HOW GOLDMAN BUILT A SMALL-BIZ LOBBYING ARMY: “Jeff Riggs, a Montana businessman who owns a small data center, flew to Washington D.C. in November to meet with his U.S. Senator Steve Daines. The trip wasn’t his idea,” Reuters’ Pete Schroeder writes — “it was arranged, paid for and scripted by Goldman Sachs as part of the bank’s aggressive campaign to water down a proposal to raise capital requirements for big banks.” — “Riggs was one of dozens of small business owners Goldman recruited from all over the country in its battle against the so-called Basel Endgame. Their task in Washington was to urge lawmakers to sign a letter asking the Fed to reconsider the proposal.” — “The Wall Street bank set up meetings with members of Congress who have sway over financial regulation, providing employee escorts, talking points, and an agenda timed down to the minute. Goldman’s schedule even suggested the tone the entrepreneurs should adopt in the meetings: ‘A balance between optimism about growth prospects and difficulty accessing capital.’” FIRST IN PI: A top partner at consulting firm McKinsey, which is under criminal investigation by the Justice Department for the company’s work on the opioid crisis, which included targeting veterans for sales of the drugs, participated in a Democratic Governors Association panel today about best practices for veterans to access healthcare and re-integrate into society. — Scott Blackburn, a senior partner at McKinsey, was part of a panel about the issue with Maine Gov. Janet Mills, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and speakers from Johnson & Johnson, USAA and Carequest at the DGA’s spring policy conference in Baltimore, according to a person familiar with the matter. — Blackburn worked at McKinsey from 2005 to 2014 before serving at the Department of Veterans Affairs and then rejoining McKinsey in 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile. McKinsey has received congressional scrutiny for advising opioid makers on targeting the VA while consulting for the department. — The firm has paid out almost a billion dollars in settlements to state and local governments for its work to help drug companies market opioids. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, the DGA’s Women’s Governor Fund chair, previously attacked McKinsey when she was her state’s attorney general, calling it “a company that has profited from the devastation of our communities.” (She did not attend the conference, according to the person familiar with the matter.) — McKinsey has donated $110,000 to the DGA since last year, according to IRS filings. It donated a total of $71,500 to the Republican Governors Association during the same time period. — “Our partner Scott Blackburn participated in a panel discussion alongside several public officials and private sector leaders, where Scott spoke from his personal experience as a veteran and former civil servant in both Democratic and Republican administrations,” a McKinsey spokesperson said in a statement to PI. “We’re proud of the work that Scott and other McKinsey colleagues do to support our veterans’ community, and we were pleased to participate in this important discussion.” VELA STRIKES OUT ON HIS OWN: Former Texas Rep. Filemon Vela, who resigned from Congress in 2022 to join Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, has left the firm to launch his own lobbying shop, Valiant Strategies. In an email, Vela said he’ll continue working with the firm “on some matters.” — Vela, a Democrat, registered this week to continue representing four former clients as a subcontractor to Akin, including Nippon Steel, the city of San Antonio, the Port of Corpus Christi and Sunny Glen Children’s Home, a children’s shelter contracted to house unaccompanied migrant children that has been cited for health and safety violations. — Vela told PI his new venture is aimed at providing “flexibility you don’t get with a firm of [Akin’s] size,” while allowing him to continue working on certain issues “with the people at the firm with whom I was able to collaborate the last few years.” He added that he plans on being able to spend more time with his family now. WILES’ OLD FIRM TIED TO IRAN SANCTIONS DODGER: As former President Donald Trump accuses Biden of being weak on Iran, Daniel reports that the lobbying firm where Trump campaign manager Susie Wiles used to work once lobbied on behalf of a Turkish bank that was accused of helping funnel billions of dollars to Iran. — Wiles was a lobbyist for Ballard Partners from 2011 to 2019. Ballard Partners worked for the Turkish government for two years, making around $2 million from 2017 to 2019, and also worked for state-run Halkbank at the same time, ending its contract with the bank the day it was indicted for money-laundering. Wiles did not work on those accounts, but was a top leader at the firm. — Wiles said in an email that she has never worked for any Turkish entity, writing: “While I was working with a firm, some people did but not me. Ever.” — Last year, Trump criticized Biden for issuing a waiver to let Iran have restricted access to $6 billion of frozen Iranian oil money — part of a prisoner exchange deal with Tehran. (A senior administration official said that the Iranians haven’t accessed the money.) — Wiles is now a co-chair at Mercury Public Affairs, whose clients include Chinese companies like Hikvision and Jinkosolar that have sought to push back against accusations of repression, forced labor and helping target Chinese Uyghurs. — “I had nothing to do with that client,” she told Daniel of Halkbank. “And, Mercury is similarly set up where people have their own clients and, in my case, I have never touched any foreign clients and am not working on any political clients either now. I view it similarly to a law firm where clients are firewalled so as not to create a conflict — either real or perceived.” She added that she is devoting all her time to the campaign.
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