With Daniel Lippman
FIRST IN PI — GREENBERG TRAURIG DROPS TURKEY: The law and lobbying firm Greenberg Traurig has cut ties with the Turkish government under pressure from Armenian-American activists furious over Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan in its ongoing hostilities with Armenia. The firm sent an internal email this week announcing that it had terminated its relationship with Turkey on Oct. 29, according to a person who saw the email. The firm declined to comment. The Turkish embassy in Washington didn’t respond to a request for comment.
— Greenberg Traurig’s decision to drop Turkey comes after Mercury Public Affairs scrapped its $1 million contract with the Turkish government following a pressure campaign waged by the Armenian National Committee of America and theArmenian Assembly of America. Armenian-American activistswant to deprive Turkey and Azerbaijan of support in Washington as Armenia and Azerbaijan battle over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Greenberg Traurig has lobbied for the Turkish government in Washington for years and renewed its contract — worth more than $1.5 million a year — in January, according to a copy filed with the Justice Department. Former Reps. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) and Al Wynn (D-Md.) were among the Greenberg Traurig lobbyists who represented the country, according to disclosure filings.
— The push to convince firms to drop Turkey and Azerbaijan is reminiscent of the campaign to force Saudi Arabia’s Washington lobbying and public relations firms to stop working for the kingdom after Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The Washington Post, where Khashoggi had been a contributing opinion writer, threatened to bar two lobbyists from writing columns for the paper unless their firms stopped working for Saudi Arabia — which the firms ultimately did.
— Aram Hamparian, the Armenian National Committee’s executive director, told POLITICO after Mercury dropped Turkey that he planned to pressure another lobbying firm, BGR Group, to stop representing Azerbaijan. But BGR said in a statement at the time that it “intends to continue its representation of Azerbaijan.” Instead, Azerbaijan has gotten more help in Washington. A limited-liability company based in Baku, Azerbaijan, Investment Corporation, hired two more firms, Portland PR and the S-3 Group, last month in support of the company’s work on behalf of the Azerbaijani government.
Good afternoon, and welcome to PI. Some personnel news: After helming Influence for most of Donald Trump’s presidency, I’m moving over to help write our new Transition Playbook, POLITICO’s soon-to-be-daily chronicling the likely transfer of power. Thanks to this newsletter’s loyal readers for sticking with me through the collapse of the Podesta Group, the rush to hire lobbyists with ties to House Democrats, the flood of Trump administration officials onto K Street, the neverending lobbying campaign for a second coronavirus relief package, the vicissitudes of this election cycle and all the rest.
— I’m happy to announce that you’ll be in good hands moving forward:POLITICO’s Caitlin Oprysko will take over Influence next week. I’ll remain a frequent contributor. Say hello to Caitlin, and send both of us your best tips on K Street and the nascent transition: coprysko@politico.com and tmeyer@politico.com. You can also follow both of us on Twitter: @caitlinopryskoand @theodoricmeyer.
MORE POST-ELECTION ANALYSIS: How tough will it be for a President Joe Biden to win confirmation of his cabinet picks if he prevails in the final tally but Republicans hold the Senate? Brendan Dunn, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who’s now a lobbyist at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, told POLITICO‘s Transition Playbook he doesn’t expect Senate Republicans to blockade Biden’s nominees en masse if Biden wins and Republicans hold the chamber. “If Joe Biden wants to pick an ideologically progressive individual to run his Department of the Treasury, it’s his Department of the Treasury,” he added.
— “Even in a divided government, the Senate traditionally does not block a president’s Cabinet choices unless they are clearly unqualified or have ethical problems,” the law and lobbying firm BakerHostetler wrote in a recent memo to clients. “Although a few nominees have withdrawn before formal consideration, the last time the Senate actually voted down a nomination was under George H.W. Bush in 1989.”
— In an interview on Thursday, former Rep. Mike Ferguson (R-N.J.), who leads BakerHostetler’s federal policy team, said the exception might be Senate Republicans who want to run for president in 2024. “It might be seen as weakness for a Republican senator who wants to win their nomination to vote for” Biden’s nominees if he wins, Ferguson said. On the other hand, Republicans senators running for reelection in purple states in 2022 might have extra incentive to work across the aisle.
COGENT APPLAUDS McLAUGHLIN: Cogent Strategies included one of its former lobbyists on a list of post-election winners: Kevin McLaughlin, who helped start the firm before decamping to become the National Republican Senatorial Committee‘s executive director this cycle. “Our former colleague had the night of his life (possible exception: the 2018 holiday party) as he steered the [NRSC] to triumph in the face of a predicted blue wave,” the firm wrote, hailing the victories of Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.) over well-financed Democratic challengers.
CALIFORNIA BALLOT MEASURE WIN EMBOLDENS UBER: Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s chief executive, “said Thursday that his tech coalition’s ballot win in California this week should serve as a template for regulating the gig economy in other states and nations,” POLITICO California’s Jeremy White reports. “Uber and other companies that dispatch workers by apps achieved a landmark win in America’s most populous state on Tuesday, when voters overwhelmingly passed their Proposition 22 to shield companies from having to classify their workers as employees.”
— Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and other “companies spent more than $200 million to convince California voters. Khosrowshahi emphasized in an investor call that the outcome will likely reverberate beyond Uber’s home state of California. ‘Going forward, you will see us more loudly advocate for new laws like Prop 22, which we believe strike the balance between preserving the flexibility that drivers value so much, while adding protections that all gig workers deserve,’ Khosrowshahi said, adding that ‘it’s a priority for us to work with governments across the U.S. and the world to make this a reality.’”
WHO’S BEHIND TEXTS URGING TRUMP SUPPORTERS TO ASSEMBLE IN PHILADELPHIA: “A Republican firm run by a top aide to President Trump’s 2020 campaign appears to have helped send unmarked text messages on Thursday that urged supporters in Philadelphia to converge outside a building where local election officials counted votes,” The Washington Post’sTony Romm and Isaac Stanley-Becker report. “‘ALERT: Radical Liberals & Dems are trying to steal this election from Trump!’ began the short text, sent in the hours before former Vice President Joe Biden took the lead in the state. ‘We need YOU! Show your support at the corner of 12th St. & Arch St. in Philadelphia.’”
— “The messages were sent from phone numbers that had been leased by Opn Sesame, a company that offers texting services to Republican candidates and causes, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to discuss the messages. Opn Sesame is run by Gary Coby, the digital director for Trump’s 2020 campaign, and it has worked for years on behalf of a number of key GOP clients, including the Republican National Committee. It is unclear which of Opn Sesame’s clients actually sent the message, and the company does not disclose its full list of users.”
HIRES AND PROMOTIONS AT HOME DEPOT: Home Depot has promoted one of its in-house lobbyists, Brett Layson, to director of government relations. Layson is a former aide to former Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) and will continue to report to Home Depot’s top lobbyist, Heather Kennedy.
— The company has hired Jared Holt and Celinda Gonzalez as managers of state of local government relations. Holt, who previously worked for Shumaker Advisors, will manage North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and Wisconsin, according to the company. Gonzalez, who previously worked for Mobilitie, will manage Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
NEW RULES WILL GOVERN TRUMP’S TWEETS IF HE LOSES: President Donald Trump “receives special treatment from Twitter Inc. when he violates the company’s rules around offensive or misleading content. That exemption will end in January if he loses the presidency,” Bloomberg News’Kurt Wagner reports. Twitter “treats transgressions from world leaders differently than those from regular users, and often leaves up tweets that violate its content policies, adding a warning instead of forcing users to delete the posts. … But former world leaders aren’t protected under that policy. High-profile politicians no longer in office — like former U.S. President Barack Obama — are treated like regular users if they violate Twitter’s rules, which prohibit messages that include hate speech or posts that glorify violence or contain certain types of false information, like dangerous health-related misinformation.”
— “Trump will fall into the ‘former’ group if he leaves office in January, Twitter confirmed. If that happens, breaking one of Twitter’s rules means his tweets may be removed entirely instead of labeled. He could also rack up ‘strikes’ for multiple violations, which would increase the severity of punishment issued from the company, and could lead to temporary account freezes, suspensions or even a permanent ban.”
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