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      Fugees Rapper Pras Michel Found Guilty in Illegal Foreign Influence Scheme

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      Mr. Michel took orders, and millions of dollars, from a Malaysian financier who sought to gain political influence in the U.S., prosecutors said.A founding member of the hip-hop group the Fugees was found guilty in federal court on Wednesday of orchestrating a sprawling international conspiracy that used millions of dollars worth of foreign money for illegal lobbying and campaign contributions, the Justice Department said.The rapper Prakazrel Michel, known as Pras, had been accused of accepting $865,000 from Low Taek Jho, a Malaysian financier, and giving that money to a network of straw donors who used it to make campaign contributions to former President Barack Obama in 2012.Mr. Michel was also accused by prosecutors of trying to convince the Trump administration and the Justice Department to drop federal investigations into Mr. Low related to embezzlement, as well as assisting China in its efforts to have a Chinese dissident brought back to China, according to the Justice Department.Mr. Michel, who received millions of dollars for his part in the schemes, was convicted of 10 criminal counts including money laundering, illegal lobbying, witness tampering and campaign finance violations, according to court records. He faces a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison.“Today’s verdict demonstrates that anyone who engages in unlawful foreign-sponsored efforts to influence American officials, our elections, or the criminal justice system will be brought to justice,” Kenneth A. Polite, Jr., an assistant attorney general with the Justice Department, said in a statement.Mr. Michel’s lawyer, David E. Kenner, did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment on Wednesday evening.Mr. Michel’s conviction in U.S. District Court in Washington followed an extensive trial that included testimony from several big names in entertainment and political circles, including Leonardo DiCaprio and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, according to The Associated Press and Politico.Mr. DiCaprio testified that Mr. Low seemed to be a legitimate businessman years ago when he said he wanted to donate to the Obama campaign, and Mr. Sessions testified about his knowledge of the Chinese extradition efforts.Prosecutors argued that Mr. Low essentially used Mr. Michel for back-channel dealings in the U.S., and that Mr. Michel was a subservient accomplice.Mr. Low, also known as Jho Low, is a fugitive and has been wanted by law enforcement in the United States and Malaysia for his role in the theft of $4.5 billion from a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, according to the Justice Department. That case contributed to the electoral defeat and eventual indictment of that country’s former prime minister, Najib Razak.Mr. Michel, 50, of Coconut Creek, Fla., conspired with Mr. Low to funnel millions of dollars of Mr. Low’s money into the 2012 U.S. presidential election “as purportedly legitimate campaign contributions, all while concealing the true source of the money,” prosecutors said.Mr. Michel would receive Mr. Low’s money and contribute to Mr. Obama’s campaign personally and through about 20 straw donors, court records state. The men’s goals were to “gain access to, and potential influence with” Mr. Obama’s administration, according to prosecutors.The indictment accused Mr. Michel and Mr. Low of concealing the scheme from the Obama administration and from federal regulators.Federal officials learned of their activity in 2017. Mr. Michel was charged in 2019.Harry A. Lidsk, a special agent with the Justice Department, said in a statement that Mr. Michel “played a central role in a wide-ranging conspiracy to improperly influence top government officials.”In 2017, Mr. Michel also began to “engage in undisclosed lobbying campaigns” at the orders of Mr. Low and a Chinese government official, prosecutors said. Mr. Low wanted to have his embezzlement investigation dropped, and the Chinese official asked Mr. Low to help them get a Chinese dissident extradited, the Justice Department said.Mr. Michel did not manage to sway U.S. officials on either matter, court records show.Glenn Thrush More

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      For Ron DeSantis, Overflowing War Chest Obscures the Challenges Ahead

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      As he prepares for a widely expected 2024 campaign, the Florida governor has at least $110 million in allied committees. But he will also have to navigate a series of financial and political hurdles.As Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida prepares to take a widely anticipated leap into the 2024 presidential campaign, one of his chief strengths is his ability to raise huge sums from deep-pocketed donors.But his formidable war chest — at least $110 million in state and federal committees aligned with him — is no guarantee of success on the national stage, and his financial firepower brings with it a series of challenges he must navigate to capture the Republican nomination.Mr. DeSantis’s unsteady debut on the national stage over the past month, including remarks about Ukraine that alarmed many Republicans and hesitant counterpunches against former President Donald J. Trump, has also showcased his aloof and at times strained relationship with donors.Recent additions of seasoned advisers to his team and to an allied super PAC have allayed some concerns, strategists and donors said, but the early rookie mistakes, as one Republican donor put it, may have rattled influential would-be backers. Mr. DeSantis’s poll numbers have sagged against Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly taunted Mr. DeSantis and weaponized his fund-raising strength against him, painting the governor as a puppet of wealthy Republican elites.Those barbs by Mr. Trump — who was largely forsaken by big donors even before his recent indictment by New York prosecutors — underscore the political reality that no matter how much money Mr. DeSantis has, he will have to overcome the grass-roots enthusiasm and army of small donors that Mr. Trump continues to command. The former president’s popular appeal was particularly apparent this past week, with his campaign announcing on Wednesday that it had raised $12 million off the news of his indictment.Mr. DeSantis will also have to cultivate and tend to relationships with the everyday financial players in Republican politics — the millionaire donors, bundlers and fund-raisers whose enduring support is necessary to sustain a presidential campaign. He has, by many accounts, kept these donors at arm’s length while touring the country this past month, opting for rallies, book signings and closed-door meetings with allies instead of fund-raising dinners.Most of Mr. DeSantis’s campaign cash is tied up in a Florida political action committee.Chris Dumond/Getty ImagesThough it is still early in the campaign cycle, some donors and strategists have questioned whether Mr. DeSantis’s skills as a politician are lagging behind his robust bank account.“He is in the most enviable financial position of any candidate,” possibly including Mr. Trump, said Mike Murphy, a longtime Republican strategist. “There are questions in Republican circles about DeSantis’s candidate skills — can he make the transition from being the governor of a Republican state, where you exist on people’s TV screens, to the microscope of New Hampshire and Iowa?”Mr. DeSantis also has a campaign-finance conundrum on his hands: Most of his money — more than $80 million, as of the end of February — is tied up in a Florida political action committee. He is prohibited by law from transferring that “soft” money — dollars raised without federally imposed limits — into a presidential campaign.Any move to use that money in support of his national ambitions — including transferring it to an affiliated super PAC, called Never Back Down — would still be likely to raise red flags among campaign finance watchdogs, although campaign finance experts said the Federal Election Commission, which has for years been deadlocked between the parties, was unlikely to act on it.“Can he take that money, which was raised through his state PAC, and use it to advance his presidential campaign directly or through a federal super PAC supporting him?” said Saurav Ghosh, a former F.E.C. enforcement lawyer who is now the director of federal campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group. “The common-sense answer, and the law, says no.”Mr. Ghosh added, “The unfortunate reality is that the F.E.C. is probably not going to do anything about it.”In a statement, the F.E.C.’s chairwoman, Dara Lindenbaum, and vice chairman, Sean Cooksey, said any assertion that the commission’s bipartisan structure prevented it from fulfilling its mission was “misinformed.”“Without commenting on any specific case, commissioners assess each enforcement matter on its merits, and we reach agreement in nearly 90 percent of them,” they said.Representatives of Mr. DeSantis did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement Saturday, Erin Perrine, communications director for the affiliated super PAC, Never Back Down, said, “Governor DeSantis isn’t even an announced candidate and supporters from all 50 states have already stepped up and donated to the Never Back Down movement. Should he decide to run for president, he will be a grass-roots-fueled force to be reckoned with.”At the end of February, as Mr. DeSantis began a national tour of speaking engagements and promotional events for his new book, his allies and backers stepped up preparations for a possible presidential run.Friends of Ron DeSantis, a Florida PAC that had supported his successful re-election effort in November, continued to take in millions of dollars, including $10 million in February alone.The vast majority of money the group has raised since the election has come from a few rich donors. Jeff Yass, a Philadelphia investment manager and major Republican donor, gave $2.5 million; Joe Ricketts, the founder of TD Ameritrade and an owner of the Chicago Cubs, gave $1 million; and Gregory P. Cook, a founder of a Utah-based multilevel marketing company that sells essential oils, gave $1.3 million.Mr. Yass has given tens of millions of dollars in recent years to conservative and libertarian candidates and committees, including the Club for Growth PAC, an arm of a prominent conservative anti-tax group that has sought to move the Republican Party beyond Mr. Trump. Mr. Ricketts, the patriarch of a powerful political family in Nebraska, gave at least $1 million to support Mr. Trump in 2016, after initially opposing him in the primaries. Mr. Cook does not have a record of major gifts to federal candidates.DeSantis supporters at an event before his re-election as Florida’s governor in November.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesJohn Childs, a billionaire Republican donor in Florida, gave $1 million to Friends of Ron DeSantis in late February, as did Stefan Brodie, the founder of a Pennsylvania chemical company.In March, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, a former Trump administration official, announced the creation of Never Back Down.The group, which recently brought on the veteran Republican strategist Jeff Roe as an adviser, said it had raised at least $30 million since March 9.Super PACs, though powerful tools for pooling enormous sums of unregulated cash, come with drawbacks for candidates. For one, the campaigns cannot directly control how that money is spent. Crucially, television ads also cost more for PACs: Federal law lets candidate committees pay a lower price.So the money raised by official campaigns — ideally from bundlers who can summon hundreds of friends and allies to max out their individual contributions, now capped at $3,300 per person — is often worth more to the candidate.“You make me choose between a bundler and a big check writer, I’d rather have the hard dollars,” Mr. Murphy said. “Most bundlers really need to be pursued — and that goes back to the interpersonal skills.”For that reason, Mr. DeSantis’s nine-figure haul is hard to compare to the $21.8 million that, at year’s end, sat in the federal campaign account of Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, another potential Republican candidate.Mr. Scott is also supported by a super PAC, the Opportunity Matters Fund, which since 2020 has raised tens of millions of dollars — including at least $35 million from the Oracle founder Larry Ellison.Mr. DeSantis has been touring important primary states while he promotes his new book.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesAnd big-dollar fund-raising does not always translate to victory. Donors and strategists cite the examples of former Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida as warnings. Cast as front-runners for the 2016 election, both took in huge cash hauls in 2015 — Mr. Bush raised more than $100 million — only to fizzle out of the race early.In his recent stops in Iowa, New York, Pennsylvania and Georgia, Mr. DeSantis has offered a preview of how he might interact with donors as a national candidate. Some Republican donors, strategists and bundlers took note of what they said appeared to be Mr. DeSantis’s diffidence or even discomfort with the mingling and small talk that are staples of the campaign trail, particularly with contributors.Many also said, though, that some donors and bundlers were waiting until the election cycle was further along to take a side.Some were taken aback by Mr. DeSantis’s comments last month calling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “territorial dispute” and saying the war was not a vital U.S. interest. Those remarks, coupled with his aversion to old-fashioned “grip and grin” politics, may have given some supporters pause.“I think he’s had a wobbly few weeks in communicating to donors,” said Rob Stutzman, a public affairs consultant who worked for former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and for Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign. Donors keen to move on from Mr. Trump might “start to imagine — maybe this isn’t the way,” he said.Mr. Trump’s campaign, which he announced in November, said at the end of January that it had raised $9.5 million — a sluggish start in comparison to front-runners from past elections. Though official numbers will not be out for several weeks, his campaign appears poised to see a significant boost after the indictment.An affiliated super PAC, MAGA Inc., reported $54.1 million on hand at the end of 2022.Last month, MAGA Inc. filed an ethics complaint with Florida officials accusing Mr. DeSantis of operating a shadow presidential campaign.A spokeswoman for the governor’s office, Taryn Fenske, called the complaint part of a “list of frivolous and politically motivated attacks.” More

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      Fact Check: The Ties Between Alvin Bragg and George Soros

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      Donald Trump’s allies have accused the district attorney bringing a case against him as having been “bought” by Mr. Soros, the philanthropist. That is misleading, though the men do have a financial connection.WASHINGTON — As a potential indictment looms over former President Donald J. Trump, he and his allies have sought to tie the Manhattan district attorney bringing the case to a familiar Republican specter: George Soros, the financier and Democratic megadonor.Mr. Soros, who has backed Democratic candidates and causes as well as democracy and human rights around the world, has for years been a boogeyman on the right, confronting attacks that portray him as a “globalist” mastermind and that often veer into antisemitic tropes.The connections between him and Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, are real but overstated. In reality, Mr. Soros donated to a liberal group that endorses progressive prosecutors and supports efforts to overhaul the criminal justice system — in line with causes that he has publicly supported for years. That group used a significant portion of the money to support Mr. Bragg in his 2021 campaign.A spokesman for Mr. Soros said that the two men had never met, nor had Mr. Soros given money directly to Mr. Bragg’s campaign.Here’s a fact check.What Was Said“Alvin Bragg received in EXCESS OF ONE MILLION DOLLARS from the Radical Left Enemy of ‘TRUMP,’ George Soros.”— Mr. Trump, in a Truth Social post on Monday“Alvin Bragg is bought by George Soros. He allows violent criminals to walk the streets of New York City, but will prosecute the likely Republican nominee (and former president) on a baseless misdemeanor charge. These people are trying to turn America into a third-world country.”— Senator J.D. Vance, Republican of Ohio, in a Twitter post on Saturday“Alvin Bragg is bought and paid for by George Soros and has repeatedly showed his hatred for President Trump based on purely political motives.”— Representative Anna Paulina Luna, Republican of Florida, in a Twitter post on SaturdayThese claims are exaggerated.While the link between Mr. Bragg and Mr. Soros exists, arguments that the district attorney was “bought” by the philanthropist are misleading.Mr. Bragg announced his candidacy for the position in June 2019. Nearly two years later, on May 8, 2021, the political arm of Color of Change, a progressive criminal justice group, endorsed him. It pledged to spend $1 million on direct mailers, on-the-ground campaigning and voter turnout efforts on his behalf. (It did not donate to Mr. Bragg’s campaign directly.) A few days later, on May 14, Mr. Soros contributed $1 million to the group, which intended to help Mr. Bragg with the money.Color of Change did not meet its pledge. It eventually spent nearly $500,000 in support of Mr. Bragg. That amounted to about 11 percent of the group’s $4.6 million in total spending during the 2021-22 election cycle, according to the campaign finance website Open Secrets..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.A spokeswoman for the political arm of Color of Change said that the group reviewed and interviewed reform-minded district attorney candidates each election cycle, and that the process was independent of funders. Mr. Soros was just one of many large donors to the group. Past donors included members of the wealthy Pritzker family, the Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and the hip-hop group the Beastie Boys.Mr. Bragg was not the only candidate Color of Change endorsed and aided through organizing efforts in 2021. The group also helped re-elect Larry Krasner, the district attorney of Philadelphia, by contacting more than 300,000 voters and sending nearly 200,000 pieces of direct mail on his behalf. In addition, it operated phone banks, ran advertisements and mobilized voters to support a local candidate in Virginia and a ballot initiative in Minneapolis.Nor was Mr. Soros’s $1 million contribution particularly unusual. Mr. Soros gave to the group multiple times before it endorsed Mr. Bragg; he personally donated $450,000 between 2016 and 2018, and his political action committee, Democracy PAC, gave $2.5 million in 2020.Neither Mr. Soros nor Democracy PAC contributed directly to Mr. Bragg’s campaign, according to Michael Vachon, a spokesman for Mr. Soros.“George Soros and Alvin Bragg have never met in person or spoken by telephone, email, Zoom, etc.,” Mr. Vachon said. “There has been no contact between the two.”Mr. Vachon also noted that Mr. Soros had been open about his yearslong support of progressive prosecutors. In a 2022 op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Soros explained his thoughts on overhauling the criminal justice system and wrote that “the idea we need to choose between justice and safety is false.”“I have supported the election (and more recently the re-election) of prosecutors who support reform,” he wrote. “I have done it transparently, and I have no intention of stopping.” More

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      House Committee Budgets Swell as G.O.P. Plans Road Shows Across U.S.

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      Republican leaders have told their colleagues to get out of Washington for field hearings that allow the party to take their message straight to voters, a costly pursuit that can be a boon to big donors.WASHINGTON — When the House Ways and Means Committee traveled to Petersburg, W.Va., last month for its inaugural field hearing on “the state of the economy in Appalachia,” it met at the headquarters of a hardwood lumber manufacturer whose chief executive has donated the maximum campaign contribution allowed to a Republican member of the panel.The logo of his company was on prominent display during the event.When the committee descends on Yukon, Okla., this week for its second field hearing, this one on “the state of the economy in the heartland,” it will convene at Express Clydesdales, a restored barn and event space owned by a major donor to the super PAC aligned with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the Republican National Committee, Senate Republicans’ campaign committee and former President Donald J. Trump.The owner, the business magnate Robert Funk, has also given the maximum campaign donation allowable to another member of the panel, Representative Kevin Hern, Republican of Oklahoma, for the past three cycles.Determined to take their message directly to voters at a time when they are hard-pressed to get anything concrete done on Capitol Hill, House Republicans are increasing the budgets of their congressional committees and going out on the road, planning a busy schedule of field hearings in all corners of the country aimed at promoting their agenda outside the Beltway.The Judiciary Committee, for example, which has held one field hearing at the U.S. border with Mexico to criticize the Biden administration’s immigration policies and is planning more, requested a travel budget of $262,000 for this year. That is more than 30 times what the panel spent on travel last year. (In 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic significantly curtailed travel, the Judiciary Committee spent about $85,000 on travel costs, according to a public disclosure form, one-third of what Republicans are planning this year.)It is part of a well-worn political strategy to reach voters where they live and generate local media attention for activity that would most likely draw little notice in Washington.Representative Jason Smith of Missouri, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said last week that he had “made it a priority” to take the committee’s work “outside the halls of Congress, away from the politically connected voices of Washington lobbyists and into the communities of the American people whose voices have for too long been ignored.”But it also has a direct payoff for Republicans, allowing them to reward major donors with publicity and exposure for their businesses.In West Virginia, the chief executive of Allegheny Wood Products, John Crites, whose company hosted the first Ways and Means field hearing, gave the maximum contribution allowed to Representative Carol Miller, Republican of West Virginia and a member of the panel, for the past two cycles.A spokesman for the committee declined to comment on the choice of venues. Staff aides noted that some of the witnesses who they can hear from in remote locations may not have the time or resources to travel to Washington to testify.Representative Jason Smith of Missouri, the Republican chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said that he had “made it a priority” to take the panel’s work “outside the halls of Congress.”Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesGetting out of Washington and into “real America” is part of a mandate that House Republican leaders have issued to their members, whose narrow, four-seat majority, coupled with deep party divisions, is making it difficult to pass any major legislation.“One of the things we committed is we would bring Congress to the people,” Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana, said at a news conference last week. “We’d actually have field hearings in communities across America to listen to real citizens.”A Divided CongressThe 118th Congress is underway, with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats holding the Senate.Resolution of Disapproval: Republicans are scoring wins and dividing Democrats by employing the arcane maneuver to take aim at policies that they oppose and see as political vulnerabilities for Democrats.‘Weaponization’ of Government: The first three witnesses to testify before the new Republican-led House committee investigating the “weaponization” of the federal government have offered little firsthand knowledge of any wrongdoing or violation of the law, according to Democrats on the panel.Merrick Garland: Republicans subjected the attorney general to a four-hour grilling in a contentious Senate hearing, a harbinger of the fights that loom ahead as the G.O.P. targets the Justice Department.The uptick in budgets comes as Republicans are pledging not to raise the federal debt ceiling, threatening a first-ever default, unless Democrats agree to deep budget cuts and an end to what they describe as profligate bureaucratic spending..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Their plans to pour substantial money into field hearings have for the most part received little pushback from Democratic committee leaders, who hope to take back the majority in two years and are eager to codify the precedent of larger travel budgets.“If we’re going to be able to do more field hearings, which I think are important, we are going to need more money,” said Representative Frank Pallone Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, who led the Energy and Commerce Committee in the last Congress and said his ability to hold such sessions was limited by a lack of funding.But the focus on getting out of Washington also appears to be deepening partisan divisions on congressional committees, where Democrats are complaining about not being given enough notice about the travel, or rejecting field trips out of principle.The Judiciary Committee’s hearing last month on the “Biden border crisis” in Yuma, Ariz., capped a two-day tour of the border where House Republicans accompanied law enforcement officials in an unsuccessful effort to see undocumented immigrants crossing the border.Democrats on the panel boycotted that hearing, dismissing it as a political stunt and noting that they had not been consulted about it.“It’s a shame that not one Democratic member of Congress would join us on this trip despite having weeks of advance notice,” said Representative Jim Jordan, Republican  of Ohio and the chairman.Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the committee, said Democrats on the panel planned to make their own trip to the border to hear from government officials and community members.“Republicans are so desperate to change the narrative from their failing agenda that they’re gearing up to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on political stunts,” he said. “These guys are roaming around the desert at night like part-time vigilantes, looking for migrants with their flashlights and with right-wing media outlets in tow. That’s not a solution; that’s a made-for-TV stunt.”Only one Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, Representative Donald S. Beyer Jr. of Virginia, attended the West Virginia hearing. “There was very little notice,” he said in an interview, explaining the absence of his Democratic colleagues. Mr. Beyer said he worried about the cost of relying primarily on field hearings, which often require the use of chartered planes to get members on location. For the upcoming Oklahoma hearing, he said, “they’re flying most of their 25 members and at least eight Democrats — they’re flying them and feeding them. There’s no reason not do to it, but we still live in a world of scarce resources.”Two different subcommittees of the Energy and Commerce Committee scheduled two different field hearings last month in Texas, roughly 18 hours and 600 miles apart. When inclement weather tanked the lawmakers’ commercial travel plans to get to the second hearing in Midland, they ended up chartering a plane to get them there in time.The House Judiciary Committee, led by Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, held a field hearing in Yuma, Ariz., last month.Randy Hoeft/The Yuma Sun, via Associated PressRepublicans said they were planning to ramp up the travel throughout the next two years despite the criticism, whether or not Democrats join them, and would need substantial budgets to accomplish that.“We’d like to do a lot more field hearings,” said Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, the chairwoman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. “The reality is they also cost a lot more money.”Representative Bruce Westerman, Republican of Arkansas and the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, testified last week to the House Administration Committee, which oversees panels’ budgets, that he anticipated his committee would hold “10 to 15” field hearings each year. That is a significant increase from previous years.Some panels appear to be taking the mandate to travel to greater extremes than others. Representative Mike Bost, Republican of Illinois and the chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee, said panel members should prepare to get “out in the field” at “the drop of a hat” to respond to crises at veterans’ facilities across the nation. He requested a travel budget of $150,000, up from $100,000 last year.So many panels requested more travel spending this year that it raised some eyebrows during the House Administration Committee hearing when some said they did not plan to do so. When Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma and the chairman of the Rules Committee, testified that he was not requesting a budget increase for his panel, a G.O.P. member of the Administration Committee sounded surprised.“You’re not having field hearings in Alaska or anything?” asked the fellow Republican, Representative Greg Murphy of North Carolina. 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      Trump Spent $10 Million From His PAC on His Legal Bills Last Year

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      Now that the former president is a declared candidate again, there are questions about whether he can continue using donor funds to pay his lawyers.Former President Donald J. Trump, who throughout his business career had a reputation for not paying lawyers, spent roughly $10 million from his political action committee on his own legal fees last year, federal election filings show.The money that went to Mr. Trump’s legal bills was part of more than $16 million that Mr. Trump’s PAC, Save America, spent for legal-related payments in 2021 and 2022, the filings show.Some of the $16 million appears to have been for lawyers representing witnesses in investigations related to Mr. Trump’s efforts to cling to power. But the majority of it — about $10 million — went to firms directly representing Mr. Trump in a string of investigations and lawsuits, including some related to his company, the filings showed.Mr. Trump was well-known in New York City before winning the presidency in 2016 for refusing to pay his bills to a wide range of service providers and contractors. Lawyers were no exception, with Mr. Trump often saying people got free advertising by being involved with him.The recent spending related to Mr. Trump is notable not just for the sheer volume — it represented about 19 percent of the PAC’s total expenditures outside of transfers to one of his other political committees and those backing other candidates — but also because Mr. Trump is now a declared candidate for president again.Some campaign finance experts are raising questions about whether, as a candidate, Mr. Trump can continue to use the PAC to pay for his personal legal bills. Those questions are arising as he faces legal challenges on various fronts as well as intense scrutiny by the Justice Department and prosecutors in Georgia and New York.According to some campaign finance experts, having the PAC continue to pay his legal bills now that he is a candidate would be seen as a contribution to him, and therefore be subject to legal limits.“Payments by a PAC that exceed the contribution limit are contributions to the candidate and are unlawful,” said Jason Torchinsky, a campaign finance expert and lawyer with the firm Holtzman Vogel, referring to the limit on individual donations to candidates, which is set at $3,300 for the current two-year political cycle.Adav Noti, of the Campaign Legal Center, a group that has called on the Federal Election Commission to more strictly enforce the rules on personal use of campaign donations, called what is permissible a “gray area.” The Federal Election Commission has yet to provide the guidance on the issue that campaign finance experts have sought.The vast majority of Mr. Trump’s PAC money was raised before he officially entered the 2024 presidential race on Nov. 15. At the end of last year, the PAC had just over $18 million in cash on hand, its federal filings show.The Justice Department has been subpoenaing documents from vendors paid by the PAC, including law firms, in an effort to determine what they were being paid for..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not respond to an email asking if Mr. Trump would still use Save America for his personal legal bills. Mr. Trump’s PAC was formed in late 2020 after the November election, as Mr. Trump was raising massive sums of money by vowing to fight what he claimed was widespread election fraud.Mr. Trump spent some of the money on fruitless efforts to show widespread election fraud. He also used it to defend against various matters related to the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, 2021. The PAC that Mr. Trump’s advisers set up allowed for general use of the money so long as it did not directly support a future candidacy.The single biggest payment that Mr. Trump made from the PAC money to a law firm last year — $3 million — went to the Florida-based law firm Critton, Luttier and Coleman, which is affiliated with Christopher M. Kise, a former solicitor general of Florida. Mr. Kise joined Mr. Trump’s team initially to take on the Mar-a-Lago documents case and he is now involved in defending Mr. Trump and his company in a fraud suit filed by the New York attorney general, Letitia James.An additional $930,000 went to Continental, a law firm at which Mr. Kise is of counsel, the filings show.Another $1.3 million went to Silverman Thompson Slutkin and White, the firm of Evan Corcoran, a lawyer who began working with Mr. Trump last spring. Mr. Corcoran was brought into Mr. Trump’s orbit by Boris Epshteyn, a strategist who has played a coordinating role with some of the lawyers in cases involving Mr. Trump, as the investigation related to the Mar-a-Lago documents was heating up. (Mr. Epshteyn’s company was paid $195,000, but for broader strategic consulting, not legal consulting specifically.)The Justice Department recently filed a motion to compel Mr. Corcoran, who has appeared before a federal grand jury investigating Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents, to give additional testimony, citing the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege. The request means that prosecutors have reason to believe that legal advice or legal services may have been used by Mr. Trump or one of his allies in furthering a crime.Another roughly $1.2 million was paid to Ifrah Law, the firm of Jim Trusty, a former federal prosecutor who Mr. Trump saw on television and decided to hire.Roughly $1.3 million went to the law firm of Michael van der Veen. Mr. van der Veen represented Mr. Trump in his second impeachment trial and last year represented the Trump Organization in a tax fraud prosecution brought by the Manhattan district attorney. Mr. Trump’s company lost on all 17 counts.Another roughly $2 million was paid to the firm of Alina Habba, who represents Mr. Trump in a number of suits, including the New York attorney general suit and two suits brought by E. Jean Carroll, a New York writer who says Mr. Trump raped her in a department store changing room in the 1990s. Ms. Habba is also representing Mr. Trump in a suit against The New York Times for its reporting on Mr. Trump’s tax returns, a defamation case in Pennsylvania, and in a case against Mr. Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen.There have been various smaller payments for a constellation of other lawyers who have worked with Mr. Trump on issues including the investigation in Fulton County, Ga., into possible violations of election law and the subpoena he received from the House Jan. 6 committee. Those lawyers include Jesse Binnall, Harmeet Dhillon and Tim Parlatore, as well as the firms Earth and Water, Level Law, Weber Crabb and Wein and Wilenchik and Bartness.Some of those firms also represent or advise other witnesses in the investigations related to Mr. Trump, such as the former White House adviser Peter Navarro.One person for whom the money has not been used is Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer. Mr. Trump told aides in late 2020 that he did not want Mr. Giuliani paid for his work on Mr. Trump’s behalf unless he succeeded in undoing the election results, and Mr. Giuliani’s own legal fees have not been covered by Save America.The questions of which lawyers and vendors have been paid, and for what, intensified after the House select committee investigating Mr. Trump’s efforts to cling to power told the Justice Department that it had evidence that a lawyer representing a witness had tried to coach her testimony in ways that would be favorable to Mr. Trump. The witness in question was later identified by people familiar with the committee’s work as Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide.Her lawyer at the time, Stefan Passantino, was a former White House deputy counsel under Mr. Trump and was paid through Save America. He has denied the allegations and has said he represented her “honorably, ethically and fully consistent with her sole interests as she communicated them to me.” More

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      The Powerful Lobbyist Behind Kevin McCarthy: Jeff Miller

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      Jeff Miller is the new House speaker’s top fund-raiser and closest confidant. He is also one of Washington’s most prominent corporate lobbyists, an arrangement that is drawing scrutiny.WASHINGTON — As he waged his messy campaign to become House speaker, Representative Kevin McCarthy turned to a longtime friend, Jeff Miller, to serve as a kind of field general.Mr. Miller, his closest confidant, top fund-raiser and sometimes enforcer, hosted a pasta dinner and strategy session for the McCarthy political team at his luxury condominium in Washington. He then set up shop in the speaker’s office in the Capitol for the week of the vote, working the phones to persuade holdouts, tamping down conservative criticism on social media and urging some donors to press for “yes” votes from members they had funded.When Mr. McCarthy won, so did Mr. Miller, who in addition to his wide-ranging volunteer roles for his friend is one of Washington’s most prominent Republican lobbyists, representing a spectrum of blue-chip corporate clients with issues at stake in Washington.Rarely has a lobbyist enjoyed the access to a House speaker that Mr. Miller has with Mr. McCarthy, a California Republican. As Mr. McCarthy has gained power, Mr. Miller’s prominent place in his orbit has drawn increased scrutiny from watchdog groups that track political influence as well as from conservatives who see him as an unaccountable power behind the throne whose presence is starkly at odds with their increasingly populist, anti-corporate message.Mr. Miller’s clients include Apple, Anheuser-Busch, Dow Chemical, General Electric, the Wall Street giant Blackstone, Occidental Petroleum, the drugmaker trade group PhRMA, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and other companies, some of them girding for scrutiny from Republicans eager to take on what they see as anti-conservative bias among “woke” corporations.Responding to a post on Twitter from a reporter who had spotted Mr. Miller headed into Mr. McCarthy’s office during the early rounds of the vote for speaker, when Mr. McCarthy was coming up short, Representative Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican who was a leader of the opposition, tweeted, “McCarthy isn’t even speaker and the lobbyists are moving in!”Mr. Miller worked alongside Mr. McCarthy in his office during the speaker vote last month in the Capitol.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesAfter Mr. McCarthy became speaker, Representative Vern Buchanan, Republican of Florida, confronted Mr. McCarthy on the House floor. He was furious, according to an ally of Mr. Buchanan, because he felt that Mr. Miller and Mr. McCarthy had quietly thrown their weight behind the successful rival bid for the chairmanship of the powerful Ways and Means Committee by Representative Jason Smith, a Missouri Republican with whom Mr. Miller is friendly.An associate of Mr. Miller’s said he did not play any role in the battle over the Ways and Means chairmanship. But the perception among Republicans that he is already shaping the operations of Mr. McCarthy’s House majority is a telling indication of how Mr. Miller’s place at the intersection of power, money, influence and access has made him one of the most important behind-the-scenes figures in Washington.Mr. Miller declined to be interviewed. But he said in a statement that he “worked hard with Speaker McCarthy’s team during the speaker’s race because he’s my friend” and because Mr. McCarthy “knows how to build consensus around an agenda and then how to implement it.”Mr. Miller added, “I just want to be known as a guy who works hard for my clients and does right by my friends,” adding that “everything else is just noise.”Mr. McCarthy also declined to be interviewed. In a statement, Drew Florio, a spokesman for him, said the speaker and Mr. Miller are “lifelong friends,” and credited the lobbyist with playing “a key role in aiding Speaker McCarthy’s political fund-raising operation,” while stressing that his efforts were “on a volunteer basis.”But the blurriness of the lines between Mr. Miller’s lobbying and his support for Mr. McCarthy was underscored in the days after the speaker election.Mr. Miller helped organize three days of festivities to celebrate, including a gala dinner at which Mr. Miller took the stage to introduce Mr. McCarthy. “Man, Kevin, I have waited a long time to say this: Ladies and gentlemen, the speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy,” Mr. Miller told the audience of donors, corporate executives, members of Congress and other prominent Republicans, according to an attendee.The following morning featured a breakfast for donors and freshman House Republicans held at the Washington offices of one of Mr. Miller’s lobbying clients — Altria, the tobacco and e-cigarette company. Since July 2017, Altria has donated nearly $1.4 million to a super PAC associated with Mr. McCarthy and paid $1.3 million to Mr. Miller’s firm.Building InfluenceMr. Miller, 48, met Mr. McCarthy, 58, in the early 1990s. Mr. Miller was a high school student, and Mr. McCarthy was a district staff member for the Bakersfield, Calif., area’s congressman.After joining the Naval Reserves, Mr. Miller took a job with the county Republican Party, where he worked with Mr. McCarthy and began ascending the party ladder in California. He became a lobbyist, developing connections to major donors and politicians around the country, including Gov. Rick Perry of Texas.Mr. Miller moved to Austin and helped Mr. Perry build out a political operation that became the foundation for a 2016 White House bid; Mr. Miller served as campaign manager. When Mr. Perry bowed out of the race, he and Mr. Miller threw their support to Mr. Trump. After the election, Mr. Miller moved quickly to break into a Washington lobbying world that had been dominated by powerful firms with long track records and big names, but few connections to the incoming Trump administration.Mr. Miller served as the campaign manager for Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential campaign in 2016.Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesMr. Miller was a finance vice chair for Mr. Trump’s inauguration and helped guide Mr. Perry through the Senate confirmation process to become Mr. Trump’s energy secretary. Within 13 months of Mr. Perry being sworn into office, Mr. Miller’s new firm, Miller Strategies, had registered to lobby for 24 clients — including energy interests for which he facilitated meetings with Mr. Perry — and collected nearly $3.4 million in lobbying fees. It was an impressive amount for a small new firm, but it was only the start.Mr. Miller, who spends much of his time with his family in Austin, paid nearly $3 million for a two-bedroom condominium at City Center, a location favored by the Trump set, that he would turn into the nerve center of what would become one of the leading influence operations in town.He began hosting fund-raisers, donor dinners and gatherings that drew a rotating cast of Trump world operatives, McCarthy allies, journalists and other prominent figures, with a well-stocked bar inside and guests smoking cigars on an expansive private outdoor deck. Mr. Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Mr. Perry were among his guests.According to Federal Election Commission records, Mr. Miller helped raise about $15 million for Mr. Trump’s unsuccessful re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee in the run-up to the 2020 election. But he raised far more than that for other campaigns and committees, including those associated with Mr. Trump and Mr. McCarthy, according to people familiar with his efforts.Mr. Miller said in a statement that he spends about half of his time making fund-raising calls for various Republican candidates and groups “that I’m passionate about.”Leveraging ConnectionsIn the fall of 2017, the microchip maker Broadcom, which was exploring major acquisitions that would need U.S. government approval, hired Miller Strategies to lobby the Trump White House and Congress.Two days after Mr. Miller registered to represent the company, its chief executive, Hock E. Tan, who until then had only made a single federal political donation, gave $65,000 to political committees linked to Mr. McCarthy, according to Federal Election Commission records.Two weeks later, thanks to Mr. Miller and his connections to Mr. Trump’s team, Mr. Tan was in the Oval Office, standing between Mr. Trump and Mr. McCarthy as cameras rolled, praising the president’s proposed corporate tax cuts and announcing Broadcom’s plan to return operations from Singapore to the United States. The relocation was seen partly as an effort to minimize potential U.S. government concerns about its planned acquisitions..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.“Thanks to you, Mr. President, business conditions have steadily improved,” Mr. Tan said, as Mr. Miller stood unnoticed at the back of the room.After journalists left the room, Mr. Trump thanked Mr. Miller for his fund-raising assistance.“I hear you’re doing great work for us,” Mr. Trump said, according to a person who attended the event. “They say nobody raises money like you.”In 2017, Hock E. Tan, the chief executive of Broadcom, made an appearance with Mr. McCarthy at the White House after Mr. Miller had registered to represent the company.Tom Brenner/The New York TimesAbout two weeks after the Oval Office event, Broadcom announced that it had finalized one of the acquisitions, having won approval from the U.S. government with assistance from Mr. Miller and his team. Broadcom’s larger acquisition — of the rival chip maker Qualcomm — was subsequently blocked by Mr. Trump, who cited national security concerns.Still, at the time, the Oval Office appearance was a victory for Broadcom and Mr. Tan. And it had benefits for the Trump White House, which used the event to sell the tax cut proposal that Mr. McCarthy, then House majority leader, helped shepherd through Congress and onto the president’s desk for signing weeks later.“That event was a perfect example of what makes Jeff so effective,” said Cliff Sims, the Trump White House aide who worked with Mr. Miller to arrange it. “He came with an idea that was helpful to what we were trying to accomplish, and his client ultimately benefited from it as well.”Even as Mr. Miller established himself as one of the go-to lobbyists for influencing the Trump administration, he retained his close ties to Mr. McCarthy, with the congressman’s political and government roles sometimes intersecting with the lobbyist’s work.Mr. Musk, the billionaire technology entrepreneur, has been a donor to Mr. McCarthy for more than a decade, and one of his companies, the rocket manufacturer and NASA contractor SpaceX, has operations in Mr. McCarthy’s hometown, Bakersfield, Calif.In 2020, Miller Strategies registered to lobby for SpaceX and has been paid more than $300,000 by the company since then, according to lobbying filings. One of Mr. Miller’s lead lobbyists on the account, George Caram, had worked for Mr. McCarthy as a congressional aide partly on space travel issues.Mr. Musk, who had been interviewed by Mr. McCarthy during a donor retreat organized by Mr. Miller in Jackson Hole, Wyo., last summer, and months later would acquire Twitter, declared his support last month for Mr. McCarthy’s bid to become speaker.Mr. Miller has also taken on hardball political tasks for Mr. McCarthy.As relations turned frosty last year between Mr. McCarthy and Representative Liz Cheney over her criticism of Mr. Trump, Mr. Miller quietly warned Republican political consultants to stop working for her re-election campaign in Wyoming or risk losing lucrative business from committees affiliated with Mr. McCarthy.Last year, Mr. Miller warned Republican political consultants to stop working for Representative Liz Cheney’s re-election campaign in Wyoming after her criticism of former President Donald J. Trump.Emily Elconin for The New York TimesMr. McCarthy would later officially endorse Ms. Cheney’s challenger in the Republican primary for her seat, Harriet Hageman, an unusual move for a congressional leader. It was followed weeks later by a fund-raiser for Ms. Hageman at Mr. Miller’s Washington condo touting Mr. McCarthy as a “special guest,” according to an invitation obtained by Politico.Tech TensionsBy the final year of the Trump administration, Miller Strategies’ lobbying revenues had grown to nearly $14 million. In 2021, with President Biden in office, the firm’s revenues dropped to less than $8 million.But Mr. Miller’s connections to Mr. McCarthy’s conference remained valuable for some of the world’s biggest companies.In June 2021, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a package of antitrust legislation targeting tech giants including Amazon and Apple, which had retained Miller Strategies in 2019.One bill was intended to loosen the control over the app marketplaces operated by Apple and Google. Another would have barred those platforms, as well as Amazon and Facebook, from giving preferential treatment to their products and services over those offered by competitors.Mr. Miller lobbied House Republicans against the bills, using the access he had built through fund-raising to urge lawmakers to take their names off the bills as co-sponsors — a bold ask.At a lunch at the private Capitol Hill Club, Mr. Miller pulled aside one Republican co-sponsor for whom he had raised money, Representative Lance Gooden of Texas.“He and I got into it, but, I mean, we weren’t fighting or anything — we were just disagreeing,” said Mr. Gooden.Mr. Gooden did not back down. But he said Mr. Miller is an effective lobbyist because “he’s a hustler” and “he was able to raise huge amounts of money for the Trump campaign, for House Republicans.” Mr. Miller “is constantly on the phone working to get Republicans elected. And if he’s not doing that, he’s working for his clients,” Mr. Gooden said.During the fight over the antitrust bills, Mr. Miller sometimes seemed to be doing both things at once.A few days after the bills were introduced, he stopped by a retreat he had organized for major donors to Mr. McCarthy’s political operation at the Hay-Adams Hotel, which featured a panel on the “growing threat of Big Tech censorship.” Mr. Miller had conversations there with at least two members of Congress in which he described the bills as government overreach that would empower Biden administration regulators and do nothing to mitigate the tech platforms’ stifling of conservatives, according to one attendee.Less than two weeks after the retreat, Mr. McCarthy offered what his office called a “framework to stop the bias and check Big Tech,” which echoed Mr. Miller’s arguments.But Mr. McCarthy’s efforts were not seen as a much of a threat to the tech companies.Mr. Florio, the spokesman for Mr. McCarthy, said in a statement that the framework was “the result of months of work between leaders of the conference, the House Judiciary Committee and the countless Americans whose free speech was silenced by Big Tech.”Critics thought they detected Mr. Miller’s fingerprints. The Fox News host Tucker Carlson asserted on his show, which is influential on the anti-corporate populist right, that Mr. Miller’s lobbying for Amazon and Apple was “one potential explanation” for Mr. McCarthy’s opposition to the antitrust bills.Mr. Carlson said that Mr. Miller was “Kevin McCarthy’s closest adviser.”“Are you shocked that Kevin McCarthy is doing what his corporate clients want him to do?” he added. “Maybe you shouldn’t be.”The two bills considered most aggressive toward Mr. Miller’s clients were never brought up for votes on the floor of the House, as technology companies lobbied furiously against them across party lines in both the House and the Senate.An employee at the Amazon Fulfillment center in Robbinsville Township, N.J. Mr. Miller’s role as a lobbyist for Big Tech is showing signs of becoming a flash point in a Republican Party.Julio Cortez/Associated PressAbout two weeks before the midterm elections, Miller Strategies terminated its contract with Amazon’s cloud computing arm before it was set to expire. Mr. Miller, a person familiar with his thinking said, did not like that his work for the company, a frequent target of tech critics across the political spectrum, was being wielded by detractors as a cudgel against Mr. McCarthy. Days later, Miller Strategies registered to lobby for more money for Oracle, which competes with Amazon’s cloud computing products and has top executives with ties to Republicans.But Mr. Miller’s role as a lobbyist for Big Tech is showing signs of becoming a flash point in a Republican Party increasingly split between a traditional pro-business wing and a populist right that is especially eager to rein in the big social media platforms and other corporations perceived as being sympathetic to the left.Last week, Representative Ken Buck of Colorado, who had joined Mr. Gooden among the co-sponsors of the antitrust bills in 2021, was passed over as chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee, where he had been the top Republican last Congress. Instead, the subcommittee will be chaired by Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who opposes government spending and intervention in the economy, while the full committee is chaired by Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a close McCarthy ally.“Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan pretend like they’re conservative warriors against Big Tech, when in reality they’re doing Big Tech’s bidding by stopping bipartisan antitrust reforms that would hold Big Tech accountable,” said Mike Davis, a former Republican congressional lawyer who started a nonprofit group that pushes for antitrust enforcement.Mr. McCarthy “cares about keeping the lobbyists in Washington happy,” Mr. Davis said last month on a podcast, highlighting Mr. Miller’s work for Amazon and Apple and calling him “the campaign manager for Kevin McCarthy’s race for speaker.”But there is no sign that the criticism is hobbling Mr. Miller.Mr. Miller’s firm has signed six new clients since the month before the midterm elections, including the Federation of American Hospitals and the PGA Tour.Miller Strategies announced last month that it had hired three new employees — including Mr. McCarthy’s political director, Stephen Ruppel — in anticipation of a surge in business.And shortly thereafter, an invitation was sent out for a fund-raising dinner next week honoring Mr. McCarthy, with ticket prices starting at $50,000 and proceeds going to his political operation. On the invitation, obtained by Punchbowl News, Mr. Miller’s name is listed above those of a raft of top Republican congressional leaders. More

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      Restaurateur, Political Donor, Tipster: The Many Roles of FTX’s Ryan Salame

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      The co-chief executive of an FTX unit who told regulators about wrongdoing at the exchange was a big Republican donor. He also bought restaurants.In Western Massachusetts, Ryan Salame was known as a local boy turned hometown hero who struck gold as a top executive at FTX, the now-collapsed cryptocurrency exchange, and used some of that wealth to buy a few small restaurants in the area.In Washington, D.C., Mr. Salame was hailed as a “budding Republican megadonor,” bankrolling candidates and political action committees, and establishing FTX’s presence as a crypto heavyweight invested in shaping the regulation of the nascent industry.Now, Mr. Salame has emerged as a central player in the scandal surrounding FTX after he told regulators in the Bahamas, where the exchange was based, that FTX was misappropriating billions in customer funds to prop up an allied crypto trading firm called Alameda Research.On Monday, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, was arrested in the Bahamas, accused of lying to investors, lenders and customers about the close financial dealings between FTX and Alameda, and committing fraud by using both companies as a “piggy bank.” Prosecutors said Mr. Bankman-Fried used customer funds to trade, buy expensive real estate, invest in other crypto firms, make political contributions and extend personal loans to executives.So far, Mr. Bankman-Fried, who is being held without bail in a Bahamas prison, is the only FTX executive charged with wrongdoing. But Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, said the investigation is continuing and prosecutors are not done charging individuals.Mr. Salame’s activities may be scrutinized, given that he was pivotal to FTX’s political influence operation along with Mr. Bankman-Fried. Mr. Salame, a former co-chief executive of FTX Digital Markets, the company’s subsidiary in the Bahamas, also received a $55 million personal loan from Alameda.Mr. Salame (pronounced Salem) did not return multiple requests for comment. His lawyer, Jason Linder at Mayer Brown, also did not return requests for comment.Born in Sandisfield, Mass., a town of just 1,000 people in the Berkshires, Mr. Salame worked briefly at the accounting giant EY. In 2019, he graduated from Georgetown University with a master’s in finance before landing a job at Alameda in Hong Kong. He later moved to FTX in the Bahamas, where he was a primary point of contact between the exchange and the local government.Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was arrested in the Bahamas on Monday.Mario Duncanson/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Salame was not in Mr. Bankman-Fried’s inner circle, but he was fiercely loyal to him, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Bankman-Fried and his closest advisers all shared a purported commitment to giving away most of the money they made under the banner of “effective altruism.”By contrast, Mr. Salame said at times that he was in crypto because it was a way to get rich, according to a person who knows him. He enjoyed expensive cars, flew on private jets and had a reputation for hard partying.What to Know About the Collapse of FTXCard 1 of 5What is FTX? More