Trump Campaign Staffers Cash In As Lobbyists, Fill Swamp With “Bigger Alligators”

“For a president who campaigned vociferously against the swamp, the guys who helped him get elected now are becoming the bigger alligators.”

Despite President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to “drain the swamp,” a growing number of his former campaign staffers are landing big-money deals to work as lobbyists on Washington’s K Street. 

POLITICO reports that Stuart Jolly, who served as Trump’s national field director until April, was recently named president of a boutique lobbying firm called SPG. Jolly was responsible for hiring campaign field operatives who will now fill key posts in Trump’s administration, and SPG is co-hosting an inauguration party that’s expected to be a hot ticket. 

Jolly joins former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who recently opened his own lobbying firm in the same building as the president-elect’s transition team, and former political director Jim Murphy, who’s now a senior adviser at K Street powerhouse BakerHostetler.

“There is a YUGE talent war going on for people who are connected to this administration and there are a lot of firms moving as quickly as they can to bring people on,” Ivan Adler, a headhunter with the McCormick Group, told POLITICO. “For a president who campaigned vociferously against the swamp, the guys who helped him get elected now are becoming the bigger alligators. That’s what happens.”

According to POLITICO, it’s just the latest example of Trump’s “drain the swamp” campaign slogan “running into the realities of Washington.” 

“The president-elect got heat for packing his early transition team with lobbyists, and his Cabinet picks feature a number of high-dollar donors, including WWE co-founder Linda McMahon, Michigan billionaire philanthropist Betsy DeVos, and former Goldman Sachs executive and hedge fund manager Steve Mnuchin,” the site notes. 

Read the full story here.