With help from Daniel Lippman FIRST IN PI — NARRATIVE ADDS 4: Narrative Strategies has hired Samantha Martin away from FGS Global to be a senior director at the firm, along with RNC fundraiser Abbey Lower as a director. Martin spent the past three years at FGS, most recently as director of strategic communications, and before that held a senior comms role at SIFMA and was a lobbyist at Arnold & Porter and Squire Patton Boggs. — Lower worked for half a decade at the RNC, most recently serving as the party’s Northeast and PAC finance director. Before that, Lower was a spokesperson for former Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) and worked in corporate comms for companies including PVH Corp. and Tommy Hilfiger. — Narrative has also brought on two new associates, Emily Krigsman and Sandeep Kumar, who join from Evoke Agency and an internship with the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, respectively. GOOGLE, TWITTER LOBBYIST JUMPS TO CROSSROADS: Reggie McCrimmon is joining Crossroads Strategies as a senior vice president. McCrimmon was most recently a senior adviser at Blue Owl Group, the consultancy launched by a group of former X (née Twitter) public policy execs. McCrimmon worked in Twitter’s D.C. office for three years before joining Google’s lobbying shop in 2022. — He also spent four years on the Hill, working for former Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) and serving as a director of member services and external affairs for the powerful Congressional Black Caucus, under former chairs Butterfield and Cedric Richmond. — At Crossroads, whose tech clients include Google as well as TechNet and TikTok, McCrimmon will work on commerce, health care, labor and financial services issues (in addition to tech, of course). CORNERSTONE ADDS APPROPS STAFFER: Meanwhile Cornerstone Government Affairs has added a longtime Hill staffer to bolster its appropriations work, as spending bills increasingly become one of the only reliable legislative vehicles for a host of other K Street priorities. Jenny Neuscheler will join Cornerstone next month from the House Appropriations Committee, where she’s spent the past nine years. She was most recently a clerk for the MilCon-VA subcommittee. Happy Monday and welcome to PI, where we invite you to join us in channeling this kiddo’s energy going into the rest of the week. Send tips: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on the platform formerly known as Twitter: @caitlinoprysko. K STREET COMES TO VC: “The Washington-based lobbying group J.A. Green & Co., known for its tech-heavy client roster including Palantir Technologies Inc. and Space Exploration Technologies Inc., is raising $100 million for a venture capital fund alongside investment firm Anzu Partners,” Bloomberg’s Lizette Chapman reports. — “The new Anzu-Green Critical Technologies Fund will aim to back technology startups that support national security — including in artificial intelligence, quantum science and renewable energy, the companies said. ‘We have good insights,’ said Jeff A. Green, a managing partner of the new fund and founder of the lobbying firm. ‘Now we are spinning that out to the fund.’” — “The Anzu-Green fund represents an unusual foray into venture capital for a DC lobbying shop, even as the fund focuses on the increasingly popular realm of defense technology. The growth of startups like Palantir and Elon Musk’s SpaceX into multibillion-dollar defense contractors helped pushed venture investing in defense, aerospace and related sectors to record levels in 2023. Other startups focusing on defense have stepped up their DC outreach in recent years.” WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE: “Nine witnesses in the criminal cases against former President Donald Trump have received significant financial benefits, including large raises from his campaign, severance packages, new jobs, and a grant of shares and cash from Trump’s media company,” ProPublica’s Robert Faturechi, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski report. — “The benefits have flowed from Trump’s businesses and campaign committees, according to a ProPublica analysis of public disclosures, court records and securities filings. One campaign aide had his average monthly pay double, from $26,000 to $53,500. Another employee got a $2 million severance package barring him from voluntarily cooperating with law enforcement. And one of the campaign’s top officials had her daughter hired onto the campaign staff, where she is now the fourth-highest-paid employee.” — “These pay increases and other benefits often came at delicate moments in the legal proceedings against Trump. One aide who was given a plum position on the board of Trump’s social media company, for example, got the seat after he was subpoenaed but before he testified.” ANOTHA’ ONE: Per our Jasper Goodman, “Coinbase, the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, announced Monday it is contributing another $25 million to a network of industry-backed super PACs, bringing the group’s fundraising this cycle to above $160 million.” — “The donation marks the third contribution of its size that the super PAC group has received over the past week, adding $75 million to its war chest as it enters the home stretch of the 2024 campaign. Ripple Labs and Andreessen Horowitz each announced $25 million contributions last week.” — “‘Crypto voters won’t be taken seriously until we send a clear message to political candidates that it is bad politics to be anti-crypto,’ Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said in a blog post announcing the contribution Monday. ‘Therefore, the simple conclusion is that we need to support pro-crypto candidates on both sides of the aisle, and unceremoniously vote anti-crypto candidates out of office.’” — The exchange “has also helped back a grassroots crypto group, Stand With Crypto, that is seeking to mobilize digital asset owners politically. The group’s website says it has signed up more than 940,000 ‘advocates’ and helped initiate more than 200,000 contacts with policymakers.” IF YOU MISSED IT OVER THE WEEKEND: The Hill’s Taylor Giorno reports that Carolyn Cawley has announced plans to step down as president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, on the heels of an inquiry last month from House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) related to donations to the organization from liberal nonprofit the Tides Foundation. — “Sharing the news that Carolyn will be leaving the Chamber at the end of the summer is bittersweet,” Chamber President Suzanne Clark wrote in a memo obtained by The Hill, adding, “We began thoughtful conversations earlier this year about her desire to focus on a much more personal endeavor.” — “The Chamber previously told The Hill that the inquiry was based on a ‘factually inaccurate’ story by the conservative outlet Breitbart, which first reported that the Tides Foundation disclosed grants that totaled more than $12 million to the Chamber between 2018 and 2022.” — “The country’s largest pro-business lobbying group also said the Tides Foundation was just a vehicle for funds from corporate donors, not the donor itself, but defended its right to decline to disclose the source of the funds.”
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