Policymakers

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.

Makan Delrahim, who's expected to be confirmed this week as head of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, believes some so-called vertical mergers (such as the proposed AT&T-Time Warner deal) could pose anticompetitive concerns. He also said he will "vigorously enforce antitrust laws with respect to online platforms." "Just because a transaction or particular types of transactions have been approved in the past does not mean that they could not raise competitive concerns in the future," he said in written responses to questions submitted by Senators after Delrahim's short confirmation hearing.

House Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) announced the following staff announcements for the Communications and Technology Subcommittee:

• Robin C. Colwell, Chief Counsel, Subcommittee on Communications and Technology: Colwell will serve as Chief Counsel for the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology beginning in July. She has served as FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly’s Chief of Staff and Senior Legal Advisor since December of 2014. Prior to that Robin served as a Legislative Counsel for Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) and as a Counsel at the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation’s Subcommittee on Tourism, Competitiveness, and Innovation.
• Timothy J. Kurth, Senior Professional Staff, Subcommittee on Communications and Technology: Kurth returns to Capitol Hill after a career in the private sector. Kurth worked in Congress from 1995 - 2004, including as the senior advisor on technology and telecommunications issues for the Speaker of the House, Congressman Dennis Hastert (R–IL), and prior to that as Hastert’s legislative assistant during his time on the House Commerce Committee. Kurth began his career in Washington with stints at the U.S. Department of State, as well as interning in the leadership office of Congressman Bob Michel (R-IL).

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that Michelle Carey to serve as chief of its Media Bureau, continuing the work she has been doing as acting chief.

Before serving as acting chief, Carey served for six years as deputy chief of the bureau she now leads. She has also served as a senior advisor to the assistant secretary at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in the Department of Commerce. Carey was also a senior legal advisor to then-FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and previously held senior leadership positions in the agency’s Wireline Competition Bureau. Carey received her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and her B.A. from Georgetown University. The FCC’s Media Bureau plays a key role in promoting innovation in the media marketplace, as it develops, recommends, and administers the policy and licensing programs relating to the media industry, including cable television, broadcast television, and radio. It also handles post-licensing matters for satellite services and releases public reports on the data collected from the industry.

In the summer of 2016, American spies collected information revealing that senior Russian intelligence and political officials were discussing how to exert influence over Donald Trump through his advisers, according to three current and former American officials familiar with the intelligence. The conversations focused on Paul Manafort, the Trump campaign chairman at the time, and Michael Flynn, a retired general who was advising Trump, the officials said. Both men had indirect ties to Russian officials, who appeared confident that each could be used to help shape Trump’s opinions on Russia.

Some Russians boasted about how well they knew Gen Flynn. Others discussed leveraging their ties to Viktor Yanukovych, the deposed president of Ukraine living in exile in Russia, who at one time had worked closely with Manafort. The intelligence was among the clues — which also included information about direct communications between Trump’s advisers and Russian officials — that American officials received in 2016 as they began investigating Russian attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of Trump’s associates were assisting Moscow in the effort. Details of the conversations, some of which have not been previously reported, add to an increasing understanding of the alarm inside the American government about the Russian disruption campaign.