This should tell you just about everything you need to know regarding this👇🏼

News: The trump campaign is asking downballot Republican candidates for 5% of the proceeds for every fundraising appeal they send out that uses Trump’s name, image and likeness politico.com/news/2024/04/1…

NEW: For years, competitive business information from top U.S. advertisers was widely available to TikTok and ByteDance staff most anywhere, including in China.

Inside TikTok's chaotic ads division and employees' concerns over how it's handled client data:forbes.com/sites/alexandr…

A bombshell scoop from Hailey Fuchs of POLITICO

“The Chinese Embassy has held meetings with congressional staff to lobby against the legislation that would force a sale of TikTok, according to two of the Capitol Hill staffers.”

SCOOP: Adams celebrated birthday at lux pad of Chinese billionaire implicated in straw donor scheme nydailynews.com/2024/04/15/ada…

Get ready to see A LOT of money in Maryland's Senate race. The latest: David Trone has spent more than $40 million of his own cash, and Larry Hogan has landed $10 million from a big national GOP donor.

Pamela Wood has the The Baltimore Banner story
thebaltimorebanner.com/politics-power…

A story that almost certainly won’t get enough attention today: cnn.com/2024/04/12/pol…

New from 404 Media: a money laundering ring allegedly washed millions of dollars through the popular betting service FanDuel. As sports betting has opened to fans in U.S., it's also a money laundering risk. Wild story with connection to hackers too 404media.co/how-a-money-la…

NEW: House votes 273-147 to extend FISA Section 702 surveillance powers for two years.

After rejecting an amendment to bolster warrant requirement when spying involves US persons.

126 Rs and 147 Ds voted for the bill.

Now to Senate.

Deadline: April 19

nbcnews.com/politics/congr…

🚨🚨scoop -> DNC covered Biden legal bills in special counsel probe ** Why it matters: The payments are at odds with the Biden campaign's recent attacks on Donald Trump for spending his campaign funds on legal fees. axios.com/2024/04/12/dnc…

In recent elections, we've seen MAGA-aligned candidates like Ron DeSantis and Byron Donalds use legally-dubious tactics to launder state campaign funds into federal super PACs.

Now we're seeing Democratic congressional candidates running similar plays. huffpost.com/entry/eileen-f…

This doesn't include AIPAC, which spent far more than any of these countries' lobbying budgets ($650M from 2016-2022), but which does not file under FARA, because it is domestic: projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/org…

None of these other countries have domestic lobbies anywhere close to that.

New investigation from me:

Newly revealed FirstEnergy docs show the company made a $1 million dark money payment for the 'Husted campaign' in 2017 as the company was ramping up what would become the largest bribery scheme in state history cleveland.com/open/2024/04/f…

Why does billionaire Jeff Yass matter out of all the big donors?
1. He’s the no. 1 political donor ($46 million)
2. He says he won’t donate to Trump’s campaign.What about future donations to pro-Trump Club for Growth?
He declined to answer that question
cnbc.com/2024/04/09/jef…

Billionaire donor: Democrats locally, Republicans nationally thebaltimorebanner.com/politics-power…

NEW:

Larry Ellison wants Donald Trump to choose Tim Scott as his VP, I'm told.

Also, Larry Ellison could be making millions of dollars in contributions to support Trump's campaign.

New at Puck.

puck.news/tim-scott-v-p-…

How China honors and dishonors other countries through state media presentation of visits:
PHOTO ON LEFT
-The highest ranked (supreme leader Xi) meeting with and shaking hands with the lower ranked (Foreign Minister Lavrov) (+1 honor)
-Xi moves to meet Lavrov rather than waiting…

A top EU court has struck down sanctions against Russian oligarchs Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, citing insufficient evidence they backed Putin's war against Ukraine. The ruling's a major blow to the EU’s sanctions regime against Moscow:

ft.com/content/5cc41a…