With Daniel Lippman

FIRST IN PI — DARK MONEY GROUP TO HIGHLIGHT TRUMP VOTERS IN FAVOR OF INFRASTRUCTURE BILLS: A dark money group launched during the height of the pandemic last year is dropping another $2 million to pressure lawmakers to support the bipartisan infrastructure bill and Democrats’ social spending plan as the Senate tees up key votes on both packages this week. The group, WorkMoney, will feature the stories of members of the nonprofit who voted for former President Donald Trump but who support both the $1.2 trillion bipartisan bill containing investments in roads, bridges and the like, as well as the yet-to-be-released $3.5 trillion Democratic measure funding social programs.

— WorkMoney founder CJ Grimes, a longtime veteran of the Service Employees International Union, said in an interview that an internal poll recently found that 57 percent of WorkMoney’s conservative members support the plans, a dynamic the new ad blitz is meant to underscore. The ads will run on Facebook and YouTube and on the websites for news outlets like CNN, Fox News, The Hill, The New York Times and MSNBC in half a dozen states home to key votes for the bills: Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.

— “It felt important to highlight Trump supporters because it's the missing piece, I think, from some of the conversation in Washington,” said Grimes, who founded WorkMoney in response to the economic devastation of the coronavirus pandemic. The group has spent big on advertising pushing for more federal stimulus since last summer, and dropped another $2 million in May in an attempt to influence moderate senators as they worked to shape the bipartisan infrastructure framework. Conservative members of the group have also met with key members of Congress and authored op-eds in local papers. Grimes said that from her perspective, the infrastructure packages are “really only politicized in Washington, in D.C. This is not a problem among the folks who elect the people who are in Washington, D.C.”

— One of the Trump voters featured in the ad buy is Gary Walton, a West Virginian who lost his job as an oil drilling technician last April. He was forced to take jobs paying fractions of his previous salary, he told PI, and now he still makes around 75 percent of what he made before, while his wife has had to pick up extra hours at work to make up for the difference. Walton said that though he doesn’t necessarily agree with everything that will likely be included in the reconciliation bill, he believes the good outweighs the bad. He said he expects the legislation to improve the lives of the working class, and called on both Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito to support the final products. In Walton’s ad he says the infrastructure bills could help pay for his kids to attend college. “This is what Washington should have done a long time ago,” he says.

— As for Trump, who has pushed Republican senators to block the bipartisan bill, Walton said that “I will support Trump in any way I can. But if he's against this, then I'm not for that. I’m for the working person, and everybody that is a politician in the United States should be for the working person because we're the ones that support everybody.”

Good afternoon and welcome to PI. Tips: [email protected]. Twitter: @caitlinoprysko.

STALEMATE ON CRYPTO FIX CONTINUES: A weeklong slog to fix agreeable language on cryptocurrency reporting requirements continued this afternoon, even after several of the Senators offering competing amendments to the bill reached a compromise backed by the Biden administration and the industry alike. While the compromise amendment from Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) “leaves work to be done,” and will require “long-term clarifying fixes,” the Blockchain Association’s Kristin Smith said in a statement that “we encourage the Senate to support the compromise — and, moving forward, to work with industry to proactively craft smart policy to keep the U.S. at the forefront of crypto innovation.” On the floor, though, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) asked to attach $50 billion more in defense funding along with the crypto amendment by unanimous consent, only to be blocked numerous times.

HOW WE GOT HERE: “Regardless of the measure’s ultimate fate, the fact that crypto regulation has become one of the biggest stumbling blocks to passage of the bill underscored how the industry has become a political force in Washington — and previewed a series of looming battles over a financial technology attracting billions of dollars of interest from Wall Street, Silicon Valley and financial players around the world, but that few still understand,” Todd C. Frankel, Jeff Stein, Jacqueline Alemany and Hamza Shaban write in The Washington Post. “‘What I think you’re seeing is the maturing of the industry — you see the crypto folks now understanding how Washington can influence their world and Washington learning a little bit about the technology,’ said Mick Mulvaney, former chief of staff under President Donald Trump, one of several former officials to be recruited to the crypto industry in recent years.”

— POLITICO’s Victoria Guida reports that the back-and-forth over the reporting requirements “revealed the increasing influence of digital currency startups that in just a few short years became multibillion-dollar firms as investors flocked to Bitcoin and other digital assets. Their rise is reflected in their Washington operations, which were once dominated by idealists and academics but now employ former elected officials and other seasoned government operators.”

— “Crypto advocates also had allies among digital rights and privacy groups,” and “together, the coalition found sympathetic ears on both sides of the aisle, causing headaches for the White House and the bipartisan group of senators who drafted the infrastructure bill. The legislation’s authors found themselves unexpectedly having to defend what was a minor element of the $550 billion infrastructure plan.” Still, despite the industry’s recent investments in advocacy efforts, “other industries were probably better prepared to fend off being a pay-for,” Ed Mills, a Washington policy analyst at Raymond James, told Victoria. “This is the first time they’ve really been on the menu.”

TRUMP AIDE HEADS TO K STREET: Joe Russo is joining the Association for Accessible Medicines, which represents the generic drug industry, as senior director of federal government affairs. Russo previously served in the White House, most recently as special assistant to Trump and deputy director of the Office of Public Liaison. Before that he was coalitions director of the House Judiciary Committee and served on the legislative staff of former Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), who is also a lobbyist now.

ANNALS OF CAMPAIGN FINANCE: “WinRed PAC, the for-profit Republican fundraising juggernaut, raised more than $2.24 billion for GOP campaigns and committees in the 2020 election. But somehow, that gargantuan undertaking appears to have cost the PAC almost nothing,” The Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger reports. “According to the 13 campaign finance experts interviewed for this article, WinRed has not disclosed possibly tens of millions of dollars in PAC expenses. In doing so, WinRed, which Republican leaders forced on campaigns in the 2020 election, has kept secret the identities of the people and firms who work for it and provide its services.”

— “According to filings with the Federal Election Commission, the PAC paid a grand total of $1,522.55 for the 2020 election. All of that meager amount went to its sister company, a for-profit corporation called WinRed Technical Services LLC, for ‘merchandise.’ Over the same period, ActBlue — a nonprofit — raised double that amount, $4.4 billion. It reported spending a little over $42 million on operating costs, about one percent of its total. To put that in perspective, WinRed PAC’s $1,502.55 budget was around 3.57 thousandths of 1 percent the size of ActBlue’s. If WinRed expended 1 percent of its $2.24 billion — ActBlue’s approximate rate — its operating budget would be $22.4 million. … WinRed’s reports baffled all the campaign finance experts consulted by The Daily Beast, some of whom declined to comment on the record, citing possible conflicts of interest.”

TIM SCOTT MAKES INROADS WITH MEGADONORS: POLITICO’s Alex Isenstadt reports that “since last October, [Oracle founder Larry] Ellison has contributed $10 million to an outside group aligned with” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), “a huge sum even in the super PAC era and the business owner’s biggest known contribution in three decades as a political donor. Scott’s behind-the-scenes courtship of Ellison illustrates how the senator has quietly become a powerhouse fundraiser and a major force within the Republican Party.”

— “The pro-Scott super PAC, Opportunity Matters Fund, has drawn support from conservative donors like Richard Gaby, who has bankrolled the likes of former President Donald Trump and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene,” but also from donors like “New York hedge fund manager Dan Loeb, a financier of gay rights initiatives who is slated to host a fundraiser bolstering Scott later this year.” The super PAC’s second-biggest donor “is another prominent Republican mega-donor: Las Vegas casino billionaire Steve Wynn.”

— Megan Wilson will join POLITICO to cover lobbying and influence in health care. She most recently has covered lobbying for Bloomberg Government.

— Daniel Scarpinato is joining Ascent Media as a partner in September. He was most recently chief of staff to Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey.

— David Dunlap is now vice president for global government relations at Harsco Corporation. He most recently was principal at Dunlap Strategies LLC and is an EPA alum who served under Administrator Andrew Wheeler.

— John Hursh and Sevag Kechichian are joining Democracy for the Arab World Now. Hursh will be program director and previously was director of research at the Stockton Center for International Law. Kechichian will be Gulf researcher and previously was lead researcher on Saudi Arabia at Amnesty International.

— Jourdan Lewis is now manager of government relations at Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy. She previously was senior policy adviser for Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.).

— Todd Phillips will become director of financial regulation and corporate governance at the Center for American Progress, per Morning Money. He was most recently at the FDIC.

DPI Chairs Victory Fund (Democratic Party of Illinois, Rep. Robin Kelly)

BENZON4HISD (PAC)
Democracy PAC II (Super PAC)
National Republican Training Committee PAC (Hybrid PAC)
Northwest Ohio Freedom Fund PAC (Super PAC)
People Who Love America PAC (Super PAC)
TCRB (Trumbull County Resurrection Blueprint) (Hybrid PAC)
Vote Access Today (Super PAC)
ZERO MEDIA CO (PAC)

Dentons US LLP: Global Laser Enrichment LLC
Ice Miller Strategies LLC: Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield
John M Quinn: Anderson Kill P.C.
Longview Global, LLC: Travelcenters Of America, Inc.
Sarah Brenholt: Stronger American Through Seafood
Seward Square Group: 1Health
Sullivan Strategies LLC (Fka Sb Capitol Solutions): Glass Aviation Holdings Inc
Townsend Public Affairs: California Academy Of Sciences
Townsend Public Affairs: North County Transit District
Whitmer & Worrall, LLC: Orlando Economic Partnership

Boyagian Consulting, LLC: Govbiz Advantage (For Sagamore Development Corp)
K&L Gates LLP: Boulder Capital Partners Ozb, LLC
Ms. Laura Lawlor: Newlight Healthcare
The Summerill Law Firm: El Paso County Sheriff'S Office
Townsend Public Affairs: Anaheim Union High School District
William Adams: Lake Region Healthcare Corporation