With Daniel Lippman FIRST IN PI — THEGROUP ADDS ANOTHER REPUBLICAN: TheGROUP D.C. is burnishing its bipartisan credentials some more, adding veteran GOP Hill aide David Cleary as a principal. Cleary has been with DLA Piper since last February. — Before that, Cleary spent more than two decades on the Hill, serving as Republican staff director on the Senate HELP Committee and a longtime chief of staff to its former chair, Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). Cleary also worked for two years for future House Speaker John Boehner. — Cleary will be the second Republican lobbyist at TheGROUP, a firm that saw its business soar early in the Biden administration thanks to its hires of President Joe Biden’s former Hill liaison; a top former staffer to Biden adviser Cedric Richmond and HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra; a former aide to Speaker Nancy Pelosi; and Obama White House and campaign alums. The firm began hiring Republicans shortly after, but Pam Thiessen, who joined last year as a partner, had been its only GOP lobbyist for several months. — TheGROUP has a handful of health care clients that would surely appreciate Senate HELP connections should Republicans retake control of the Senate in November — including Gilead, UnitedHealth Group, Astellas Pharma, Abbott Labs and the American Health Care Association. Happy Tuesday and welcome to PI, where we’re wishing a big happy birthday to your host’s only home state president, Jimmy Carter. Send lobbying tips: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on X: @caitlinoprysko. DOJ ASKS FOR EN BANC HEARING ON WYNN: The Justice Department has asked for the full bench of the D.C. Circuit to rehear its appeal of a lawsuit forcing casino magnate Steve Wynn to register as a foreign agent. — In its petition for an en banc hearing filed late last week, prosecutors assailed the decades-old legal precedent underlying a federal judge’s dismissal of the lawsuit against Wynn in 2022 — and an appeals court panel’s ruling earlier this year upholding that dismissal. While en banc reviews in the D.C. Circuit are rare, “this case presents a question of exceptional importance warranting” such an occasion, the government argued. — The precedent held that foreign agents have no obligation to register once their work has ended, a finding prosecutors said was wrongly decided and could hold far-reaching consequences for the federal government’s ability to shed light on illicit foreign influence campaigns. — Failure to overturn that precedent would tie the government’s hands in both civil cases to compel registration as well as in criminal cases where willful violations of FARA cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, leaving “no method to secure the important information FARA requires be made available to the government and the public,” the filing says. — That’s especially devastating in a circuit in which prosecutors said nearly a third of FARA activity occurs, but they noted that other courts often defer to the D.C. Circuit’s interpretation of laws like FARA, potentially broadening the reach of the court’s decision in the absence of a legislative fix, which (as PI wrote last week) is nowhere near the finish line. INTERIOR OFFICIAL KNOCKED FOR STOCK TRADES: “Former Interior Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau owned shares in oil giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron while he participated in a meeting on offshore oil rig safety rules, violating ethics guidelines and conflict of interest laws,” per our Ben Lefebvre. — “Interior’s inspector general found that Beaudreau's ownership of those shares came after ‘his private portfolio manager made unauthorized purchases of stock contrary to Beaudreau’s instructions.’ The inspector general said it started the investigation at Beaudreau’s request after he flagged the purchase of the shares.” — “Still, ‘Beaudreau failed to monitor his investment account and recuse himself from particular matters in which he held a financial interest,’ the inspector general said in its report. … The inspector general referred its findings to the Justice Department, which it said declined to prosecute the matter.” TC ENERGY SPINOFF TAPS PUBLIC AFFAIRS LEADS: South Bow, which is now an independent company following its spinoff from TC Energy, has named Anthony Giannetti its director of federal and state government relations and Marc Palazzo its vice president of external relations. Giannetti was previously TC Energy’s senior policy adviser for federal government relations and policy, and Palazzo was vice president of U.S. external relations. HUNTING FOR SIGNS: “Antitrust officials in Washington and their supporters across the political spectrum are asking whether Kamala Harris is fully committed to President Joe Biden’s crusade against America’s biggest companies,” our Josh Sisco reports. — “Harris has said little about antitrust explicitly, but the signals she’s sent so far have been encouraging to some antitrust advocates. As part of the economic policy plan that Harris released last week, Harris is supporting several Biden administration competition moves. … Notably, however, she has said little about Big Tech — a key focus of Biden’s top antitrust officials, Lina Khan at the FTC and Jonathan Kanter at the DOJ.” — Antitrust advocates have also raised concerns about Harris advisers’ corporate ties — “including her brother-in-law and head Uber lawyer Tony West, and debate adviser Karen Dunn, a corporate lawyer who is currently leading Google’s defense in an antitrust case. That, coupled with Harris’ silence on calls from major donors like LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman to fire Khan from her role as FTC chair, have put some antimonopoly advocates on edge.” DOWNTOWN PLEADS WITH BIDEN: Major trade groups are pleading for Biden to halt the work stoppage at major ports across the East and Gulf Coasts that began at midnight — even as the White House has maintained that Biden currently has no plans to step in. — “This strike isn’t just about disrupting a few shipments; it’s about stopping the supply chain and bringing the flow of critical goods to a standstill,” National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors CEO Eric Hoplin said in a statement calling on Biden to intervene. — Matt Shay, the head of the National Retail Federation, urged Biden to “use any and all available authority and tools,” including the Taft-Hartley Act, to restore operations at the ports and bring dockworkers and port managers back to the negotiating table. “A disruption of this scale during this pivotal moment in our nation’s economic recovery will have devastating consequences for American workers, their families and local communities,” Shay argued. — National Association of Manufacturers President and CEO Jay Timmons warned of “dire economic consequences” for manufacturers from even a brief strike, while highlighting the massive quantities of beverages (like coffee, tea and sodas), medical supplies, fertilizers, vehicles and wood pulp that travel in an out of the affected ports daily — in some cases more than three-quarters of the total U.S. supply. SPOTTED last night at a reception hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Team USA to discuss how businesses can collaborate with Olympic and Paralympic athletes, per a tipster: Max Siegel of USA Track & Field, Olympic cyclist Kristen Faulkner, track and field Paralympian Ezra Frech, EPA Administrator Michael Regan, Katherine Lugar of Hilton, Brian Bernasek of The Carlyle Group, track and field Olympians Kenneth Bednarek, Twanisha ‘TeeTee’ Terry and Brittany Brown; Olympic rower Pieter Quinton, Chris Crawford of Rep. Buddy Carter’s (R-Ga.) office, Will McIntee of the White House and Michelle Russo and Rick Wade of the Chamber.
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