Mercury retained by a Jerusalem think tank for $5,000 to push full U.S. withdrawal from the United Nations. The lead author already testified on Capitol Hill. FARA-registered, anonymously funded, and now in front of Congress.
The leading U.S. public affairs and political PR firms for 2026 — ranked by policy depth, coalition capability, AI Communications readiness, and bipartisan bench strength. 5W AI Communications leads.
Which Washington lobbying firms ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini name first when asked about government relations. Revenue rank and Citation Share are not the same number. The first AI-visibility ranking of the lobbying industry.
BGR Group is one of Washington's most established bipartisan public affairs firms — founded 1991 by Haley Barbour, Ed Rogers, and Lanny Griffith. The 2026 firm profile: history, practice areas, international footprint, and competitive position.
China has paid U.S. FARA-registered firms more than $418M since 2016 — more than any other country. Tencent's federal lobbying jumped from ~$200K/quarter to $1.5M in Q3 2025. The February 2025 Bondi memo curtailing FARA enforcement has reshaped the foreign-influence landscape.
Washington stopped reading press releases. The public affairs function — connecting companies with policymakers, regulators, and the political process — is operating in conditions that have shifted meaningfully since 2023. The bipartisan reset, the new playbook, and the firms adjusting.
Tencent's federal lobbying jumped from ~$200K/quarter to $1.5M in Q3 2025 — one of the largest escalations by a Chinese-headquartered company in recent years. The trigger: the January 2025 DoD designation. The roster: former Trump-aligned operatives.
Federal lobbying hit $4.4B in 2024. EPR's directory of the leading federal lobbying firms — Brownstein, Akin Gump, BGR, Holland & Knight, Ballard, Squire Patton Boggs, Cornerstone, Van Scoyoc — plus AI lobbying, FARA, and how modern firms actually operate.
Schedule III hit April 28, 2026. DEA June 29 hearing on adult-use. State-by-state. NCIA, USCC, MPP. The 2026 cannabis public affairs landscape.
Federal lobbying spending hit $4.4B in 2024. The discipline is integrating — registered lobbying, earned media, coalition validators, and AI-visibility research inside a single operation. EPR's intelligence layer for government relations and lobbying.
