# Cassidy & Associates The oldest firm in the 2025 top ten (**#10, $30.58M, 188 clients**) and the shop that **invented the modern earmark-lobbying business**. Founded in 1975 as Schlossberg-Cassidy Associates by [[Gerald Cassidy]] and Kenneth Schlossberg — both former aides to Sen. George McGovern — the firm created the template this KB's [[Lobbying]] layer treats as foundational: charging clients to insert appropriations directly into spending bills. ## The earmark machine In 1976, Tufts University retained the young firm, and Cassidy secured a reported ~$27M earmarked appropriation for a Tufts nutrition research center — the first recorded case of lobbyists making money by persuading Congress to fund a private institution **without any federal agency requesting the project**. The model exploded: firm revenue ran from $2.1M (1982) to $18.8M (1987), spawned an industry of imitators, and made Cassidy for a time the biggest lobbying shop in Washington — and the durable symbol of pork-barrel critique. Robert Kaiser's *Washington Post* "Citizen K Street" series and his book *So Damn Much Money* (2009) are built around the firm. The 2011 congressional earmark moratorium gutted the signature business; the earmark revival as "Community Project Funding" has since partially restored the niche (see [[Earmarks]]). ## Ownership and leadership Acquired by Interpublic Group in 2000; returned to independence via a June 2017 management buyout led by CEO Kai Anderson (former deputy chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid), Chairman Barry Rhoads (former deputy general counsel of the 1991 BRAC Commission), and COO Jordan Bernstein. Gerald Cassidy stepped back to chairman emeritus in 2013. Historically Democratic-rooted (the McGovern/DNC lineage), it operates today as a bipartisan defense/healthcare/energy/appropriations shop whose recent [[Revolving Door]] hires span both parties — from Feinstein and Matsui chiefs of staff to a longtime Inhofe legislative staffer and former BLM director Neil Kornze. ## FARA — the live story Cassidy is a long-standing [[FARA]] registrant with sovereign clients (historically including Equatorial Guinea, 2007). > [!warning] Disputed > DOJ FARA filings disclose Cassidy was retained in January 2026 at **$50,000/month by Egyptian intelligence** to improve U.S. relations (reported July 2026 by Everything-PR via Arabic outlet Arabi21). The reporting places the contract inside a broader Egypt/UAE influence-financing structure in which the **UAE is the funder of record for a parallel Egypt contract** (Glover Park Group); whether the UAE also funds the Cassidy contract specifically is implied but not crisply established in the filings reported so far. ## See also [[Lobbying Hub]] · [[Gerald Cassidy]] · [[Earmarks]] · [[FARA]] · [[Lobbying]] · [[2025 Record Lobbying Year]]