Sen­ate Demo­c­rat stress­ing patience on anti-Tik­Tok bill has for­mer top aides work­ing to fight it

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D‑Wash., speaks before Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris gives remarks ahead of the one-year anniver­sary of the Biden admin­is­tra­tion’s Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act at McK­instry, Tues­day, Aug. 15, 2023, in Seat­tle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Was­son)

A Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tor who is a key play­er in the Tik­Tok fight on Capi­tol Hill has seen sev­er­al of her senior aides depart to work on behalf of the Chi­nese-owned social media app, records show.
Sen­a­tors on both sides of the aisle raised con­cerns on Wednes­day after receiv­ing a clas­si­fied brief­ing from nation­al secu­ri­ty offi­cials on the threats posed by Tik­Tok, which, under a bill being mulled in the upper cham­ber, could be banned from app stores in the Unit­ed States if its Chi­nese par­ent com­pa­ny ByteDance does not divest from the app. While the White House is call­ing on the Sen­ate to approve the bill and send it to Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s desk, one law­mak­er who has urged alter­na­tives and patience is Sen­ate Com­merce Com­mit­tee Chair­woman Maria Cantwell (D‑WA) — whose office recent­ly employed three staffers now tasked with thwart­ing the anti-Tik­Tok mea­sure as lob­by­ists and con­sul­tants.
Cou­pled with Cantwell’s cau­tious approach to the anti-Tik­Tok bill, the ex-staffers could become a talk­ing point for law­mak­ers hop­ing to pass the mea­sure on Capi­tol Hill, who in recent weeks have warned that sen­a­tors will aim to slow roll the leg­is­la­tion until it poten­tial­ly dies. Sen. Josh Haw­ley (R‑MO), who sup­ports the bill, recent­ly said, “They will try to kill this slow­ly, refer it to com­mit­tee … think about it some [more], and this time next year, we’ll be right here hav­ing the same con­ver­sa­tion.”
Fol­low­ing the clas­si­fied brief­ing on Wednes­day, Sen. Richard Blu­men­thal (D‑CT) said that “Tik­Tok is a gun point­ed at Amer­i­cans’ heads,” while Sen. Ted Cruz (R‑TX) expressed “deep con­cern about the threat of Tik­Tok from both sides of the aisle.” Cantwell, on the oth­er hand, did not call for a vote and said she “might” coor­di­nate a Tik­Tok hear­ing with the Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee. How­ev­er, Con­gress has a two-week East­er recess begin­ning on Mon­day, mean­ing such a hear­ing wouldn’t take place until at least mid-April.
The Sen­ate Com­merce Com­mit­tee, which Cantwell has chaired since 2021, has pri­ma­ry juris­dic­tion over the anti-Tik­Tok bill.
One of sev­er­al firms reg­is­tered to lob­by for Tik­Tok is Mehlman Con­sult­ing, which employs Rose­mary Gutier­rez, ex-deputy chief of …