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susie wiles
‘Damning’ New Evidence Suggests Trump Stole Classified Documents to Advance Business Interests
"If the DOJ is so confident in Trump's conduct, why are they desperate" to hide former special counsel Jack Smith's report, wondered Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee.
Mar 25, 2026
Democrats on the US mHouse Judiciary Committee on Wednesday demanded that President Donald Trump's Department of Justice "stop the cover-up" of former special counsel Jack Smith's full investigation into Trump's retention of classified documents following his first term, after new material sent to the panel revealed that some documents were stolen to advance the president's business interests.
Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi about "cherry-picked documents" related to Smith's investigations into Trump's taking of classified documents, which he stored at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey.
The DOJ has regularly produced documents for the Judiciary Committee as Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has sought to portray Smith as having a partisan vendetta against the president, said Raskin. Smith led investigations into Trump's hoarding of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results during the Biden administration. Last month US District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, permanently blocked the release of Smith's final report on the documents case.
Raskin wrote Wednesday that even as Jordan has embarked on a "vindictive campaign" against Smith and has sought a narrow selection of material from the DOJ, Bondi had "quite amazingly missed the fact that some of the documents you provided include damning evidence about your boss’s conduct and may well violate the gag order your DOJ and Donald Trump demanded from Judge Aileen Cannon."
Those documents include a January 13, 2023 memorandum from prosecutors who said the FBI had determined Trump retained documents that "would be pertinent to certain business interests.” The documents "established a motive for retaining them" that related to Trump's businesses.
Trump and his family have garnered condemnation for profiting off the presidency, with the family raking in more than $5 billion in cryptocurrency profits since he took office for a second time, and Trump's two eldest sons investing in a drone company that is vying for Pentagon contracts as the president wages war on Iran.
The prosecutors' memo also says the retention of some of the documents represented "an aggravated potential harm to national security," with one "particularly sensitive document" accessible only by an estimated six people in the US government, including the president, before he took it to his private property.
Additionally, the memo says prosecutors had "identified a classified map that we believe Trump may have shown to individuals on board” his private airplane in June 2022. Susie Wiles, the CEO of Trump's super political action committee and now the White House chief of staff, "was aboard and witnessed this event. Raskin's letter includes a flight manifest listing 14 people who were aboard Trump's private plane when he allegedly showed the classified map, but all of the names were redacted.
Raskin emphasized that without access to the second volume of Smith's final report, the Judiciary Committee cannot confirm what the classified map shows, the relationship between his business interest and the classified documents, or what the especially sensitive material is.
The congressman noted that some facts are known about Trump's activities around the time that he allegedly showed the classified map:
We do know that around the time of this flight to Bedminster, President Trump was entering into partnerships with Saudi-backed LIV Golf and state-linked real estate firm Dar al Arkan. A month after this flight, in July 2022, President Trump played golf at Bedminster with Yasir al-Rumayyan, head of the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia—the same official who plied the Trump family with tens of millions of dollars as the family began to run out of money between terms... We also know that there are reports that Donald Trump, at one point while on the phone with his ghostwriter, “made a reference to having classified records relating to the bombing of Iran.” He also reportedly boasted that it was only the hawks who wanted to attack Iran, not him, and that he had Pentagon war plans “done by the military and given to me” about such a potential attack.
"If this map is related to our military posture in the Middle East, and it was in fact shown to any foreign official, Saudi or otherwise, that would amount to an unforgivable betrayal of our men and women in uniform who are currently valiantly fighting in President Trump’s disastrous war against Iran," wrote Raskin.
"It is now clear that DOJ is in possession of evidence that President Trump has already endangered national security to further the interests of Trump family businesses," he wrote. "It is time for you to stop the cover-up and allow the American people to know what secrets he betrayed and how he may have cashed in on them."
Raskin demanded information from the DOJ regarding who accessed the classified materials, whether any foreign actors were given access, and what the documents contain.
“Every new detail that comes to light about the report Judge Cannon has gone to great lengths to keep hidden underscores the same basic truth: The public is being denied access to critical information about one of the most serious national security scandals in American history,” said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of the government watchdog American Oversight. “While fragments of the factual record have seen the light of day, the full report remains under seal because Judge Cannon has prioritized the president’s personal interests over transparency. The public has a right to see special counsel Smith’s findings in full. Blocking the report’s release only serves to protect those in power and prevent accountability.”
After Raskin's letter was released, the DOJ took the social media to accuse him and Smith of being "blinded by hatred of President Trump" and pronounce the department "the most transparent in history."
"This letter is nothing more than a cheap political stunt, almost as if taking cues from members of the corrupt Jack Smith prosecution team," said the DOJ.
The House Judiciary Committee Democrats retorted that the administration "is doing legal gymnastics to prevent the American people from ever seeing special counsel Jack Smith's full report on how Trump stole classified documents to advance his corrupt business interests."
"If the DOJ is so confident in Trump's conduct, why are they desperate to keep Smith's report under lock and key?" they asked. "Stop the cover-up, release the evidence, and let the American people decide for ourselves."
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In Fox News Op-Ed, Warren Blasts Trump for Breaking Promise on Credit Card Rates
"While Trump claims he wants a credit card interest rate cap, his own regulators are helping out those very same Wall Street banks that are ripping off Americans."
Feb 23, 2026
Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday slammed President Donald Trump for breaking his promise to cap credit card interest rates.
In an op-ed published by Fox News, Warren noted that Trump last month gave the major US credit card companies a deadline of January 20 to set their interest rates at a maximum of 10% over the next year, or face some form of consequences.
However, that deadline has long since passed and Trump still hasn't done anything to punish the credit card firms for keeping their interest rates high.
What's more, Warren wrote, Trump and his administration have continued gutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which could be used to launch an investigation into credit card billing practices.
"While Trump claims he wants a credit card interest rate cap," Warren argued, "his own regulators are helping out those very same Wall Street banks that are ripping off Americans and blocking states from protecting their citizens from sky-high loans."
The Massachusetts senator also slammed major financial institutions for claiming that capping credit card interest rates would lead to economic disaster.
"Give me a break," she said. "These are the most profitable financial institutions in the history of the world. There is no reason for them to demand 25% or 30% interest rates when smaller banks and credit unions are offering much lower credit card interest rates and are still making solid profits."
Warren revealed that she had a conversation recently with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in which she made a case that it would be politically beneficial to pursue legislation on the issue, but so far the senator has not heard back about any follow-up plans.
"After six weeks, there’s no deal to help the American people," explained Warren. "We don’t need more speeches. We need an agreement on legislation and a commitment from the president to actually fight for it."
Trump's inaction on credit card interest rates came under fire last month from Mike Pierce, executive director of advocacy organization Protect Borrowers, who said that the president would need to lean harder on his congressional allies to make his promises a reality.
"Banks are charging the highest rates ever recorded—raking in windfall profits because both American life and Americans’ debts are more expensive," Pierce said. "If the president is serious about helping families, he needs his Republican allies in Congress to make this a top priority and stand up to the executives and lobbyists trying to protect banks’ bottom lines."
Matthew Stoller, senior researcher at the American Economic Liberties Project, was not surprised that Trump failed to live up to his credit card interest rate pledge.
"Shocker," he wrote in a social media post. "Trump was lying about his 10% credit card interest rate cap."
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Trump Chief of Staff Wiles Subpoenaed in Foreign Lobbying Criminal Case
“This kind of entanglement shows exactly why a person with Wiles’ lengthy record of controversial corporate and foreign lobbying clients is too conflicted to be running the White House," said one advocate.
Feb 06, 2026
A court filing in a federal criminal lobbying case against a former Republican congressman confirmed what the government watchdog Public Citizen warned against as soon as President Donald Trump appointed Susie Wiles to be his chief of staff: that her "lobbying client list is both extensive and littered with controversial clients who stand to benefit from having their former lobbyist running the White House."
The court filing was submitted Thursday by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and sought to "quash" a subpoena that was served to Wiles in December.
Wiles was called to testify as a witness in the case against former Rep. David Rivera (R-Fla.) and his political associate, Esther Nuhfer. They are accused of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) by lobbying on behalf of the sanctioned Venezuelan businessman Raul Gorrín.
According to a grand jury indictment from December 2024, Rivera sought to lobby top US government officials to remove Gorrín from the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List. He allegedly worked to conceal and promote Gorrín's criminal activities by creating fraudulent shell companies using names associated with a law firm and with a government official.
Rivera received over $5.5 million for his lobbying activities and did not register under FARA as required by law, according to the DOJ.
The Miami Herald reported late last month that Rivera and Nuhfer are "also accused of trying to 'normalize' relations between the [Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro regime and the United States while Rivera’s consulting firm landed a head-turning $50 million lobbying contract with the US subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company."
Attorneys for Rivera subpoenaed Wiles at the White House, seeking to compel her to testify about her lobbying work for Ballard Partners on behalf of Globovision, a Caracas-based TV station owned by Gorrín.
As the Herald reported, Wiles worked at Ballard shortly after running Trump's presidential campaign in Florida. Due to her presidential ties she "brought an instant cachet" to the firm, where Gorrín was "hoping to gain access to the new Trump administration, which was threatening economic sanctions against the Maduro regime and Venezuela’s oil industry."
Gorrín was working with Ballard in an attempt to expand Globovision to the US as a Spanish-language affiliate—an aim that presented challenges due to the government sanctions and the Federal Communications Commission's limits on foreign ownership of US TV stations.
Rivera and Nuhfer's lawyers are seeking Wiles' testimony to show that her lobbying firm was trying to influence Trump, "on behalf of Gorrín, to bring about a regime change in Venezuela."
The subpoena document said the defendants' lawyers want to question Wiles on her "extensive communications" regarding Ballard's work with Gorrín and efforts to help the businessman gain access to Trump.
They are also seeking similar testimony from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who as a senator met privately with Rivera, Nuhfer, and Gorrín at a hotel in Washington in 2017, according to the Herald.
In the court filing, the DOJ said Wiles had "no apparent connection to any of the allegations in the superseding indictment concerning defendants’ activities as unregistered agents of the government of Venezuela."
Public Citizen noted Wiles' work with Ballard in November 2024 when it published the report Meet Susie Wiles’ Controversial Corporate Lobbying Clients, which revealed 42 lobbying clients the chief of staff had between 2017-24.
The client list was "extensive and littered with controversial clients who stand to benefit from having their former lobbyist running the White House," said Public Citizen on Friday.
In addition to Gorrín's TV station, Wiles' represented a waste management company that resisted removing nuclear waste from a landfill, a tobacco firm that sought to block federal restrictions on its candy-flavored cigars, and a foreign mining private equity firm seeking approval to develop a gold mine on federal public lands.
Jon Golinger, Public Citizen's democracy advocate, said Friday that the subpoena in the Rivera case raises even more questions about Wiles' potential conflicts of interest.
“This kind of entanglement," he said, "shows exactly why a person with Wiles’ lengthy record of controversial corporate and foreign lobbying clients is too conflicted to be running the White House."
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Senate Dems Want to Know How Trump's Chief of Staff Got Access to Epstein Files
With the Justice Department under fire for how it's handled the documents, the senators asked Susie Wiles to describe her "role in any process related to the review, redaction, withholding, or release of material."
Dec 30, 2025
Two Democratic leaders in the US Senate revealed Tuesday that they're demanding answers from the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, about her access to federal files on deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and whether she's involved in their "bungled and potentially illegal partial release."
President Donald Trump had a well-documented friendship with Epstein—at least until a reported falling out in 2004. Although the president ultimately signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, it came after he faced intense criticism for his administration not willingly releasing the records, and congressional Republicans delayed passage of the bill, which requires the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to publish materials related to the late financier's sex trafficking case.
Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), ranking member for the Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights, began their letter to Wiles by pointing to a two-part Vanity Fair series featuring interviews with Trump's top advisers, including Wiles.
As Chris Whipple reported:
Wiles told me she'd read what she calls "the Epstein file." And, she said, "[Trump] is in the file. And we know he's in the file. And he's not in the file doing anything awful." Wiles said that Trump "was on [Epstein's] plane… he's on the manifest. They were, you know, sort of young, single, whatever—I know it's a passé word but sort of young, single playboys together."
Noting those remarks, the senators wrote to Wiles, "Please be kind enough to explain when and where and under what authority you gained access to this material."
They also sent Wiles the list of questions below and requested her response by January 5:
- What were the materials in "the Epstein file" you referred to in your Vanity Fair interview?
- Had material in the file you reviewed been presented to a grand jury?
- When did you first gain access to "the Epstein file" and what was the schedule of your review of it?
- For what purpose did you gain access to this information?
- Did you share with President Trump any information contained in the file you reviewed?
- Please describe your role in any process related to the review, redaction, withholding, or release of material in the "Epstein file," including any processes involving the Department of Justice or Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The letter is dated December 22, just three days after the deadline set by the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The DOJ has missed the deadline, released files in batches, and faced scrutiny for redactions.
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Under Trump 2.0, Business Is Booming for Corporate Lobbying Firms
"Lobbying firms like Ballard Partners know they can trust the Trump administration to fight on behalf of their corporate clients."
Apr 23, 2025
Disclosures filed this week show that lobbying firms with close ties to U.S. President Donald Trump's White House have seen business surge at the start of 2025, with one group that used to employ Trump's chief of staff and attorney general more than doubling its first-quarter revenue compared to last year.
Ballard Partners, a firm led by a Trump donor, reported $14 million in lobbying revenue in the first three months of this year, up from $6.2 million during the same time in 2024.
Politico reported earlier this week that Ballard "has disclosed more than 130 new lobbying clients just since Election Day, including JPMorgan Chase, Chevron, Palantir, Netflix, Ripple Labs, and the Business Roundtable."
Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles both previously lobbied for Ballard, as did Trump's deputy director of personnel, Trent Morse.
"Lobbying firms like Ballard Partners know they can trust the Trump administration to fight on behalf of their corporate clients," the anti-corruption group End Citizens United said in response to the new disclosures.
Mother Jones noted that Ballard "wasn't the only lobbying firm to see a Trump bump."
"Mercury Public Affairs, where Wiles briefly worked repping a tobacco company, reported earning $5.1 million from lobbying in the first quarter of 2025—nearly half the $11.4 million it earned in all of 2024," the outlet observed. "Miller Strategies, run by super-lobbyist Jeff Miller (the firm's website includes a link to a Wall Street Journal article proclaiming Miller 'Trump's K Street rainmaker' for his prominent role in campaign fundraising), reported earning $8.6 million in the first three months of this year. In all of 2024, it only reported $12.6 million."
Despite claiming on the campaign trail that he was "not a big person for lobbyists" and that politicians "have to stop listening" to them, Trump has shown a willingness to do their bidding at the start of his second term in the White House.
Earlier this month, as Common Dreams reported, Trump signed an executive order aimed at delaying Medicare negotiations for a major category of prescription drugs after pharmaceutical industry lobbyists pushed aggressively for the change.
On Monday, The Lever reported that Trump's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) "hid data that mapped out the locations of thousands of dangerous chemical facilities, after chemical industry lobbyists demanded that the Trump administration take down the public records."
"After President Donald Trump's victory in November, chemical companies donated generously to his inauguration fund," the outlet observed. "Oil giant ExxonMobil, which is a member of the American Chemistry Council, the industry's main lobbying arm, donated $1 million. The multinational chemical company DuPont donated $250,000."
Trump has placed Lynn Dekleva, a former lobbyist for the American Chemistry Council and DuPont, at the head of an EPA office with "the authority to approve new chemicals for use," The New York Times reported in February.
During her time with the American Chemistry Council, Dekleva led the group's lobbying campaign to limit EPA regulations on formaldehyde, which the U.S. National Toxicology Program labels as a known carcinogen.
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Trump-Appointed Judge Rules White House Can't Retaliate Against AP Over Gulf of Mexico Dispute
A spokesperson for the news agency said the ruling "affirms the fundamental right of the press and public to speak freely without government retaliation."
Apr 08, 2025
A federal judge appointed by U.S. President Donald Trump during his first term ruled Tuesday that the White House cannot cut off The Associated Press' access to the Republican leader because of the news agency's refusal to use his preferred name for the Gulf of Mexico.
"About two months ago, President Donald Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. The Associated Press did not follow suit. For that editorial choice, the White House sharply curtailed the AP's access to coveted, tightly controlled media events with the president," wrote Judge Trevor N. McFadden, who is based in Washington, D.C.
Specifically, according to the news outlet, "the AP has been blocked since February 11 from being among the small group of journalists to cover Trump in the Oval Office or aboard Air Force One, with sporadic ability to cover him at events in the East Room."
The AP responded to the restrictions by suing White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, "seeking a preliminary injunction enjoining the government from excluding it because of its viewpoint," McFadden noted in his 41-page order. "Today, the court grants that relief."
The judge explained that "this injunction does not limit the various permissible reasons the government may have for excluding journalists from limited-access events. It does not mandate that all eligible journalists, or indeed any journalists at all, be given access to the president or nonpublic government spaces. It does not prohibit government officials from freely choosing which journalists to sit down with for interviews or which ones' questions they answer. And it certainly does not prevent senior officials from publicly expressing their own views."
"The court simply holds that under the First Amendment, if the government opens its doors to some journalists—be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere—it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints," he stressed. "The Constitution requires no less."
McFadden blocked his own order from taking effect before next week, giving the Trump administration time to respond or appeal. Still, AP spokesperson Lauren Easton said Tuesday that "we are gratified by the court's decision."
"Today’s ruling affirms the fundamental right of the press and public to speak freely without government retaliation," Easton added. "This is a freedom guaranteed for all Americans in the U.S. Constitution."
NPR reported that "an AP reporter and photographer were turned back from joining a reporting pool on a presidential motorcade early Tuesday evening, almost two hours after the decision came down."
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Citing 'Considerable Red Flags,' Oversight Dems Probe White House Use of Musk's Starlink
Elon Musk's "dual position as the recipient of federal contracts and a White House adviser creates a troubling and obvious conflict of interest," wrote two Democratic members of the U.S. House Oversight Committee.
Apr 07, 2025
Two Democrats on the U.S. House Oversight Committee are seeking more information about the federal government's use of billionaire Elon Musk's Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by his company SpaceX, specifically at the White House complex and at the U.S. General Services Administration.
Reps. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), the ranking member of the committee, and Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) are looking for proof that new usage of Starlink technologies is "secure and will not enrich Mr. Musk in violation of federal ethics rules," according to a letter they sent Monday to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, White House Director of Office Administration Joshua Fisher, and Acting Administrator at GSA Stephen Ehikian.
The letter references March reporting from The New York Times, which stated that Starlink is now accessible across the White House campus, after Starlink "donated" the service. NBC News reported last month that GSA had adopted Starlink for its internet access at the request of Musk's staff, citing an unnamed source. Musk is also an adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump.
"Donations such as this raise considerable red flags as to whether Mr. Musk is using his position in the federal government to benefit his companies," wrote the two Democrats.
A journalist at ProPublica observed this reported donation of Starlink resembles a tactic used by another company, Microsoft, during the Biden administration: offering free trials to get government locked in to using their technology.
"It doesn't matter if it was Microsoft last year or Starlink today or another company tomorrow," Jessica Tillipman, associate dean for government procurement law studies at George Washington University Law School, told ProPublica. "Anytime you're doing this, it's a back door around the competition processes that ensure we have the best goods and services from the best vendors."
In their letter, the two Democrats also highlighted that Musk's dual role as head of Starlink and "apparent leader" of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency—which reporting indicates could soon come to a close—"raises significant ethical, security, and regulatory implications that warrant immediate attention."
What's more, his "dual position as the recipient of federal contracts and a White House adviser creates a troubling and obvious conflict of interest, raising the risk of undue influence and potential misuse of federal contracts for personal or corporate gain."
This is far from the first time that concerns around potential conflicts of interests regarding Musk's businesses and his role in the federal government have been raised.
Last month, a group of Democratic senators sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and acting Inspector General at the Transportation Department Mitch Behm demanding an investigation into whether Musk's activities at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have violated the criminal conflict of interest statute, citing reporting that Musk's Starlink is involved in upgrading a crucial communication system at the FAA.
In their letter, Connolly and Brown said they are also concerned that the recent installation of Starlink at the White House raises potential cybersecurity and national security concerns.
The pair requested a list of information and documents from the White House and GSA, including all documents and communications relating to the legal or ethical implications of the White House and GSA using Starlink given Musk's role in the federal government, as well as documents and communications regarding any security assessments related to the use of Starlink.
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Watchdogs Call Out Trump AG Pick Pam Bondi's Corporate Lobbying
One democracy advocate urged senators "to carefully scrutinize Bondi's lobbying record and ask what she will do when the interests of her lobbying clients again clash with the Department of Justice she now wants to lead."
Jan 08, 2025
When President-elect Donald Trump in mid-November decided to tap former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to succeed former Congressman Matt Gaetz as his pick for U.S. attorney general, details about Bondi's career, including her time as a corporate lobbyist, began to surface.
On Wednesday, two watchdog groups released reports that delve into Bondi's time as a lobbyist and say that their findings raise concerns about Bondi's fitness to serve as head of the Department of Justice.
The first report was published by the group Public Citizen and looks at federal lobbying disclosures and Foreign Agents Registration Act reports filed by Bondi and Ballard Partners, the lobbying outlet where Bondi worked as a registered federal lobbyist for the past five years. Ballard Partners also employed Susie Wiles, Trump's pick for White House chief of staff.
The other report, from the group Accountable.US, also looks at Bondi's time at Ballard Partners and reports that at least five of Bondi's major lobbying clients have "faced DOJ fines, investigations, or related scrutiny that could pose serious conflicts if she is confirmed as AG." The Public Citizen report also details DOJ scrutiny on some of these companies.
Jon Golinger, the author of the Public Citizen report, wrote in a statement Wednesday that "the U.S. attorney general should be the American people's lawyer—not a lobbyist for big corporations and foreign governments."
"As they evaluate this nomination, we urge senators to carefully scrutinize Bondi's lobbying record and ask what she will do when the interests of her lobbying clients again clash with the Department of Justice she now wants to lead," he added.
According to Public Citizen's report, Bondi was registered to lobby the federal government on behalf of 30 different clients—a list that included the government of Qatar, large corporations, and government contractors—between 2019 and 2024.
The report details that her corporate clients have included the car service Uber; the large private prison company the Geo Group; the waste management company Republic Services; the e-commerce giant Amazon.com; and others, according to the report.
The watchdog found that lobbying reports filed in 2020 reveal that Bondi's firm was paid $120,000 that year by Uber to lobby federal offices on "issues related to sharing economy, surface transportation measures, foreign regulation of data management, regulatory relief, and legislative measures for Covid-19." Offices lobbied included the White House, the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, the Department of Transportation, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of the Treasury, and the Small Business Administration.
Public Citizen reported that Bondi also retained two clients through 2024: the Florida Sheriffs Association and the Florida Sheriffs Risk Management Fund.
Both reports also detail that many of these companies have come under scrutiny from the agency that Bondi is tapped to lead.
Accountable.US highlights, for example, that in 2023 the DOJ imposed a $25 million civil penalty on Amazon to resolve allegations that its Alexa service illegally retained recordings of children's voices. Another former client, General Motors—who Bondi had as a client in 2020 and 2021—reached a settlement with the DOJ in 2023 to resolve the DOJ's determination that the company imposed a "discriminatory barrier" against lawful permanent residents in its hiring processes.
"Pam Bondi's career lobbying for corporate clients that had run-ins with the DOJ now poses potential conflicts of interest and serious questions whether she will put her personal interests ahead of the American people," said Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk in a statement Wednesday. "People are tired of this same, old insider game."
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Watchdog Demands Trump Release Report on Probe of 'Pay-for-Play' Scheme
Public Citizen's co-leader argues that if such an operation "has corrupted the political appointment process in the Trump transition, as seems to be the case, the full facts must be disclosed to the American people."
Nov 27, 2024
The watchdog Public Citizen on Wednesday demanded that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's transition team release a report from an internal investigation into allegations that aide Boris Epshteyn asked potential nominees to pay him monthly consulting fees in exchange for pushing for them to get jobs in the next administration.
"If a pay-for-play operation has corrupted the political appointment process in the Trump transition, as seems to be the case, the full facts must be disclosed to the American people," said Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman in a statement. "If one of Mr. Trump's close advisers has been compromised by personal monetary considerations, then the personnel selection process itself has been compromised."
In a letter to Trump transition co-chairs Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, Weissman and Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert noted that "media accounts indicate that the internal report discovered at least two specific incidents where Mr. Epshteyn made inappropriate demands for payment, so the concerns appear far beyond speculative."
Multiple outlets, including Just the News and CNN, reported on the existence of the internal review on Monday.
"One of those who was pitched by Epshteyn for both a consulting contract and an investment opportunity was Scott Bessent, the hedge fund manager named Friday night by Trump as his nominee for Treasury secretary. Bessent rejected the overtures and eventually, when asked, reported concerns about them to the Trump transition team, including Vice President-elect JD Vance," Just the News detailed. "Trump late last week ordered an internal inquiry into the consulting arrangements of Ephsteyn and other contractors to be conducted by lawyer David Warrington with the results to be delivered to his incoming Chief of Staff Susie Wiles."
Just the News continued:
Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, a retired Navy SEAL who previously hired Epshteyn for consulting on an unsuccessful Senate candidacy in 2022, reported to the transition team in a sworn statement that he had an uncomfortable conversation this month with Epshteyn when he inquired about whether he should apply for the job of Navy secretary. "It is too early for that, let's talk business," Greitens quoted Epshteyn as telling him.
"Mr. Epshteyn's overall tone and behavior gave me the impression of an implicit expectation to engage in business dealings with him before he would advocate for or suggest my appointment to the president," Greitens wrote in a statement that was submitted Friday to the Trump transition office and obtained by Just the News. "This created a sense of unease and pressure on my part."
Greitens immediately alerted his lawyer to the concerns, who arranged for the statement to be sent to Warrington, the lawyer named by Trump and Wiles to probe the issue, according to interviews and documents.
While
CNN reported that the claims "prompted those looking into the matter to make an initial recommendation that Epshteyn should be removed from Trump's proximity and that he should not be employed or paid by Trump entities," the aide broadly denied the alleged behavior.
"I am honored to work for President Trump and with his team," Epshteyn said in a statement. "These fake claims are false and defamatory and will not distract us from Making America Great Again."
In a statement to both outlets, Trump spokesperson Steve Cheung said that "as is standard practice, a broad review of the campaign's consulting agreements has been conducted and completed, including as to Boris, among others. We are now moving ahead together as a team to help President Trump Make America Great Again."
Trump himself told Just the News that "I suppose every president has people around them who try to make money off them on the outside. It's a shame but it happens."
"But no one working for me in any capacity should be looking to make money. They should only be here to Make America Great Again," he added. "No one can promise any endorsement or nomination except me. I make these decisions on my own, period."
Weissman and Gilbert wrote Wednesday: "No doubt Mr. Trump makes his own decisions on personnel. But advisers frame decisions, push for candidates they like, make the case against those they disfavor, and sometimes act as gatekeepers influencing who gets consideration at all. No one doubts that close advisers are impactful."
"The American people have a right to know the facts your internal review has found," the watchdog leaders concluded.
The probe into Epshteyn is part of a flood of ethics problems with Trump's transition team and future administration. Another issue has been a delay in signing transition agreements with the Biden administration. Wiles announced Tuesday that the team finally signed a memorandum of understanding with President Joe Biden's White House.
Wiles also signaled that rather than signing a separate agreement with the General Services Administration to access federal funding, government office space, and cybersecurity support, Trump's transition team will run a privately funded operation. Politico reported that the team did not respond to a question about another agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice that enables the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to run background checks and start processing security clearances for Cabinet nominees.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has criticized the delays in the transition process that is laid out in federal law, said Tuesday that "this announcement fails to answer key questions about national security threats and FBI vetting of nominees, and increases concerns about corruption. There appear to be serious gaps between the Trump transition's ethics agreement and the letter of the law."
While Wiles said the team will disclose its funders and not take foreign money, Warren added that "the reliance on private donors to fund the transition is nothing more than a ploy for well-connected Trump insiders to line their pockets while pretending to save taxpayers money."
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Trump Has Placed 'For Sale' Sign on White House With Chief of Staff Pick: Watchdog
"A lobbyist with this record of controversial representation and a minefield of potential conflicts of interest should not go near the Oval Office, much less be White House chief of staff."
Nov 15, 2024
A government watchdog group said Friday that President-elect Donald Trump has effectively signaled that the incoming administration is open for business by choosing longtime Republican strategist Susie Wiles—a former lobbyist for the tobacco industry and other sordid interests—as his White House chief of staff.
In a new report, Public Citizen shows that Wiles represented at least 42 clients as a registered federal government lobbyist between 2017 and 2024—corporate influence-peddling that continued even while she helped run Trump's 2024 presidential bid.
Among Wiles' clients, according to the watchdog group, were:
- A waste management company that has resisted removing nuclear waste from its radioactive landfill;
- A foreign copper and gold mining company that wants to eliminate federal opposition to its plan to dig a massive mine in a pristine watershed;
- A tobacco company that sought to block federal health restrictions on its candy-flavored cigars, which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has found are attractive to kids;
- A foreign news company whose owner has been indicted for money laundering; and
- A foreign mining private equity firm seeking approval to develop an open-pit leach gold mine on federal public lands.
"By putting a corporate lobbyist in charge of his administration with his first act as president-elect, Trump is hanging a 'For Sale' sign on the front door of the White House," Jon Golinger, a democracy advocate at Public Citizen and author of the new report. "A lobbyist with this record of controversial representation and a minefield of potential conflicts of interest should not go near the Oval Office, much less be White House chief of staff."
White House chief of staff is a powerful position that does not require Senate approval. In the role, Wiles will control the flow of information and those who have access to the president as well as manage White House personnel.
Trump's selection of Wiles flies in the face of his previous pledge to "drain the swamp" and recent criticism of the disproportionate influence lobbyists wield in Washington, D.C.
"They're making a lot of money, absolutely," Trump acknowledged in an August appearance on the "This Past Weekend" podcast with comedian Theo Von. "One way you could stop it is to say if you're going to go into government, you can never be a lobbyist."
"You have to stop listening to lobbyists," Trump said. "You know, I was not a big person for lobbyists."
In fact, according to ProPublica, the first Trump administration hired more than 280 lobbyists—one for every 14 political appointments.
The campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets reported in 2021 that Ballard Partners, Wiles' lobbying firm, "increased its revenue with each year of Trump’s presidency, peaking in 2020 with a $24.4 million haul."
"Wiles' lobbying client list is both extensive and littered with controversial clients who stand to benefit from having their former lobbyist running the White House."
Corporate influence inside the second Trump administration will likely be even stronger given the presence of Wiles and other figures such as Elon Musk, the world's richest man and a major beneficiary of government contracts. Earlier this week, Trump tapped Musk and biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy to co-lead a commission tasked with recommending sweeping cuts to federal spending and regulations.
Public Citizen called Trump's decision to form such a commission and place Musk at its helm "the ultimate corporate corruption."
In its new report, the watchdog argued that a person with Wiles' lobbying history "should not be White House chief of staff."
But assuming she ultimately takes the position in January, Public Citizen called on Wiles to disclose details of her lobbying work, including "the names of the individuals she lobbied, what she asked those individuals to do or not to do, and what resulted from her lobbying"; recuse herself from "all decision-making involving her past lobbying clients and the federal agencies that are making decisions that affect her lobbying clients"; and agree not to lobby the federal government again after she leaves the White House.
"Wiles' lobbying client list is both extensive and littered with controversial clients who stand to benefit from having their former lobbyist running the White House," Public Citizen said Friday. "This report's findings raise serious questions about potential conflicts of interest that need to be answered before Inauguration Day."
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