With help from Brendan Bordelon and Daniel Lippman

FARA FRIDAY: Congolese state-owned mining company Gecamines S.A. has tapped Mercury Public Affairs to represent the company in Washington as the U.S. looks to chip away at China’s grip on the critical minerals supply chain that is vital to the transition to clean energy.

— Mercury signed a yearlong contract last month to advise the company on strategy and narrative development, lobby the federal government, make inroads with U.S. think tanks and provide media relations and digital services, according to a copy of the agreement filed with the Justice Department.

— The hire comes amid stepped-up U.S. engagement with the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world’s leading producer of cobalt used to make batteries for electric vehicles. Foreign investment in Africa’s mining sector has been dominated by China and plagued by accusations of corruption. But the Congolese government in recent years has pushed for more favorable terms in Gecamines’ deals with foreign investors to capitalize on the surge in demand for minerals key to the clean energy transition like cobalt and copper, which the DRC is also a leading supplier of, Reuters reported in February.

— The DRC’s commitment to positioning itself for the gold rush for critical minerals has even extended to advocacy on behalf of a figure at the center of corruption allegations in the country, The New York Times reported last year — with Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi lobbying the U.S. to lift sanctions against Israeli mining magnate Dan Gertler, arguing the move would open up new avenues for investment.

— A report this month from the U.S. Institute of Peace warned that competition for access to Africa’s mining sector is only growing thanks to interest from Gulf states, and that “if the United States wants to remain competitive on the global stage, it must step up its efforts to diversify US critical minerals supply chains, including in Africa.”

— The contract between Mercury and Gecamines is worth $75,000 per month, plus a one-time fee of $25,000 for website development, per DOJ filings. Those working on the account for Mercury include former Rep. Toby Moffett, John Lonergan, Shannon Campagna, Trent Lefkowitz, Peter Kucik, Patrick Costello, Scott Pollenz and Avery Rose Royster — a former aide to Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).

— Mercury is the only firm on retainer for Gecamines right now. The company previously retained Scribe Strategies & Advisors, but that relationship ended at the end of 2021, DOJ filings show.

TGIF and welcome to PI. I’ll be off until next Thursday, but you’ll be in the excellent hands of POLITICO’s influence reporting corps until I’m back: Megan Wilson will be filling in on Monday, Marcia Brown on Tuesday and Hailey Fuchs on Wednesday. Give them a shout: [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected]. And be sure to follow them on the platform formerly known as Twitter: @misswilson, @Marcia_Brown9 and @Hailey_Fuchs. As always, I’m at [email protected] and @caitlinoprysko.

WHO’S HELPING META SELL ITS KID SAFETY PITCH: After receiving a chilly reception in Washington earlier this year over its proposed legislative framework for addressing youth online safety concerns, social media giant Meta has enlisted DCI Group and Hilltop Public Solutions for help getting the rest of the public to warm up to the proposal.

— Facebook and Instagram’s parent company rolled out a framework in January that would shift responsibility for securing parental consent for teens under 16 from social media platforms to app stores that host them, our Rebecca Kern reported. The plan was unveiled weeks before CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced a grilling alongside other social media executives from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who also lambasted the heads of TikTok, X and Snap over numerous harms facing kids online.

— Meta spokesperson Faith Eischen told PI that DCI Group, a Republican firm known for its use of astroturfing tactics, and Hilltop Public Strategies, a campaign management firm that often works with Democrats, will help raise awareness of their plan among parents and constituents nationally, in addition to the company’s ad campaigns and working with stakeholders on and around the Hill and the industry.

AI PLAYERS BOOST LOBBYING: OpenAI, a relatively new player in Washington, reported an uptick in its lobbying expenditures over Q1 of this year. The leading AI lab spent $340,000 between January and March, an increase from the $260,000 it spent in the last quarter of 2023.

— This quarter saw the lobbying debut of another leading AI firm: Anthropic, the safety-conscious AI lab that split from OpenAI in 2021 because it felt the company was building dangerous AI models too quickly. After registering its first-ever lobbyist last month, the company quickly spent $100,000 to lobby Washington on “AI safety and governance.”

— Other AI safety groups, typically backed by tech billionaire dollars, have proliferated rapidly in Washington. Some have recently begun to lobby policymakers directly — the Center for AI Safety spent $170,000 in the first three months of 2024, nearly $100,000 more than when it hired its first lobbyists last quarter.

— Meanwhile, the Center for AI Policy, a group that unveiled a sweeping draft bill on AI safety earlier this month, spent $77,600 on lobbying in the first quarter of 2024. It’s a slight step down from the $98,000 it spent last December when it first began lobbying Washington — but you wouldn’t know that if you looked at the federal lobbying database, which as of this afternoon did not include a Q1 report from CAIP despite the Monday night filing deadline.

— CAIP’s Q1 number instead came courtesy of spokesperson Marc Ross, who told Brendan that internal confusion within the new AI safety group caused it to accidentally miss the deadline for quarterly lobbying disclosures.

INSIDE OPENAI’S GROWING INFLUENCE OPERATION: Bloomberg’s Kate Ackley reports that “the ChatGPT maker is expanding its people-powered lobbying, policy, and messaging teams, as it works to shape government rules for artificial intelligence, and to win converts for its tools from Capitol Hill to far-flung foreign countries.”

— “The growing OpenAI team soon will include new lobbyists as well as a big name in tech policy, business strategy, and political messaging, Chris Lehane, who joined this week” from Airbnb. “He will be based in San Francisco and doesn’t plan to lobby for OpenAI, but instead plans to run a unit that will seek to forge ties between business, union, and governmental interests in the aim of building AI as a component of infrastructure, he said.”

— Other recent hires for the company’s influence operations include spokesperson Liz Bourgeois, former Biden administration Hill liaison Justin Oswald, Lyft alum Traci Lee, former Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) aide and Breakthrough Energy lobbyist Matt Rimkunas, and former Raben Group principal Yochi Dreazen.

GREASING THE SKIDS: “Microsoft has spent the last two weeks lobbying individual U.S. lawmakers on its high-stakes plan to pour more than a billion dollars into an Emirati AI giant — if it cuts its ties to Chinese tech firms,” three Congressional staffers familiar with the outreach told our John Sakellariadis.

— “The effort — which has not been previously reported — is aimed at assuaging lawmakers’ worries that Microsoft’s $1.5 billion investment deal in Abu Dhabi-based G42 could backfire and expose cutting-edge intellectual property to Beijing, one of the staffers said.”

— “The deal, which was announced earlier this month and has buy-in from senior Biden administration officials, would grant G42 access to Microsoft technology in exchange for stripping out Chinese telecommunications equipment, among other restrictions.”

KNOWING SUSIE WILES: Before you tune out to hit the party circuit this weekend, check out Michael Kruse’s profile of Susie Wiles, the former Ballard Partners lobbyist now playing an indispensable — yet out of sight — role in former President Donald Trump’s latest campaign.

— “Wiles is not just one of Trump’s senior advisers. She’s his most important adviser. She’s his de facto campaign manager. She has been in essence his chief of staff for the last more than three years. She’s one of the reasons Trump is the GOP’s presumptive nominee and Ron DeSantis is not.”

— “She’s one of the reasons Trump’s current operation has been getting credit for being more professional than its fractious, seat-of-the-pants antecedents. And she’s a leading reason Trump has every chance to get elected again — even after his loss of 2020, the insurrection of 2021, his party’s defeats in the midterms of 2022, the criminal indictments of 2023 and the trial (or trials) of 2024.”

HEADS UP: As the D.C. and Hollywood elite make their pilgrimage to the Washington Hilton for tomorrow night’s White House Correspondents Dinner, liberal watchdog group Accountable.US is planning to crash the party — in a sense. Accountable will troll attendees with a projection, shared first with PI, targeting the business industry’s favorite federal court circuit.

— The graphic will direct viewers via a QR code to a landing page detailing what critics say is a practice of “judge shopping” by business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the banking industry and the pharmaceutical industry, which the group accuses of strategically bringing cases in the Texas-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals for a better shot at favorable rulings against various Biden administration regulations.

— “When the Biden administration rolls out new actions to protect workers and consumers, big corporate interests frequently run to obscure Texas federal courts for bailouts that have consequences for everyday Americans across the country,” Accountable’s Liz Zelnick said in a statement, adding that “the Fifth Circuit has been a willing partner to it over and over. It’s why Congress must act on judicial ethics reform now.”

CLARIFICATION: Tuesday’s edition of Influence included a new termination for OneNav by Eastport Strategies that was filed in error, according to compliance firm Nielsen Merksamer Parrinello Gross & Leoni.

SPOTTED on Wednesday at MTIA for the first annual WHCD week reception hosted by Fulcrum Public Affairs, Conexión and Bryson Gillette and sponsored by AHIP, Google, General Motors, Nielsen and Moyer Strategies, per a PI tipster: Dana Thompson and Oscar Ramirez of Fulcrum Public Affairs; Adrian Saenz, Pili Tobar and Colin Rogero of Conexión; Bill Burton of Bryson Gillette, Omar Vargas and Noel Perez of General Motors; Steve Benjamin, Jen Molina, Luisana Perez Fernandez of the White House; Julian Purdy of the Labor Department, Stacey Brayboy of March of Dimes, Chanelle Hardy of Google, Kenny LaSalle of Nielsen, Chris Moyer of Moyer Strategies, Veronica Duron of Sen. Cory Booker’s (D-N.J.) office, Mayra Macias, Nicole Young Collier of Procter & Gamble, Laquita Honeysucker of UFCW and Shawn Deadwiler of the Black Veterans Empowerment Council Inc.

Jobs Report

— Scott Pearce will be the next president of the Cigar Association of America. He was most recently executive director of the Premium Cigar Association.

— Robert Puentes has been appointed vice president and director of Brookings Metro, where he had earlier been a senior fellow, leading the program’s infrastructure work. Most recently, he served as president and chief executive officer of the Eno Center for Transportation.

— Michelle Lapointe is joining the American Immigration Council as legal director. She previously was deputy legal director at the National Immigration Law Center.

— Emily Horowitz is now a public health analyst at the CDC. She previously was federal government relations manager at the American Heart Association.

— FMI has added Shelby Furman as director of food and product safety programs and Julie Savoie as senior director of workforce, talent and sustainability. Furman was previously principal chemist for Advanced Polymer and Savoie was previously director of sustainability at CropLife.

New Joint Fundraisers

2024 Senate IMPACT (Reps. Colin Allred, Ruben Gallego, Sens. Tammy Baldwin, Bob Casey)

Schiff Vindman Victory Fund (Rep. Adam Schiff, Vindman for Congress)

New PACs

AMERICAN CONSERVATION COALITION PAC (Super PAC)

Common Sense New York (Hybrid PAC)

Friends of John Han (PAC)

The Juno Fund (Hybrid PAC)

NEW HAMSHIRE VALUES PAC (Super PAC)

Next Gen Hoosiers (Super PAC)

ProgressiveLabs (Hybrid PAC)

New Lobbying REGISTRATIONS

Armitage Consulting, LLC: Comprehensive Carbon

Atlas Crossing LLC: R2P Innovations

Biological Products Industry Alliance (Bpia): Biological Products Industry Alliance (Bpia)

Currentstrategic LLC: Brightcanary

Fs Vector: Zayzoon US Inc.

Holland & Knight LLP: Systems Planning & Analysis, Inc.

Lee Sanders Strategy Group, LLC: General Mills Services, Inc.

Red Maple Consulting, LLC: United Launch Alliance

New Lobbying Terminations

Close Up Foundation: Close Up Foundation

Terrapin Strategy, Inc: 2 Degree Shift

Terrapin Strategy, Inc: Agrodity, Inc.

Terrapin Strategy, Inc: Profile Nourishment

Terrapin Strategy, Inc: Taketbl, LLC

Terrapin Strategy, Inc: Trustless Privacy, Inc.

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