Other NSO-connected figures also have close Trump ties: Bryan Lanza, a partner at Mercury Public Affairs, which consulted for the company from 2020 to 2021, is a veteran Trump ally; Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, was paid nearly $100,000 by NSO Group’s parent firms, according to the The Washington Post, and was recently appointed by Trump to a West Point advisory board; Jeff Miller, who raised millions for Trump, received $170,000 from an NSO-linked company and was spotted at Trump’s 2024 election night event at Mar-a-Lago; and Rod Rosenstein, Trump’s former deputy attorney general, represented NSO Group in a lawsuit and previously helped justify Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey.
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, Chartwell Strategy Group, Paul Hastings LLP, and Steptoe LLP did not reply to WIRED’s request for comment. Nor did Flynn, Miller, or Rosenstein. Tamasi did not respond in time for publication.
What Counts as a Win
As of early March—before Vogel Group’s registration as a lobbyist for NSO Group—there had been no indication that the Trump administration intended to remove the company from the Entity List, according to a source familiar with the administration’s moves regarding spyware, who asked not to be named in order to discuss confidential matters. However, recent comments by NSO Group’s Lavie soft-peddled the impact of the Entity List on the company’s ability to operate in the US.
“[The Americans], when they say ‘blacklist,’ it sounds much more dramatic to me than it actually is,” Lavie claimed during an interview in Hebrew on an Israeli podcast following Trump’s election. He added: “You can still do business in the United States; it is definitely not a barrier for us to sell in the US.”
“In practice, we are on the list of Commerce, and what this does for us from a regulatory perspective, it simply forces American companies—if we want to buy technology from them—to ask for permission to sell us the technology. That’s all,” Lavie said.
Lobbying efforts can target different parts of the US government. By lobbying the executive branch (the president and agencies), lobbyists can influence how laws are enforced rather than what the laws say. In contrast, when lobbying Congress, the focus is on passing, blocking, or amending laws by influencing legislators.
For example, for a company to be removed from the Entity List, it must go through a lengthy administrative process that includes a review by an interagency committee composed of representatives from the departments of Commerce, State, and Defense, among others. Although Congress could theoretically influence this process, it is not directly involved.
During the presidential transition period, NSO Group mainly focused on Congress and reached out to at least 10 Republican senators, representatives, and their staff, before beginning its outreach with the incoming administration. On February 2, the company shared its annual transparency report with Trump’s new deputy national security adviser, Alex Wong.
