sdk knickerboocker

==<div>lee fang COI</div><div>
</div><div><h2 style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 25px; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); margin-bottom: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">h<a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="blank" href="https://join.theintercept.com/go/28185?t=31&utm_source=The+Intercept+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=4527%2E185521%2EEzPE7A" style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); text-decoration-line: none;">ow Top White House Adviser Anita Dunn Is Dodging Ethics Disclosure</a></h2><h4 style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 5px; line-height: 16.25px; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); margin-bottom: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lee Fang</h4>The senior Biden strategist has worked with a host of corporate clients at the influential firm SKDK, but a loophole is keeping possible conflicts of interest out of the public eye.<div>
</div><div>=</div></div><div>=</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/russian-state-hackers-are-accused-of-trying-to-infiltrate-bidens-campaign-firm/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/russian-state-hackers-are-accused-of-trying-to-infiltrate-bidens-campaign-firm/</a></div><div>
</div><div>a campaign advisory firm that was hired to help elect Democratic presidential candidate <a href="https://www.salon.com/topic/joe_biden" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Joe Biden</a> was targeted by suspected <a href="https://www.salon.com/topic/russian-hackers" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Russian state-backed hackers</a>, according to a recent report.</div>Microsoft Corp. recently alerted the Washington-based firm SKDKnickerbocker that its staff had been targeted by individuals believed to have been affiliated with Russian hacking networks, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-cyber-biden-exclusive/exclusive-russian-state-hackers-suspected-in-targeting-biden-campaign-firm-sources-idUSKBN2610I4" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">according to Reuters</a>. A person familiar with the hacking attempts told the wire agency that “they are well-defended, so there has been no breach.” Microsoft also <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/14/biden-app-voter-files/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANdTOeDgOFqbES-5RC6I96NHMUObT690ltOtZp30WEdunCgGjEAm5HkX84l5-Seqit5V0wyNdDwRZSz1ajcLNC-9eYpr7l5Yftjl4JsKb2hxTIhERJj9lriELb9NVJBWZgXS7X-67mFRL252b81PXC2KLni-pIuhBXvNzs-FY2d" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">warned</a> that both the Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns are being targeted by hackers backed by China, Iran and Russia.SKDKnickerbocker is a prominent Washington campaign firm whose partner, Anita Dunn, is a <a href="https://senior%20strategist%20for%20biden%27s%20campaign/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">senior strategist for Biden’s campaign</a>. It is responsible for efforts like “Vote Safe California,” a $35 million campaign to increase voter turnout in the upcoming presidential election.A spokesman for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, dismissed the accusations as “nonsense.""Over the past number of years, there’s been significant evidence documented in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s bipartisan report and numerous other places, including the 17 intelligence agencies, that Russia infiltrated our elections in the 2016 race and was continuing to do that throughout not only the 2018 elections, but also into the 2020 election,” Aaron Scherb, the director of legislative affairs at the government watchdog group Common Cause, told Salon. “And so it’s no surprise at all that this new evidence was revealed recently about their involvement in trying to hack the Biden campaign.”There is evidence that Russian state-sponsored hackers previously infiltrated prominent Democratic Party officials’ emails amid the 2016 election. While a special counsel report <a href="https://www.salon.com/2019/03/22/robert-muellers-report-is-in-how-long-till-we-see-it/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">did not charge President Trump himself</a> with actively colluding with the Russian government, the investigation became politicized as a “<a href="https://www.salon.com/2019/07/22/trump-claims-he-wont-watch-mueller-testimony-because-its-a-ridiculous-witch-hunt/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">witch hunt</a>” by Republican Party officials and by the president himself.Lindsay Gorman, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy, feared that this hacking attempt would become similarly politicized. “Politicization in this arena directly undermines our democracy,” Gorman told Salon.“Given the tactics we saw in 2016, it should come as no surprise that Russia would be interested in targeting a firm tied to a political campaign,” Gorman added. “It’s important to note though that for the foreign actors we worry about in the context of cyber-espionage and organizations relevant to US policymaking, a range of motives may be at play…. For example, we don’t know yet whether these cyber attempts on campaign-related infrastructure are part of a larger election interference plot or simply a means to gather intelligence on prospective future US policy should a particular candidate be elected in November.”While Russia’s attempts to meddle in US elections in the past four years have caused widespread political outrage and led to investigations such as <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/03/17/justice-department-moves-to-drop-charges-against-russian-shell-companies-indicted-in-mueller-probe_partner/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation</a>, the United States also has a long history of meddling in other countries’ elections. There were <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/07/the-us-has-a-long-history-of-election-meddling/565538/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">62 occasions</a> between 1946 and 1989, the height of the Cold War, when America intervened through direct or covert methods (or both) in other countries’ elections. In 1948, for instance, America’s foreign policy apparatus <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/all-feasible-means" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">intervened</a> in Italy’s parliamentary elections to help Rome’s pro-Western government defeat the Popular Front, a leftist alliance of parties. American intelligence officials have freely <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/sunday-review/russia-isnt-the-only-one-meddling-in-elections-we-do-it-too.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">admitted</a> to influencing or even controlling media outlets, funding candidates and engaging in other electioneering activity in order to thwart politicians who were perceived as pro-Communist or simply not as friendly to perceived American interests.“If you ask an intelligence officer, did the Russians break the rules [in 2016] or do something bizarre, the answer is no, not at all,” Steven L. Hall, a retired CIA intelligence operative, previously <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/sunday-review/russia-isnt-the-only-one-meddling-in-elections-we-do-it-too.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">told the New York Times</a> in a 2018 interview. Hall said that he “hope[d]” that the United States would “keep doing it,” by which he meant carry out out “election influence operations.”<div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"></div></div>=<a href="https://foe.org/keystone-xl-pipeline-influence-scandal/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://foe.org/keystone-xl-pipeline-influence-scandal/</a>...OverviewThe State Department has the lead authority to determine whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline by conducting and environmental impact assessment. The law requires the State Department to act impartially and undertake an independent, rigorous, science-based analysis of the controversial pipeline’s risks. Unfortunately, it has become clear that the State Department’s review is deeply, irreparably flawed.First of all, the firm hired by the State Department to conduct the pipeline’s environmental review, Environmental Resources Management, has financial ties with TransCanada (the company seeking to build the pipeline). According to <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/03/keystone-xl-contractor-ties-transcanada-state-department" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; transition: color 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">Mother Jones</a>, State Department employees clumsily edited the firm’s Conflict of Interest filings in order to hide ERM consultants’ previous work for TransCanada. Moreover, <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130306/keystone-xl-eis-state-department-transcanada-oil-tar-sands-industry-ensys-energy-koch-brothers-exxonmobil-bp-obama" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">Inside Climate</a> has reported that ERM subcontracted crucial parts of its report to consulting firms with deep ties to oil and pipeline companies. As a result, this environmental review downplays the climate impacts of the pipeline. The EPA, like Friends of the Earth, has criticized the review for its inaccurate assessment of the oil sands crude market, understatement of climate impacts from tar sands extraction, and dismissal of the impact on communities along the pipeline route, including in the vicinity of the Texas refineries.Secondly, TransCanada and the Canadian province of Alberta have hired a web of former Obama and Kerry officials and campaigners to lobby for the pipeline. <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/91300bf0-c80e-11e2-be27-00144feab7de.html#axzz2WCjhN4GQ" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">The Financial Times</a> has found that Alberta made a point to hire former Obama officials and Kerry staff in order to win approval from the State Department instead of focusing on Congress like most lobby groups. TransCanada and Alberta’s lobbyists have been trying to convince the administration that the pipeline will create jobs and pose no threats to the environment, in the hopes that they can get the pipeline approved.Friends of the Earth’s recent <a href="https://foe.org/news/news-releases/2013-04-friends-of-the-earth-files-kxl-foia-request" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; transition: color 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">Freedom of Information Act request </a>to the State Department identifies more than two dozen of these lobbyists, lawyers and consultants helping to push the pipeline. Heading the list is Anita Dunn, a former White House communications director and senior advisor to the president’s re-election campaign and the former communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee under then-Senator Kerry. Dunn is now a principal with the lobbying firm SDKnickerbocker, which represents TransCanada. Other pipeline lobbyists include three former U.S. ambassadors to Canada, David Wilkins, Gordon Giffin and Jim Blanchard and three former members of John Kerry’s presidential campaign team, Brandon Pollak, Graham Shalgian and David Castagnetti.This is not the first time that the State Department has let TransCanada call the shots. Previously, the State Department hired the consulting firm CardnoEntrix, even though the firm listed TransCanada as a major client (a fact which should have <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/08/science/earth/08pipeline.html?r=3&hpw&" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">disqualified </a>it under the National Environmental Policy Act). Not surprisingly, CardnoEntrix’s review downplayed the climate impacts and potential risks of the pipeline. A <a href="https://foe.org/news/archives/keystone-xl-pipeline-influence-scandal" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">Freedom of Information Act request</a> by Friends of the Earth uncovered <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/hillary-clinton-keystone-xl-lobbyists" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">close ties</a> between State Department officials and TransCanada and multiple e-mails showed State Department employees <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/science/earth/04pipeline.html?pagewanted=all" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">coaching</a> TransCanada lobbyist (and former Hillary Clinton campaign official) Paul Elliott in his efforts to build support for the pipeline.In his 2008 campaign, President Obama <a href="http://change.gov/agenda/ethics_agenda/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">promised</a> to tell lobbyists that “their days of setting the agenda are over.” Unfortunately, his State Department has failed to live up to this promise. The evidence is in: the State Department is again running a sham process, rigged in favor of dirty oil. It is up to President Obama to make things right.<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; text-transform: capitalize; line-height: 43pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Key Concerns</h3><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">...</div>==uproar ensued last week within Democratic party circles with the news that Heather Zichal, a former fossil fuel company board member, is serving as an advisor on climate change to presidential hopeful and former Vice President Joe Biden.Yet the fossil fuel connections of Biden’s burgeoning circle of advisors do not end with Zichal.Anita Dunn, another Biden campaign advisor whose hiring was reported in late April, is a <a href="http://www.skdknick.com/staff/anita-dunn/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">managing director</a> at SKDKnickerbocker, a PR and lobbying firm with strong ties to top Democratic brass, which has been promoting natural gas for the utility and pipeline company Dominion Energy.<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em; font-family: " open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif">Biden’s ‘Middle Ground’ on Climate?</h3>In an <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-biden-climate-exclusive/exclusive-presidential-hopeful-biden-looking-for-middle-ground-climate-policy-idUSKCN1SG18G" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">interview</a> with Reuters, Zichal, who previously advised President Barack Obama, called for a “middle ground” stance on climate change, saying a Biden presidency will likely rejoin the Paris Agreement and protect Obama-era greenhouse gas regulations while supporting nuclear energy, natural gas, and carbon capture technologies.When the <a href="https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1126899050555564032" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">progressive</a> flank of the party and activists both <a href="https://twitter.com/sunrisemvmt/status/1126876219033755648" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">fired back</a>, saying there can be no middle ground on climate change, Zichal <a href="https://twitter.com/hrzichal/status/1126894898370752512?s=21" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">tweeted</a> that Reuters got it wrong: “Biden would enact a bold policy to tackle climate change in a meaningful and lasting way.”Zichal left the Obama administration for a <a href="https://readsludge.com/2019/05/10/bidens-climate-adviser-earned-1-million-from-natural-gas-company/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">seat</a> on the Board of Directors of Texas-based liquefied natural gas (LNG) company Cheniere Energy, <a href="https://twitter.com/NickSurgey/status/1126911372061757442" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">netting</a> her nearly $1.1 million. As DeSmog previously <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2014/06/27/heather-zichal-met-with-cheniere-executives-as-obama-energy-aide-before-board-nomination" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">reported</a>, shortly before her appointment to Cheniere’s board and while still advising Obama on energy and climate change matters, Zichal met with company executives at least twice.<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em; font-family: " open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif">Anita Dunn and Dominion Energy</h3>Biden’s team of advisors has other ties to fossil fuels through Anita Dunn’s position with SKDKnickerbocker. Dunn had a short stint as President Obama’s first White House communications director.  A recent filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) shows that Dominion Energy, one of the nation’s largest electric and gas utilities, employs SKDKnickerbocker as a contractor. In 2018 alone, Dominion payed the firm over $2.7 million dollars.As DeSmog <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/06/18/atlantic-coast-pipeline-dominion-hires-skdknickerbocker-ads-virginia-governor-mcauliffe" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">reported</a> in 2017, SKDK worked for Dominion in the past, producing TV spots that touted the benefits of natural gas, a fossil fuel that <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/11/climate-change-two-degree-warming-fracking-natural-gas-rush-ingraffea" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">some studies show</a> can have an even worse climate impact than coal.<img alt="SKDK was paid $2.787 million by Dominion Energy" src="https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/skdk-acquisition-money.png" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: 97px; width: 810px;" />
SKDK received more than $2.7 million from Dominion Energy for contract work in 2018. Credit: FERCDominion operates a sprawling system of gas transmission lines and LNG terminals. One of its most ambitious and controversial endeavors is the Atlantic Coast pipeline, a three-state 600-mile project that plans to bring fracked gas from the Marcellus Shale fields of Ohio and West Virginia south to North Carolina.<a href="https://dms.psc.sc.gov/Attachments/Matter/a1b0acee-0496-4a9c-a93e-3a1e1e870802" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">Documents filed</a> in February this year with the South Carolina Public Service Commission reveal that most recently, SKDKnickerbocker supported Dominion in its merger with utility company SCANA. The firm produced TV ads touting the merger’s supposed benefits for energy consumers.The Biden campaign did not respond to a request for comment.Anita Dunn told DeSmog via email that she does not advise the campaign on policy and does not work on the Dominion Energy account at SKDKnickerbocker. The Reuters story, she added, “isn’t true. The campaign didn’t confirm the policy. Heather Zichal disavowed the story.”“Joe Biden has called climate change an existential threat and in the coming weeks will release a bold proposal that addresses climate change in a lasting and meaningful way,” Dunn said.