Ex-Clinton campaign adviser Marc E. Elias is helping tech companies, including Facebook and Google, to lobby over regulatory scrutiny related to Russian ads
WASHINGTON — Senator John McCain and two Democratic senators will move on Thursday to force Facebook, Google and other internet companies …
Context & Ripple Effects
The platforms are heading into a hostile Washington stretch: the Senate intelligence panel has summoned Facebook, Twitter and Google executives to a public Nov. 1 hearing on Russian-linked ads, and lawmakers from both parties have been openly calling for regulating Google, Facebook and Amazon since August. Hiring Marc E. Elias — a Democratic campaign-law veteran with deep ties to the party now pressing hardest — is the companies' first visible move to shape that scrutiny rather than just absorb it.
First-order effects
- Facebook and Google gain a lobbyist who can reach the Democratic senators driving the investigation, including the McCain-led effort to force disclosure of Russian ad contents ahead of Thursday's action.
Second-order effects
- Bringing in a Clinton-affiliated adviser blunts the partisan framing of the probe, forcing Republicans to share ownership of any crackdown and complicating the left's regulation push.
Third-order effects
- The move prefigures the standing influence apparatus Facebook later built, quietly backing the American Edge advocacy group to fight regulators — ad-hoc crisis lawyering hardening into permanent political infrastructure.
The trend: As election-interference scrutiny turns into a regulatory threat, major platforms are shifting from reactive testimony to sustained, bipartisan lobbying operations in Washington.