# Capitol Counsel The **#15 lobbying firm in DC by 2025 revenue ($25.37M, 185 clients)**. Founded 2007 by Democratic tax lobbyist John Raffaelli (former tax/trade counsel to Senate Finance chair Lloyd Bentsen) with founding partners David Jones and Shannon Finley, and anchored on the Republican side by former Ways & Means ranking member Jim McCrery and former Sen. Pat Roberts. OpenSecrets flags **28 of its 38 lobbyists as revolvers** — among the highest [[Revolving Door]] densities in the top 20. ## "Trumps Up" In December 2024 the firm put out a press release literally headlined **"Capitol Counsel Trumps Up,"** announcing hires with "MAGA and Republican expertise" ahead of the second term: George Sifakis (director of the Office of Public Liaison in Trump's first administration), Michael Lamoureux (former Arkansas Senate president; Asa Hutchinson chief of staff), and John Martin (former FDA principal associate commissioner for legislation), who now leads healthcare. It is the top-20's most explicit example of a bipartisan institutional firm buying a Trump-world bench for the [[Second Trump Administration]]. ## Clients and the Canada book 2025 revenue was flat (~-1.8% vs 2024) but the client count grew to 185: Walmart, Edison Electric Institute, Mercedes-Benz, BIO, Planned Parenthood, the PBM Accountability Project — and, notably, the firm's **two largest 2025 clients are Canadian provincial governments**: Alberta ($540K) and Ontario ($480K), reflecting the Canada–U.S. tariff fights. ## FARA Active [[FARA]] registrant (#6328, since 2015). Verified foreign principals include the Republic of Turkey (2015–16, as Gephardt Group subcontractor), Turkish Aerospace Industries (2020 — lobbying to unblock engines for the T129 helicopter sale to Pakistan), and the Government of Ontario (2024). The overlap between its FARA book and its biggest LDA clients (Alberta/Ontario) makes it a clean case study of the foreign-to-domestic influence crosswalk. ## See also [[Lobbying Hub]] · [[Lobbying]] · [[Revolving Door]] · [[FARA]] · [[Foreign Influence Ecosystem]]