Trump vowed to ‘drain the swamp,’ but lobbyists are helping run his campaign
WASHINGTON — The chief executive of the arms-maker Raytheon, under pressure to overcome a congressional hold on major sales in the fall of 2018, wanted to sit down with one of the few people who could solve the problem — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
It is not known precisely what Pompeo discussed with the Raytheon executive, but in a few months, the State Department had issued an emergency waiver that circumvented the congressional hold on the arms deals, allowing billions of dollars in Raytheon missiles and bombs to be sold to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Those eight have been paid a total of nearly $120 million through their firms to influence the U.S. government from the beginning of 2017, as Trump prepared to take office, to the end of March, according to an analysis of congressional and Justice Department filings. Also recently added to the campaign team was Jason Miller, who set up meetings in 2017 for Wall Street executives with Cabinet officials, and briefly registered this year as a lobbyist for other companies before joining the campaign’s payroll.
There is a long tradition of Washington lobbyists and consultants in both parties assisting campaigns, which helps ensure their continued access to the corridors of power. Ballard, who has known Trump for 30 years and had lobbied for the Trump Organization in Florida, has been hired by a host of major companies seeking to deal with scrutiny from Trump or his administration, including General Motors, Boeing, Amazon and the Turkish state-owned bank Halkbank.
But few lobbyists consistently have more influence than Urban, who is known as the master of the subtle nudge, often delivered in private discussions. Urban declined to comment. Pompeo invited Urban, as well as the chief executives of two companies for which Urban lobbies — Raytheon and the convenience store chain 7-Eleven — to exclusive dinners in the State Department’s Diplomatic Reception Rooms.
During a segment on the network last year, Urban suggested the possibility of a proportional military response against Iran in retaliation for the country’s downing of a crewless U.S. drone. “If I were a betting man, I’d bet that there’d be some sort of a Tomahawk missile strike on the site that launched this,” Urban said, referring to one of Raytheon’s products. Trump had approved a retaliatory strike against Iran in that case but pulled back at the last minute.
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