LegiStorm

Jenna Ellis, former attorney to Donald Trump, has made a hire from the Hill.

Micah Bock comes from the office of Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), where he was communications director, and previously held the same title with Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.).

He's now working as director of operations to Ellis, who made a name for herself working as senior legal adviser to the Trump campaign and as the president's personal counsel. She was among the small but powerful team that Trump assembled to pursue legal options to overturn the election in Trump's favor.

A lobbyist-turned-GOP policy adviser has left the Hill for Akin Gump's policy team.

Joe Fawkner is now an Akin Gump senior policy adviser on trade and economic issues with a focus on Asia, according to his firm bio.

Fawkner spent the last couple of years as a senior policy adviser to Rep. Carol Miller (R-W.V.). Before that, he worked for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and was registered as a lobbyist on trade issues.

Former Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) has registered as a first-time foreign agent. He's representing a South Korean business alliance that hopes to restart factory work in North Korea.

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman signed the Corporate Association of the Gaesong Industrial Complex in July and added Clay to the contract yesterday, according to a new Justice Department filing. The firm is working "at the direction of" South Korean consulting group HC & Sons, per the filing.

CAGIC is made up of South Korean businesses that used to run factories in North Korea's Gaesong Industrial Complex, near the Demilitarized Zone, as part of a partnership between the two countries. South Korea suspended the partnership in 2016 in response to a North Korean rocket launch and nuclear test. The manufacturing facilities reportedly employed more than 50,000 North Koreans. 

Clay's assistance on the project "may include communications with [the executive and legislative branches] and media." Another former representative, Greg Laughlin (D-Texas), was added to the contract in December.

A Republican legislative director has traded in the House for stock-investing platform Robinhood.

Conor Carney joined Robinhood this month as government-affairs manager. The financial-services group is fairly new to the D.C. lobbying game. It first hired contract lobbyists in 2020 and added its own in-house lobbying presence later that year, registering that team in February 2020. In January 2020, the company drew attention for blocking trades of GameStop stock during an infamous GameStop short squeeze.

Carney comes from the office of Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.). Zeldin, who is running for New York governor and will leave the House at the end of this term, sits on the House Financial Services Committee. Carney has also worked for Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.), former Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and former Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.).

Note: An earlier version of piece suggested that Robinhood had registered its in-house lobbying team in response to the GameStop controversy. A representative from Robinhood clarified that although their lobbying registration came shortly after the controversy, they began assembling their in-house lobbying team in late 2020.

Congressional Republicans accepted four times the privately sponsored trips in 2021, but Democrats accepted pricier travel opportunities.

Interest groups spent nearly $1.6 million to send members and staff on a total of 790 trips last year, according to LegiStorm data.

Republicans took 630 of those trips at more than $1.0 million total, while Democrats' 159 trips totaled nearly $540,000. Those groups dropped more total money on GOP travel but spent about double the average amount per trip for Democrats ($3,400 per person) compared to Republicans ($1,500 per person).

The Congressional Institute was responsible for 45 percent of all private congressional trips in 2021 and spent nearly $300,000 courting Republican members and staff.

International travel made up only 10 percent of all trips for the year, with Qatar (13 trips at $240,000), South Korea (8 trips at $150,000), Israel (5 trips at $116,000) and the United Kingdom (7 trips at $85,000) as the top far-off destinations.

Although both international and domestic travel have continued to increase throughout the pandemic, sponsorship is still nowhere near pre-pandemic numbers. In 2019, Congress accepted 2,317 trips worth $7.8 million - nearly three times 2021's trips and over seven times the cost.