With Eleanor Mueller, Daniel Lippman TRUMP’S SWAMP: Despite running his 2016 campaign on a pledge to “drain the swamp” — and bemoaning the revolving door in his 2024 campaign — D.C.’s influence industry is flooded with operatives who have floated in and out of Donald Trump’s orbit, his first administration and his campaigns, some of whom are sure to see a windfall thanks to their ties to the president-elect. Here’s a very much non-exhaustive look at some of Trump’s most prominent ties to K Street. — Perhaps the most notable name now is Trump’s co-campaign manager and just-announced chief of staff Susie Wiles, who has been a co-chair at the lobbying and public affairs firm Mercury Public Affairs since 2022 and appeared on lobbying disclosures as recently this year. Bryan Lanza , a veteran of Trump’s 2016 campaign and transition as well as the 2024 campaign, also serves as a partner at Mercury. — Before Wiles moved over to Mercury, she was a managing director at Ballard Partners, whose founder Brian Ballard is a longtime Trump ally. The firm saw business skyrocket when it set up shop in D.C. after Trump's 2016 election, which prompted a mad dash to hire lobbyists with ties to him. The firm has since brought on a number of Democratic lobbyists, but Ballard himself was a major bundler for the president-elect this year and was at Trump’s election night party at Mar-a-Lago. — Throughout this year, Ballard Partners has embarked on a major global expansion, opening a Middle East outpost in Saudi Arabia and launching the Ballard Global Alliance, a network of partnerships with consulting firms in South Korea, Japan, the U.K. and Latin America. Last month, the firm — which already works for the governments of Japan and the Democratic Republic of Congo — registered to lobby for the Sudanese Embassy in D.C., according to FARA filings. — Jeff Miller , another GOP fundraiser who was in West Palm Beach on election night and whose firm Miller Strategies also employs several former Trump White House staffers, is also likely to see business pick up during the second Trump presidency. — Several of Washington’s largest and most lucrative lobbying shops also have connections to the president-elect. Trump’s former interior secretary, David Bernhardt, joined the administration from Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck and returned there after Trump left office. He’s no longer registered to lobby for the firm, though other administration alumni are. — Marc Lampkin, who ran Brownstein’s lobbying practice until last year, was also a top bundler for the president-elect. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld , D.C.’s current No. 2 lobbying firm by revenue, is home to yet another top Trump bundler, Geoff Verhoff. — Other Trump fundraisers downtown include Chartwell Strategy Group’s Dave Tamasi and Blackstone’s Wayne Berman. BGR Group has several connections to Trump as well through outside adviser David Urban and former aide Joseph Lai, while the all-GOP firm CGCN Group is home to former White House aides Ja’Ron Smith and Tim Pataki. — Several of Trump’s top aides from his first presidency are now on K Street or in adjacent roles. His first White House chief of staff Reince Priebus isn’t registered to lobby but serves as president and chief strategist of Wisconsin law firm Michael Best & Friedrich. He is also the board chair of its government affairs practice Michael Best Strategies. — Former campaign manager and adviser Kellyanne Conway is also not registered to lobby under the LDA, but has advocated for companies like TikTok on behalf of the Club for Growth, advised the Vapor Technology Association and registered as a foreign agent to represent Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk. Former Trump deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn has lobbied for clients like Amazon Web Services and Citigroup at Mindset Advocacy. Happy Thursday and welcome to PI , where we’re glad to hear many of you are finally getting caught up on sleep after Tuesday’s late night. Keep those lobbying and transition tips coming: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on X: @caitlinoprysko. THE BILLIONAIRES LEADING THE TRANSITION: Our Jasper Goodman and Meridith McGraw report that Trump “has turned to a pair of staunch allies from the private sector — Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon — to lead his transition effort,” in a break from his approach in 2016, when the transition was led by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and then-Vice President-elect Mike Pence. — “Lutnick is in charge of personnel, while McMahon is overseeing policy. Lutnick, the longtime CEO of the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald , was Trump’s leading conduit to Wall Street during this year’s campaign. He personally gave more than $10 million to the former president’s campaign and raised more than $75 million,” though some Trump allies have accused Lutnick of mixing business with politics. — McMahon, who served as Trump’s first Small Business administrator, “was one of the forces behind transforming World Wrestling Entertainment from a small business into a multibillion-dollar enterprise,” and now helps lead the think tank America First Policy Institute that has conducted the bulk of the policy planning for Trump’s second administration. PI SPORTS BLINK: “Rory McIlroy believes Donald Trump becoming US president for the second time could help ‘clear the way’ for a peace deal in golf’s civil war,” The Independent’s Phil Casey reports. — “The four-time major winner also said the potential involvement of Elon Musk, a supporter of Trump and the owner of social media platform X (Twitter), could speed up the process. Talks between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which bankrolls LIV Golf, have been continuing since the signing of a framework agreement in June 2023.” — “McIlroy said in September that a 50-50 split between players on both sides and the US Department of Justice (DoJ) represented the biggest obstacles to a deal, with the DoJ having already forced a non-solicitation clause to be removed from the framework agreement." — “However, the incoming president will be able to influence the priorities of the DoJ and Trump has a close relationship with Saudi Arabia and LIV Golf, with several of their 54-hole events being staged at Trump-owned courses.” WHAT WALL STREET’S WORRIED ABOUT: The financial services industry is coming to terms with the likelihood that progressive Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren takes over from Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown next year as the committee's top Democrat. — Sens. Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Mark Warner of Virginia are more senior than Warren, who has built her career cracking down on Wall Street. But three lobbyists said Wednesday that they expect Warner to hang on to his role as the top Democrat on Senate Intelligence, clearing the way for Warren to take a lead role on Banking. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) is poised to be the committee’s chair. — “There has already been an intense lobbying push to get Warner to step off Intel,” one of the lobbyists said. “But I don’t think he will do that, so we are going to be looking at a Warren-Scott panel.” — Previous assertions that Warren's leadership could be disastrous for banks are overblown, some of the lobbyists said. They point out that she’ll be serving in the minority and isn't much further left than Brown. — “I don’t think we'll see a marked shift,” said America's Credit Unions senior vice president of government affairs Greg Mesack , a former GOP Hill staffer. “The tone and tenor will change a little bit, but the issues that we’ll see are similar.” Warner and Warren declined requests for comment. SPOTTED at a breakfast roundtable on what Trump’s reelection will mean for finance, trade and tech hosted by Investment Company Institute CEO Eric Pan and moderated by the National Interest’s Steve Clemons, per a tipster: Adrienne Arsht, Tom Quaadman, Erica Richardson, Kevin Fromer, Joseph Gagnon, Mark Schuermann, Christine Sheehan, Phillip Thomas Wallace, Steve Yates, Shai Akabas, Kristin Sharp, Mark Weinberger, Jeff Carneal, Maureen Conway, and Usman Ahmed.
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