“Donald Trump was emphatic on the campaign trail in 2016: If he made it into office, he would ‘drain the swamp’ with an expansive ethics package cracking down on lobbying. Most of those proposals quickly went by the wayside. On the campaign trail again almost a year ago, Trump decried Washington’s revolving door as a ‘big problem,’” CNN reports.

“Now, barely a half-year into his second administration, a handful of senior White House aides are already heading for the exits — and right through the revolving door between the federal government and K Street, where they’re lining up cushy lobbying gigs.”

NOTUS: “Private equity has permeated the far reaches of the global economy, from energy to real estate to journalism to bowling alleys. President Donald Trump last week signed an executive order that would greatly expand opportunities for Americans to invest their retirement savings in ‘alternative assets’ including private equity.”

“It’s not possible to capture the scope of interest in this kind of investment on K Street based on publicly available information, but it’s clear interest is growing.”

“The second Trump administration seemed poised to deliver on MAGA’s embrace of aggressive antitrust enforcement. Instead, those efforts have run headlong into power brokers with close ties to President Trump who have snatched up lucrative assignments helping companies facing antitrust threats,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The injection of politically-connected lobbyists and lawyers into antitrust investigations is a shift in an arena that for decades was a niche area dominated by specialized lawyers and economists.”

Politico: “The first six months of President Donald Trump’s term have produced a cash cow of historic magnitude for the lobbying industry, with record-breaking demand for help navigating the administration’s constant stream of policy pronouncements — or trying to avoid becoming a pay-for in the GOP’s megabill.”

“President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ which he signed into law this month, includes major wins for business interests that carried out aggressive lobbying campaigns on Capitol Hill to secure favorable treatment for their industries,” CNN reports.

“An array of special interests raced to shape the legislation — carving out tax breaks for private jets, excluding potentially life-saving drugs from negotiations that would lower costs, and giving two of the world’s richest men a tax windfall for their space companies.”

“Lobbying used to be Congress-focused, but they’re not driving the show anymore. They are all now taking orders from the administration. Trump is outsize now, even compared to his last term.” 

— A Republican lobbyist, quoted by New York Magazine.

Wall Street Journal: “It is boom time in Washington for the influence industry, according to interviews with more than a dozen Republican lobbyists. The top 10 lobbying firms in Washington took in about $123 million in the first quarter of 2025, compared with about $80 million in the same time frame of both Joe Biden’s presidency and Trump’s first term.”

“Lobbyists with close ties to Trump are having a particularly lucrative year, covering their office walls with photos of the president and expanding their offices, with some firms even turning down clients because they already have too many.”

“Seeking a pardon from President Donald Trump has become big business for lobbying and consulting firms close to the administration, with wealthy hopefuls willing to spend millions of dollars for help getting their case in front of the right people,” NBC News reports.

Said one lobbyist: “From a lobbying perspective, pardons have gotten profitable.”

“On a Sunday morning in early March, President Donald Trump greenlit a Truth Social post promoting a ‘Crypto Strategic Reserve.’ Hours later, he felt like he’d been played,” Politico reports.

“That weekend at Mar-A-Lago, an employee of the lobby shop run by Brian Ballard who was attending a donor event at the resort, had personally buttonholed the president and encouraged him multiple times to tout his desire to promote the industry. She even gave him a copy of a message she thought he should write.”

“It was only after he posted that missive that Trump realized a company behind one of the tokens named in the post, Ripple Labs, was a Ballard client. He was furious and felt like he’d been used, according to two people familiar with the incident who were granted anonymity to speak candidly.”

Said Trump to his aides: “He is not welcome in anything anymore.”

“Roger Stone, the longtime associate of President Trump’s, has been lobbying for a pioneering cryptocurrency investor known as ‘Bitcoin Jesus’ who is facing federal fraud and criminal tax charges, according to congressional filings,” the New York Times reports.

“Mr. Stone filed paperwork last month indicating that he had been retained by Roger Ver, an early Bitcoin investor who was charged last year and accused of shielding his cryptocurrency holdings from $48 million in taxes.”

From Wall Street Journal editorial page:

“Tariffs impose costs that businesses will want to avoid. They will thus be a windfall for Beltway lobbyists as companies and countries seek exemptions from this or that border tax.”

“Mr. Trump is saying there will be no tariff exemptions. But watch that promise vanish as politicians, including Mr. Trump, see exemptions as a way to leverage campaign contributions from business. Liberation Day is Buy Another Yacht Day for the swamp.”

“Former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the centrist dealmaker who wielded virtually unilateral veto power over the Biden administration’s legislative agenda, has landed on K Street,” Politico reports.

Sinema was spotted in the White House driveway Monday.

Politico: “An email circulated by a high-level Republican Senate staffer to GOP Senate offices Friday instructs them to pay heed to the lobbying clients of Covington & Burling and Perkins Coie, two prominent law firms that Trump has singled out for punishment. The Friday missive mimics the president’s recent efforts to crack down on law firms, universities and other entities deemed excessively liberal or anti-MAGA.”

Tara Palmeri: “Donald Trump’s supposedly tightly-run ship capsized Tuesday when the White House sort of paralyzed the government by mistake, with a poorly executed directive that called for freezing all $3 trillion of federal grants and loans that might not reflect Trump’s views. Fingers are now pointing at a little-known lawyer in the Office of Management and Budget, Mark Paoletta, who, The New York Times reports, didn’t clear the directive with Staff Secretary Will Scharf or Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller—the guys who would ostensibly need to sign off on a change of this magnitude. Even Trump seemed annoyed by the sloppy rollout and walkback.”

“All the while, there was a manic meltdown on K Street, as lobbyists scrambled to explain to their private-sector and nonprofit clients how, or even if, previously approved programs, loans, and grants would be honored.”

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is bringing on two big names to help shape policy in its fast-growing industry: Former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and Chris LaCivita, President Trump’s co-campaign manager in 2024, Semafor reports.