Policymakers

In what appears to be a political media first, a Super Pac controlled by President Donald Trump has released an ad attacking the character of a witness in advance of a highly anticipated Senate hearing. The ad, entitled “Showboat,” was released June 6 by President Trump’s Great America Alliance and attacks the character of former FBI Director James Comey, who is scheduled to speak publicly June 8 during a Senate hearing. The spot, which will air on national TV outlets during the hearing, reportedly has a $400,000 media budget. Citing alt right news reports such as Breitbart News, American Spectator and AlternNet, the campaign attacks Comey as putting “politics over protecting America” and concludes with the tagline: “Just another DC insider in it for himself.”

Apparently, the leader of the US government’s leading patent agency, Michelle Lee, has unexpectedly resigned from her post. Lee, a former lawyer for Google, took over the US Patent and Trademark Office during the Obama Administration, and many in the tech industry — which publicly supported her work — believed that President Donald Trump would renominate her to the critical government post. But Lee instead informed the Commerce Department that she would be stepping down from the position.

It is unclear if Lee is leaving government entirely or headed to another position. Still, it could amount to a major blow for the tech industry. In April, a series of companies and their lobbying organizations — including Amazon, Facebook, Google, Samsung and others — publicly defended Lee’s tenure and asked President Trump to renominate her for the agency.

Lawmakers could be looking at a new fight over internet privacy, as they return to Washington after their weeklong Memorial Day recess. In the House, Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) is moving to build support for an internet privacy bill she introduced in May. The bill comes after Chairman Blackburn and Republicans spearheaded efforts to kill the Federal Communications Commission's own privacy rules for broadband providers. But so far her bill is winning few supporters, with most stakeholders in the internet privacy fight being slow to take a stance.

The Senate Commerce Committee is holding a hearing on David Redl's nomination to be Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information at the Department of Commerce on June 8. If confirmed, Redl will be in charge of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), and serve as President Trump's top telecom adviser.

David Bray, who has been the Federal Communication Commission’s chief information officer since August 2013, will leave the agency to become the chief ventures officer at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. The move—expected to be announced June 5—will take effect in late July, with Bray moving to a newly created and first-of-its-kind government position to advise the agency on the acquisition of emerging technologies, improving business processes and further developing new public-private partnerships.

In his new role, Bray will also be charged with “adoption of machine learning and artificial intelligence, as well as changes in NGA's mission processes, workforce and acquisition models,” he said. Bray said that while his position may have no precedent in government, CVOs in the private sector “operate as a combination of internal and external venture capitalists.” He said he will have budget dollars to use, and anticipates listening to pitches, particularly those at the intersection of mapping, modeling and national security.

David Bray, who has been the Federal Communication Commission’s chief information officer since August 2013, will leave the agency to become the chief ventures officer at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. The move—expected to be announced June 5—will take effect in late July, with Bray moving to a newly created and first-of-its-kind government position to advise the agency on the acquisition of emerging technologies, improving business processes and further developing new public-private partnerships.

In his new role, Bray will also be charged with “adoption of machine learning and artificial intelligence, as well as changes in NGA's mission processes, workforce and acquisition models,” he said. Bray said that while his position may have no precedent in government, CVOs in the private sector “operate as a combination of internal and external venture capitalists.” He said he will have budget dollars to use, and anticipates listening to pitches, particularly those at the intersection of mapping, modeling and national security.

The Trump administration’s leading candidate to head the Broadcasting Board of Governors, a position that with recent changes would give the appointee unilateral power over the United States’ government messaging abroad reaching millions, is a conservative documentarian with ties to White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, apparently. Michael Pack, the leading contender for the post, is president and CEO of the Claremont Institute and publisher of its Claremont Review of Books, a California-based conservative institute that has been called the “academic home of Trumpism” by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Pack, a former Corporation for Public Broadcasting executive, and Bannon are mutual admirers and have worked on two documentaries together. Pack has appeared on Bannon’s radio show and wrote an op-ed in March praising Bannon as a pioneer in conservative documentary filmmaking.

Christopher Liddell, the White House director of strategic initiatives, was granted a 90-day waiver to conduct White House business while his trust divested assets that were deemed to be in conflict with his new position. Liddell, previously a CFO for Microsoft, has been a go-to on tech policy matters and helps run the newly formed Office of American Innovation. Also granted an ethics waiver is Charles Herndon, the White House information technology director. Prior to joining the administration, Herndon worked for IT contractor CSRA. The waiver will allow Herndon to provide technology services to the White House, though he is barred from participating in work related to a Defense Information Systems Agency contract in which he "participated personally and substantially while an employee of CSRA."

President Trump has given at least 16 White House staff members dispensation to work on policy matters they handled while employed as lobbyists or to interact with their former colleagues in private-sector jobs.

The details on these so-called ethics waivers — more than five times the number granted in the first four months of the Obama administration — were made public after an intense dispute between the White House and the Office of Government Ethics, which had been pushing the Trump administration to stop granting such waivers in secret. The list of waivers includes high-profile names such as Reince Priebus, Trump’s chief of staff, and Kellyanne Conway, a senior White House adviser. They had to be granted waivers because of their prior work with organizations such as the Republican National Committee, which Priebus once ran, and because they continue to have contact with those organizations as part of their White House work. But the waivers granted by the White House are also going to former lobbyists, despite Trump’s campaign vow to try to reduce the influence of lobbyists in Washington.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the agency has chosen Timothy Strachan to serve as director of the Office of Legislative Affairs, continuing the work he has been doing as acting director. Strachan has been an attorney in the Office of Legislative Affairs since joining the Commission in 2008. Prior to that, he was counsel to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary where he worked predominantly on civil legal policy. Strachan earned his JD degree from Georgetown University Law Center and his undergraduate degree in communication from the University of Maryland. Outside of his work at the FCC, Strachan is a motivational speaker and a radio sportscaster covering University of Maryland football games for the university.

Michael Dubke, the White House communications director, announced that he was resigning, as President Donald Trump weighs a broader shake-up of his staff in the face of multiple investigations.

Dubke, a veteran Republican strategist who served three months in the role, said that he offered his resignation on May 18 and agreed to stay on until President Trump completed his first overseas trip, which ended over the weekend. Other staff changes could come by the end of the week, White House officials said.

The resignation came as President Trump and his team pushed back against reports that Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser, explored the possibility of setting up a secret communications channel to Moscow during the transition between the election and inauguration. President Trump posted a link on Twitter to a “Fox & Friends” article reporting that the Russians, not Kushner, suggested the secret channel and that it was meant as a one-time vehicle to talk about the civil war in Syria. Trump’s tweet came shortly after his counselor, Kellyanne Conway, went on the same program to call the talk of collusion with Russia “just a rush to judgment” and to repeat the president’s support for his son-in-law.