Porterfield, Fettig & Sears, Monument Advocacy and four other firms. — Meanwhile one of the new trade groups representing the fintech industry has registered its first in-house lobbyists. Sarah Mamula, who joined the Financial Technology Association in May as its head of government affairs, registered to lobby last month on “policies and proposals impacting financial technology firms,” per a disclosure filing. The FTA launched in 2021 to push back on growing skepticism of the industry in Washington. The trade group already has two outside lobbying firms on its payroll: Mindset Advocacy and Allon Advocacy. MORE NEW BUSINESS: Damara Catlett, who jumped from The Raben Group to Bryson Gillette’s lobbying arm earlier this year, has re-signed a former client, Warner Bros. Discovery, to her new firm. Catlett will continue lobbying on competition in media marketplaces for the entertainment giant, which is in the midst of a legal fight against streaming platform Fubo over Warner Bros.’ joint sports streaming venture with Disney-owned ESPN and Fox. Happy Tuesday and welcome to PI. What’s going on out there? Let me know: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on X: @caitlinoprysko. OOPS: The Biden-alum-heavy strategic advisory firm Lafayette Advisors has quietly changed its name to Lilette Advisors after a different Washington communications firm with a similar name complained, Daniel reports in last night’s West Wing Playbook. — In early August, Biden White House alums Ryan Berni and Zach Butterworth, former Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), Transportation Department alum Michael Halle and Democratic operatives Bradley Beychok and Leah Israel announced the merger of four firms into a new firm called Lafayette Advisors. The firm’s clients include labor unions, coalitions, infrastructure projects and efforts to advance paid family leave. — But the firm changed its name in late September after it was informed of the overlap with political consulting firm Lafayette Company, which was started by longtime Republican operative Ellen Carmichael, according to an official from Lilette. While Lilette Advisors updated its website and LinkedIn profiles, it didn’t make a public announcement. — “We are excited to have rebranded to Lilette Advisors,” Berni told WWPB. “We are still the same passionate team, delivering the same commitment to our growing roster of over 60 clients and important causes, but with a new name that matches our commitment to support work that aligns with the meaning of Lilette, good and generous.” — This isn’t the first time two Washington firms have clashed over naming similarities: In 2022, the lobbying shops Monument Advocacy and Monument Strategies planned to duke it out in court over which firm could claim the “Monument” name in an effort to avoid confusion; the firms later agreed to drop the trademark spat and allow the other to keep its name. DIVING RIGHT IN: “Tech billionaire Elon Musk will ramp up his personal efforts to elect Donald Trump in the remaining weeks of the election — including making visits to Pennsylvania to campaign for the former president,” per our Alex Isenstadt. — “Musk intends to appear in the swing state in the four weeks leading up to Nov. 5, according to a person who has spoken with his team and was granted anonymity to speak freely because they weren’t authorized to do so.” — “Musk, the world’s richest person, took his most aggressive steps yet over the weekend to personally show his support for Trump. Musk appeared at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, where during a brief speech he lavished praise on the former president and urged attendees to ‘vote, vote, vote.’” — “Also over the weekend, Musk changed his profile icon on his account on X to an image of him wearing a black MAGA hat and added to his bio a link” to the account for his America PAC super PAC, which Axios reported has also taken over the @america handle on the site. — Now, The New York Times’ Teddy Schleifer reports that Boring Company President Steve Davis, one of Musk’s “most trusted lieutenants,” is joining “the crew of people working for his pro-Trump super PAC, the latest sign of how Mr. Musk is investing his personal brand, energy and network into the group in the final weeks of the presidential campaign.” PROJECT 2025 — A DCCC ADMAKER’S GOLDMINE: “House Democrats' campaign arm is leaning hard into Project 2025 in the final stages of the election, launching billboards in more than two dozen districts blasting the conservative blueprint for a second Trump presidency,” according to Axios’ Andrew Solender. — “Democrats have increasingly tried to tether Republicans to the plan as their polling shows it to be one of the most potent attacks on the GOP,” which in turn has sought to distance itself from the Heritage Foundation-conceived policy road map. — “"All of the data we have shows that Project 2025 just has huge interest and traction, more so than virtually every other issue," Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), the leader of a task force on countering Project 2025, told Axios.” TURKISH HOUSE (OF CARDS): One of the central elements of last month’s indictment of New York Mayor Eric Adams on campaign finance and corruption charges was Adams’ alleged pressuring of city fire officials to green-light the opening of a lavish new skyscraper to house the Turkish consulate. — Now, The Wall Street Journal’s Will Parker, Thomas Grove and Caitlin Ostroff have a peek at how “the nearly $300 million Turkish House that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan intended to be a monument to his nation’s global influence” came to be a key player “in a legal drama that might cost the New York mayor his job and perhaps his political career.”
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