szabo, aaron pow

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Lee Zeldin is a Chair of America First Policy Institute (AFPI), a policy group backed by Christian Nationalist oil baron Tim Dunn, a major Trump donor who has publicly stated he wants to end the classification of CO2 as a pollutant.

But Doug Burgum, who served as governor of the fracking powerhouse state of North Dakota and has deep ties to the fossil fuel industry, stands to be the major player directing Trump’s energy policy. As Interior Secretary, he’ll oversee hundreds of millions of acres of federal land that oil companies are itching to drill on. But even more, he’ll be coordinating the administration’s “energy dominance” agenda as Trump’s “energy czar,” heading up Trump’s National Energy Council and occupying a seat on the National Security Council.

All told, oil billionaires like Hamm stand to benefit greatly from a new Trump administration that promises to be a close ally of fossil fuel interests, even if this means intensifying the climate chaos that’s destabilizing the world and causing massive human dislocation and suffering.

*Potential Fractures in Billionaire Rule?

There are other billionaire and corporate blocs set to benefit from Trump’s rule, such as private prison and detention companies like CoreCivic and GEO (who Trump Attorney General nominee Pam Biondi lobbied for). And there are a slew of massive individual billionaire donors, from the railroad heir magnate Timothy Mellon to ultra-right shipping barrons Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, who gave enormous sums to Trump and other Republicans.

While we face daunting challenges in a period of intensified direct billionaire rule, it’s also worth remembering that there is potential for fissures within the billionaire class. Trump’s cabinet contains blocs that are in tension with each other: neocons versus isolationists, austerity backers who also want vast government subsidies for corporate elites, and people who want to calm markets versus people who want to impose tariffs or just seek political revenge. Trump is notoriously capricious and volatile and is quick to turn on those who were once insiders.

And of course, there’s the fundamental conflict between Trump’s mere rhetoric of populism and his true agenda of billionaire rule that will further immiserate the working class. This will be a challenging period for progressive forces, but the left should seek to monitor and, to the extent possible, exploit divisions among billionaires.

Note: Maps in this post may be updated as new information comes along

This is the first in a new series of LittleSis posts mapping out billionaire power in current U.S. politics, including the new Trump administration. To see the latest posts in this LittleSis series, sign up for our newsletter and follow us on X, Bluesky, Facebook, and Instagram.

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an 6 26

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IFrame Content

My family’s morning routine is usually pretty ordinary. We wake up early, drink some coffee and get our 1-year-old ready for daycare. But one Wednesday morning last month, I found myself uttering to my wife a sentence that sounded frankly surreal to both of us: “Just to let you know, I’m about to call Trump.”

Then, hoping to avoid any urgent diaper events, I ducked into the next room and dialed up the president.

I’d been trying to reach President Donald Trump for a few days. Each time, my heart would start pounding. After nearly two decades as a journalist, I’m reasonably used to talking to powerful people. But cold-calling the president of the United States — on his personal cellphone — made me feel like a cub reporter all over again.

“Hello?” a voice said on the other end of the line. This time, the president had picked up.

I introduced myself and told Trump I’m a reporter with ProPublica.

“I’m writing a story about a big supporter of yours in the oil industry, Jeff Hildebrand,” I said. “Can I ask what you think about him?”

By this point I had spent months reporting on Hildebrand, a little-known billionaire — and major Trump donor — who owns an empire of low-producing oil and gas wells across the country. “Stripper wells” like these contribute relatively little to the U.S. energy supply but emit vast amounts of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas.

By calling the president, I was hoping for some color on his relationship with Hildebrand. He had, after all, named Hildebrand’s wife ambassador to Costa Rica. My reporting so far had also revealed that the administration was gathering advice from oil industry groups backed by Hildebrand, and that it planned to weaken environmental regulations on stripper wells — potentially making Hildebrand even richer.

“I hear he does a good job,” Trump replied. “Don’t know him very well. OK?”

At first I thought the exchange undermined my story, making Hildebrand seem less central to the president’s energy policies than I’d suspected. But I realized that Trump’s comments illustrated something important about how this administration works. Trump appeared to have little clue about Hildebrand’s business, but when I mentioned that it was threatened by the “Biden methane rules,” the president was quick to respond, “Certainly we do the opposite of what Biden did.”

Trump, in other words, may be only vaguely aware of the people and groups helping to rewrite all manner of consequential policies. But what matters in Washington right now are not so much technical policy details but support for the president and an affinity with the broader ideological project: Deregulate everything.

Even if the president is only loosely familiar with Hildebrand, the oil tycoon is someone you should know about. As a climate reporter, I’m always looking for ways to make the seemingly abstract problem of global warming feel more concrete, approachable and even personal. With Hildebrand, I felt I had found a compelling character who is also the poster boy for a hugely consequential issue: Stripper wells collectively contribute just 6% of the nation’s oil and gas, but scientists have found they’re responsible for roughly half the sector’s methane pollution. That means they play an outsize role in climate change, which is amplifying heat waves, droughts and wildfires.

My previous reporting has shown that a former lobbyist for Hildebrand’s company — who now has a top post at the Environmental Protection Agency — has been rewriting methane regulations with advice from the oil industry. (An EPA spokesperson said the official “fulfilled all his ethical obligations to the letter.”)

The EPA’s press office declined to comment on the details of its plans but confirmed it is working on a proposal to “provide relief” to the oil industry, saying in a statement, “We heard consistently from American oil and natural gas producers (shocker that we meet with stakeholders) that the Biden-Harris Administration’s oil and gas methane regulations were unworkable and unnecessarily restricted American energy dominance.”

In the story we ultimately published, I took a deep dive into how Hildebrand made his fortune, racking up dozens of environmental violations across the country, and now stands to benefit from the rollback that his former lobbyist is carrying out.

I asked Hildebrand multiple times for an interview, even sending a letter to his home, but he didn’t respond. A spokesperson for his company, Hilcorp, said its operations complied with state and federal rules, adding that Hilcorp was “proud” of recent efforts to reduce its methane emissions.

As with many climate change stories, it can all sound pretty bleak. But in a world where global warming fixes can seem impossibly daunting, limiting methane pollution from stripper wells is the rare low-hanging fruit, Andrew Logan of Ceres, a climate advocacy group, told me. “If you could lose 6% of production and cut emissions in half, who wouldn’t make that trade?” Logan said.

Instead, the Trump administration is doubling down on the forms of energy that contribute most to global warming. In January, the president invited Hildebrand and two dozen other energy executives to the White House to discuss investing in Venezuela’s decrepit oil industry — which emits more methane, relative to production, than almost any other major oil producing country, according to the International Energy Agency.

Many of the executives couched their enthusiasm with caveats. ExxonMobil’s CEO called Venezuela “uninvestable” without changes to its legal system. The head of ConocoPhillips wanted U.S. government financing.

But Hildebrand had already seen how loyalty could be rewarded. Even though he had no notable operations outside the U.S., he hunched toward a microphone and said in a halting voice, “Hilcorp is fully committed and ready to go to rebuilding the infrastructure in Venezuela.”

“That’s good,” Trump said. “You’ll be very happy.”

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ref apr 1 2026

EPA’s Aaron Szabo Once Helped Write Oil Industry Argument Against Methane Rules — ProPublica

The Trump administration official leading an effort to loosen rules on methane pollution was an unnamed author of key industry arguments against those same rules just four years ago when he was an oil and gas lobbyist.

Aaron Szabo, an assistant administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, is listed in PDF metadata as the author of a January 2022 comment letter objecting to proposed controls on methane emissions in the oil and gas industry. The letter was submitted to the EPA by the American Exploration and Production Council, which represents some of the industry’s largest emitters of the planet-warming gas, including ConocoPhillips, Diversified Energy and Hilcorp. Szabo’s name does not appear in the document itself, but it can be found in information embedded by the software used to create the PDF file.

Szabo was registered as a lobbyist for one of the AXPC’s lesser-known members, Ovintiv, when he drafted the arguments against the restrictions, which were finalized later in the Biden administration. He has also lobbied for other clients in the oil and chemicals sectors. While he did not hide that work during his confirmation last year as head of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, he described it in terms that avoided any mention of efforts to influence climate policy: “I learned how regulated entities comply with the federal government’s thousands of regulations and policies. I also saw firsthand that the people working in these companies want to ensure the environment is properly protected.”

In his current role overseeing federal climate rules at the EPA, Szabo has been soliciting input and even specific regulatory language from oil industry groups that stand to gain from watered-down methane rules, according to internal emails, calendar entries and records of closed-door conversations reviewed by ProPublica.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., the ranking Democrat on the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, pointed to Szabo’s previous lobbying as evidence that the EPA had effectively been captured by the oil and gas industry. “Now he can do Big Oil’s dirty work from inside the EPA,” Whitehouse told ProPublica in an email.

As part of its plan to “unleash American energy,” the Trump administration has waged an unprecedented campaign against regulations on fossil fuels, the main cause of global warming. One of its biggest moves was to repeal the “endangerment finding” that classified greenhouse gases as pollutants — the basis for the EPA’s authority to limit emissions at all. Rather than throw out the methane rules entirely, however, Szabo’s office is working to revise them, emails and documents show. It has already delayed many of the compliance deadlines until next year.

Methane, the main component of natural gas, is a climate superpollutant, responsible for one-third of the rise in global temperatures since preindustrial times, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. When it escapes into the atmosphere without being burned for energy, it can trap 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide, research shows. The oil and gas business is the largest industrial source of U.S. methane emissions, in part because of leaks from poorly maintained equipment. If it is uneconomical to collect the gas for sale, companies sometimes intentionally release it in a process known as venting.

To cut down on methane discharges, President Joe Biden’s EPA imposed much stricter controls on oil and gas operations, including requiring increased monitoring for leaks and equipment upgrades. According to agency estimates, the new rules would have lowered the industry’s methane emissions by nearly 80%. And, given that the gas breaks down relatively quickly, this would have been one of the fastest ways to reduce global warming.

Industry groups pushed back. In the January 2022 letter that Szabo helped to draft, the AXPC used the word “burdensome” 10 times to describe the new requirements and pushed for more “flexibility” to allow for less expensive leak-detection methods and less frequent monitoring, among other requests.

The group also cast doubt on the rules’ expected climate and health benefits, highlighting what it called “the importance of communicating the significant uncertainties within the estimates.” The AXPC’s chief executive, Anne Bradbury, added in a later statement that the rules risked “undercutting US production in the near and long-term — which will lead to increased energy costs and reduced energy security.”

Do you have any information we should know about Trump’s EPA, oil industry lobbying or methane pollution? Alex Cuadros can be reached by email at alex.cuadros@propublica.org and on Signal at alexcuadros.63.

The AXPC failed to persuade the Biden administration to change its approach. But it renewed its push after President Donald Trump returned to office and ordered federal agencies to “suspend, revise, or rescind” any “undue burden” on domestic energy production.

Szabo, after two years as a fellow at the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute, joined the administration on Day 1 as an adviser to EPA chief Lee Zeldin. He immediately signaled that he planned to weaken the regulations he had argued against as a lobbyist. His staff met with AXPC representatives as early as Feb. 6, 2025, less than three weeks after Trump’s inauguration, to discuss its petition to “reconsider” the methane rules, according to emails and calendar entries obtained through public records requests and shared with ProPublica by Fieldnotes, a watchdog group that investigates the oil and gas industry. His staff went on to meet with them at least twice more, and Szabo himself was listed as a required attendee for a meeting with Bradbury last July.

The AXPC didn’t respond to emails from ProPublica seeking comment.

According to records of closed-door conversations reviewed by ProPublica, other oil industry representatives have described their meetings with Szabo and his staff as highly favorable to their interests. “Mr. Szabo assured us that the EPA is focused on these [methane] rules and doing everything that can be done to limit the damage they will cause,” the leadership of a major trade group wrote to its members last year in an internal newsletter.

Lee Fuller, of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, also spoke glowingly about his meeting with Szabo’s office on a conference call with industry representatives last year.

“It was one of the more fascinating meetings that we’ve ever had, just because they were suddenly willing to talk to us,” he said. “And they’re also suddenly willing to talk about things that we’ve been trying to get them to do for years, and they’ve never even let it kind of come onto the radar screen.”

The IPAA declined to answer specific questions from ProPublica but linked to a September 2025 letter in which the group publicly asked the EPA for exceptions to the methane rules.

Szabo’s office has even invited oil industry groups to offer specific wording for the revised rules. “We had a call several weeks back re. pneumatics on temporary equipment,” Mike O’Connor of the American Petroleum Institute wrote to an EPA official, referring to devices that are a major source of methane emissions. “EPA had informally requested input on this topic and any suggested reg. text language. We are providing the attached draft document as informal input to EPA’s inquiry.” The draft called for a number of exemptions.

The shift in priorities under Szabo can also be seen in communications from the EPA itself. In a June 2025 email reviewed by ProPublica, an agency official asked O’Connor to meet and discuss alternative leak-detection methods. Echoing the language in the AXPC comment that Szabo helped to draft, the official spoke of “the additional flexibility we would like to pursue.”

“I think their agenda was, from what I could tell, to do what industry wanted,” one former EPA official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe confidential discussions, said of Szabo and other Trump appointees at the agency.

“Since when is it a bad thing for public officials to ask the public what they think?” the EPA said in an emailed statement, referring to Szabo’s interactions with oil industry representatives. Szabo “fulfilled all his ethical obligations to the letter. He met with EPA career ethics staff when he started at EPA to ensure he is aware of and complies with federal ethics requirements.”

Szabo’s affinities are hardly a secret. He is thanked by name in the EPA chapter of Project 2025, the deregulatory blueprint for the second Trump administration. As part of the nomination process for his appointment at the EPA, he also submitted ethics disclosures listing oil, natural gas and chemicals companies he had lobbied for.

Still, at his confirmation hearing on March 5 last year, he repeatedly declined to elaborate on his role in Project 2025, beyond saying he provided “general advice and thoughts” on the Clean Air Act.

• ### Alex Cuadros

• Bluesky
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I report on climate change and how people and institutions are responding to it.

Need to Get in Touch?

I welcome tips or documents about Trump administration climate policy or actions by private companies or institutions that may impact the climate.

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no lnx

Trump Stocks E.P.A. With Oil, Gas and Chemical Lobbyists

Top political appointees are already at the E.P.A. preparing to erase the agency’s climate rules and pollution controls. Many of them have tried it before.

/The New York Times

By Lisa FriedmanHiroko Tabuchi and Coral Davenport

Jan. 25, 2025

President Trump is stocking the Environmental Protection Agency with officials who have served as lawyers and lobbyists for the oil and chemical industries, many of whom worked in his first administration to weaken climate and pollution protections.

Lee Zeldin, Mr. Trump’s choice to lead the E.P.A., has little experience with environmental policy. He will be expected to hit the ground running, though, to fulfill Mr. Trump’s fire hose of orders directing the agency to cut regulations.

Mr. Zeldin’s Senate confirmation vote has not yet been scheduled but he has already marshaled more than a dozen deputies and senior advisers. The quick appointments are in contrast to Mr. Trump’s first term, when many Republicans hesitated to join the administration and internal squabbling delayed the selection of the deputy administrator as well as the chief air pollution regulator for nearly a year. Some appointees have already moved into their offices.

Top appointees include David Fotouhi, Mr. Zeldin’s second-in-command, a lawyer who recently challenged a ban on asbestos; Alex Dominguez, a former oil lobbyist who will work on automobile emissions; and Aaron Szabo, a lobbyist for both the oil and chemical industries who is expected to be the top air pollution regulator.

The division of E.P.A. that evaluates the safety of new chemicals now includes Nancy Beck, a longtime chemical-industry lobbyist, and Lynn Ann Dekleva, who has been working for the American Chemistry Council, a trade group. Both are veterans of the first Trump term.

“It’s alarming to see former industry lobbyists and attorneys who, until recently, were paid by their clients to weaken pollution standards, nominated to high-ranking positions at E.P.A. where they will have the power to undermine regulations meant to protect the public from these same industries,” said Jen Duggan, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, a watchdog group.

Image

An aerial view of the E.P.A. building in downtown Washington, D.C.

E.P.A.’s headquarters in Washington. Mr. Trump’s first E.P.A. had a reputation for being sloppy, leading to cases being overturned or thrown out of court.Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times

Molly Vaseliou, an E.P.A. spokeswoman, said the agency was “putting together a leadership team composed of some of the brightest experts and legal minds” and all would “uphold E.P.A.’s mission to protect human health and the environment.”

“President Trump advanced conservation and environmental stewardship in his first term and the E.P.A. will continue this legacy in his second term,” she said.

To be deputy administrator, Mr. Fotouhi must be confirmed by the Senate. Most of the other political appointees that have been named so far, including Ms. Beck, are entering E.P.A. as advisers or other positions that do not require confirmation.

The speed in assembling the E.P.A. team isn’t the only difference between the first and second Trump terms. Regulatory attorneys say the new team has more experience. Mr. Trump’s first E.P.A. had a reputation for being sloppy, leading to dozens of cases being overturned or thrown out by the courts.

“This group is arriving with more expertise in deploying the machinery of the agency, including to unravel regulations from the prior administration,” said Kyle Danish, a partner at Van Ness Feldman, a Washington law firm that advises energy clients. “They all look like they graduated one level from what they did in the first Trump administration.”

Mr. Zeldin’s deputy, the Harvard-educated lawyer David Fotouhi, left corporate practice in 2017 to join the E.P.A. during the first Trump administration. He rose to acting general counsel and became a central figure in Mr. Trump’s efforts to weaken or delete dozens of regulations that were designed to protect air and water from pollution.

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David Fotouhi, shown speaking during a Federalist Society event from 2022 posted on YouTube, will be Mr. Zeldin’s second-in-command.Credit...via YouTube

Mr. Fotouhi has a long record of representing polluters against the E.P.A. and other regulatory agencies. Last year, he challenged the E.P.A.’s ban of asbestos, arguing on behalf of automakers that the E.P.A. had failed to demonstrate that asbestos presented an unreasonable risk of injury. Under Mr. Biden, the United States joined 55 other countries that have banned asbestos, which is known to cause lung cancer, mesothelioma, ovarian cancer and laryngeal cancer.

Mr. Fotouhi has defended industrial plants accused by the E.P.A. of violating the Clean Air Act and toxic-chemicals rules, and helped corporations repel proposed regulations. He represented a major operator of coal-burning power plants challenging rules to prevent toxic coal ash from contaminating groundwater.

And in 2021, he represented a paper-mill company in a lawsuit brought by Maine landowners whose land was contaminated with “forever chemicals,” also known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, linked to cancer and other diseases.

“It was the typical corporate defense,” said Elizabeth Bailey, an environmental attorney who represented the plaintiffs. “Which is: You can’t prove that it’s us.”

Mr. Dominguez, the former oil lobbyist, is now a deputy assistant administrator who will serve as a point person for one of Mr. Trump’s highest priorities, canceling the largest climate regulation in history, designed by the Biden administration to cut the automobile pollution that is heating the planet. Under that rule, more than half the new passenger vehicles sold in the United States would have to be zero emissions by 2032.

Attempts during by the first Trump administration to weaken tailpipe pollution limits were mired in legal and logistical errors and delays. Mr. Dominguez, a veteran of that effort, is expected to be better prepared this time.

Between Trump administrations, Mr. Dominguez worked for the American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil and gas industry. The group delivered a detailed wish list to Mr. Trump, topped by the rollback of the tailpipe pollution rules. Oil companies oppose the rules because the transition to electric vehicles would hurt demand for gasoline.

Abigale Tardif is returning to the E.P.A. air pollution office after serving there in the first Trump administration. She has worked as a policy analyst for Americans for Prosperity, part of the conservative network of groups founded by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers. She has also lobbied for Marathon Petroleum Corporation and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, a major industry lobbying group.

Last summer, that group launched what it described as a “seven figure” campaign of advertising, phone calls and text messages against the tailpipe rule, which it falsely called “Biden’s E.P.A. car ban.”

Image

A woman with dark hair and glasses, dressed in a black blazer and black and white polka dot top sits at a table in a hearing room.

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Nancy Beck led an effort against chemical regulations in the first Trump administration.Credit...Justin T. Gellerson for The New York Times

Dr. Beck, a former senior director with the American Chemistry Council, is now a senior E.P.A. adviser on chemical safety and pollution. She led a wide-ranging pushback against chemical regulations during the first Trump administration, as well as what a subsequent investigation described as political interference in agency science and policymaking.

Dr. Beck rewrote rules that made it harder to track the health consequences of a “forever chemical” linked to cancer, and therefore to regulate it. She also helped soften limits on asbestos and methylene chloride, a harmful chemical found in paint thinners.

Dr. Dekleva, also a former senior figure at the chemical industry trade group and another veteran of the first Trump term, is returning to the E.P.A. to regulate new chemicals. She worked for more than three decades at DuPont, the chemicals giant. Recent reports by the E.P.A.’s Office of Inspector General said that, under Dr. Dekleva, employees were pushed to approve new chemicals and were retaliated against if they raised concerns.

Dr. Beck and Dr. Dekleva did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. AARON Szabo was named as a senior adviser to the administrator but he is expected to become the agency’s top air pollution regulator, according to three people with knowledge of the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. He has lobbied on behalf of the American Chemistry Council, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers association and the American Petroleum Institute, records show.

Mr. Szabo also is a government veteran, having worked in the White House Office of Management and Budget and as a senior counsel for the White House Council on Environmental Quality during Mr. Trump’s first term.

“They understand the policies well, they understand the agency well, which puts them far ahead of where they were eight years ago,” said Dimitri Karakitsos, a Republican energy and chemicals lobbyist.

Lisa Friedman is a Times reporter who writes about how governments are addressing climate change and the effects of those policies on communities.

Hiroko Tabuchi covers pollution and the environment for The Times. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years in Tokyo and New York.

Coral Davenport covers energy and environment policy, with a focus on climate change, for The Times.

A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 26, 2025, Section A, Page 22 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Fills E.P.A. Posts With Energy Lobbyists. Order Reprints |

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://www.eenews.net › stories

Nov 29, 2018 — Aaron Szabo, who worked on climate and energy policies in the Trump and Obama administrations, started this week at CGCN Group.

https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/firms/summary?id=D000032643

CGCN Group Revolving Door Personnel: (11)	Partner	Firm lobbying profileMajor Donor profile	Firm lobbying profileMajor Donor profile
2017-2018	Council on Environmental Quality Revolving Door Personnel: (36)	Senior Counsel	Agency lobbying profile
2014-2017	Office of Management & Budget Revolving Door Personnel: (188)	Policy Analyst, OIRA	Agency lobbying profile
2008-2014	Nuclear Regulatory Commission Revolving Door Personnel: (16)	Analyst	Agency lobbying p

https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/lobbyists/summary?cycle=2020&id=Y0000055386L

thehill

40 Trump-connected lobbyists secured over $10B in coronavirus relief for clients: report

BY ALEX GANGITANO - 07/06/20

Forty lobbyists connected to President Trump have been hired to lobby on COVID-19 issues since the pandemic and secured over $10 billion in coronavirus relief aid for clients, according to a new report from progressive watchdog group Public Citizen.

The 40 lobbyists represented at least 150 clients, 27 of which received $10.5 billion in aid collectively, and 14 of which are companies working on vaccines, therapeutics or tests. The lobbyists either worked on Trump’s campaign, inaugural committee, transition team or in the administration.

Brownstein Hyatt Faber Schreck is one of the firms mentioned in the report. It has signed at least 45 clients to work on COVID-19 issues.

Emily Felder, former director in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’s Office of Legislation under Trump, and Geoff Burr, former chief of staff to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, are among the lobbyists at the firm working on some of these contracts.

Trump issued an executive order when he took office prohibiting former administration officials from lobbying the agency or office where they were worked for five years and prohibiting former political appointees from lobbying the administration during Trump’s time in office.

“We are confident that our lobbyists are in compliance with all lobbying rules and applicable prohibitions and did not violate their Trump Administration pledge. Further, none of these individuals have lobbied the Executive Branch. These individuals are permitted to lobby the Senate or House and the LDAs reflect that,” a Brownstein spokesperson told The Hill.

In a letter to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics and other agencies on Monday, Public Citizen requested an investigation into whether five former Trump administration officials, including Felder and Burr, violated the Trump ethics pledge during the coronavirus pandemic.

The other three officials mentioned in the letter are Courtney Lawrence, a former deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services who now works at Cigna; Shannon McGahn, a former adviser to Treasury SecretarySteven Mnuchin who now works for the National Association of Realtors (NAR); and Jordan Stoick, a former Treasury senior adviser who now works at the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM).

“NAR takes its lobbying disclosure and ethics requirements seriously. NAR and its employees are in full compliance with the LDA’s post government employment restrictions as well as the Trump ethics pledge,” a spokesperson for NAR told The Hill.

NAM general counsel Linda Kelly said the claim Stoick violated the ethics pledge was misleading and irresponsible.

"Jordan Stoick has never lobbied Treasury during his time at the NAM. The NAM carefully adheres to the legal and ethical rules regulating lobbying activity, including ensuring that its employees comply with all applicable prohibitions on contacting their former employers," she told The Hill in a statement.

The White House and Cigna did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment on the report.

The report mentions that Brian Ballard, former chairman of Trump Victory, was hired by American Health Associates, which provides mobile laboratory services to nursing homes. His firm, Ballard Partners, did not provide comment to The Hill on the report.

Robert Grand of Barnes & Thornburg LLP, who was on Trump’s inaugural committee, was hired by Envigo RMS Holding Corp, which works on research tools for the coronavirus, the report noted.

“Are they also working on a story about [Joe] Biden supporters who are lobbying?” Grand told The Hill in response to the report.

Public Citizen had no comment in response to The Hill on this question.

Jessica Tocco of A10 Associates, who worked on Trump’s transition, was hired by GreyScan, which is developing a mobile COVID-19 detection device, the report noted. Tocco had no comment on the report.

Aaron Szabo of CGCN Group, who was senior counsel for the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality under Trump, was hired by Hazmat TSDF Inc., which is working on issues related to cleanup of coronavirus materials.

CGCN told The Hill that Szabo was a career White House staffer and worked under Presidents Trump and Obama.

The report also mentions other lobbyists hired to work on coronavirus issues, including McGuire Woods Consulting’s Robert Wasinger, who was director of Senate and gubernatorial outreach for the 2016 Trump campaign; S-3’s Robert Collins, who worked with the White House on Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation; and American Continental Group’s David Urban, who is a member of the Trump 2020 advisory committee.

Miller Strategies’s Jeff Miller, vice chair of Trump’s inaugural committee; Avenue Strategies’s Barry Bennett, a former senior adviser for Trump’s 2016 campaign; and Rich Feuer Anderson LLC’s Jared Sawyer, a former Treasury Department deputy assistant secretary under Trump, were also mentioned in the report.

These lobbyists did not respond to The Hill’s request for comment.

gop staffer rev dr

off bs

https://www.cgcn.com/

THE CGCN TEAM

MATT RHOADES

CO-CEO

Romney/Ryan 2012 Presidential Campaign Manager

Co-founder of a bipartisan cybersecurity initiative, Defending Digital Campaigns

Past leadership positions inPACs, the Republican National Committee and at the White House

SAM GEDULDIG

CO-CEO

Former Senior Advisor to then Majority Whip Roy Blunt

Former staffer for the House Financial Services Committee and then Speaker John Boehner

Successful record of building unconventional coalitions and issue advocacy campaigns

MICHAEL CATANZARO

PRESIDENT AND CHIEF POLICY OFFICER

Former Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Energy and Environmental Policy, White House National Economic Council

Former Deputy Staff Director, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee with Sen. Jim Inhofe

Former Senior Policy Advisor to then Speaker John Boehner

STEVE CLARK

FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN

Former Manager of Government Affairs for Ohio Bell Telephone Co

Former Vice President of Public Affairs forAmeritech/ SBC

Recognized by The Ohio Chamber of Commerce as Ohio’s Top Corporate Lobbyist

ANTONIA FERRIER

CHIEF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER

Former senior aide forLeader Mitch McConnell, the Senate Finance Committee, and then Majority Whip Roy Blunt

Experienced communications professional the Washington Post called “A top Republican message guru”

JOHN STIPICEVIC

CHIEF ADVOCACY OFFICER

Former Deputy Chief of Staff to LeaderKevin McCarthy for Floor Operations and Member Services

Former Director of Floor Operations to then Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy

Former floor aide to then Majority Whip Roy Blunt and Minority Whip Eric Cantor

MIKENIELSEN

CHIEF FINANCE AND MANAGEMENT OFFICER

Accomplished financial services and appropriations advisor

Professional Staff and Subcommittee Staff Director on the Senate Banking Committee for over a decade.

Extensive work as a Senate staffer and outside consultant on appropriations issues.

JAY CRANFORD

SENIOR PARTNER

Former committee and leadership policy aide

Accomplished energy, environment, technology and telecommunications policy advisor

Client services approach enhanced by private sector experience in both the corporate and trade association space

EVA BANDOLA

VICE PRESIDENT

Former Senior Communications Director at Definers Public Affairs

Former Senior Account Manager at Trident DMG

JULIA COMISKEY

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT

Former Vice President, Partnerships & Special Assistant at Definers Public Affairs

Former Deputy War Room Director at Romney for President

JANELLE GARDNER

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF OPERATIONS

Over a decade of experience inside the federal government, both in Congress and the Executive branch

Served as a key member ofPresident Trump’s beachhead team facilitating the transition at the Department of Labor,

AMANDA HORNE

ASSOCIATE

Former Staff Assistant to Leader Mitch McConnell

Former intern at the Environmental Protection Agency Office of Public Affairs

TIM KILLEEN

PARTNER

Experienced communication professional with experience in energy, healthcare, and financial services

Former campaign advisor toRep. Liz Cheney and Republican National Committeeofficial

AMBER KIRCHHOEFER

PARTNER

Former Deputy Chief of Staff toSen. Pat Roberts

Experienced policy advisor in health care, appropriations, agriculture and trade

TATUM MARTINEZ

DIRECTOR OF CLIENT RELATIONS

Works to streamline every facet of client relations at CGCN to remove friction and deliver results.

Severs as Executive Director for CGCN Partner United By Interest

LAUREN O’DONNELL

DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES & COMPLIANCE

Expertise in Human Resource Management

Experience with compliance matters relating to the lobbying industry

KATIE O’NEIL

VICE PRESIDENT

Experienced in nearly every aspect of digital communication strategy

Former Senior Digital Director at Definers Public Affairs

Former Digital Manager at Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce

TIM PATAKI

PARTNER

Former Assistant to the President and Director, White House Office of Public Liaison

Former Senior Advisor & Director of Coalitions and Member Services, House Energy & Commerce Committee, then Chairman Fred Upton

Former leadership aide to then Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy and Majority Leader Eric Cantor

ALEX RENJEL

PARTNER

Former aide to Sen. Jim Inhofe

Former senior aide for Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, where he helped pass multiyear transportation legislation

SCOTT RIPLINGER

PARTNER

Former senior aide to Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Mike Crapo

Accomplished financial services, tax, appropriations and commerce policy advisor

COURTNEY SCHNEIDER

DIRECTOR OF FINANCE AND ACCOUNTS MANAGEMENT

Former Brokerage Investment Professional at Vanguard

Manages CGCN’s finances and accounting process

Expertise in a variety of administrative duties, including scheduling and coordinating meetings for partners and clients

AARON SZABO

PARTNER

Former White House staff for Presidents Trump& Obama

Worked with career and political staff at various agencies

Expertise in energy, environmental and regulatory policy

Peter Ventimiglia

PETER VENTIMIGLIA

PARTNER

Former Managing Director at Koch Industries overseeing external communications

Helped develop Koch’s first corporate reputation campaign

Former Executive Vice President at Edelman

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