Disclosures filed this week show that lobbying firms with close ties to U.S. President Donald Trump’s White House have seen business surge at the start of 2025, with one group that used to employ Trump’s chief of staff and attorney general more than doubling its first-quarter revenue compared to last year.
Ballard Partners, a firm led by a Trump donor, reported $14 million in lobbying revenue in the first three months of this year, up from $6.2 million during the same time in 2024.
Politico reported earlier this week that Ballard “has disclosed more than 130 new lobbying clients just since Election Day, including JPMorgan Chase, Chevron, Palantir, Netflix, Ripple Labs, and the Business Roundtable.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles both previously lobbied for Ballard, as did Trump’s deputy director of personnel, Trent Morse.
“Lobbying firms like Ballard Partners know they can trust the Trump administration to fight on behalf of their corporate clients,” the anti-corruption group End Citizens United said in response to the new disclosures.
Mother Jones noted that Ballard “wasn’t the only lobbying firm to see a Trump bump.”
“Mercury Public Affairs, where Wiles briefly worked repping a tobacco company, reported earning $5.1 million from lobbying in the first quarter of 2025—nearly half the $11.4 million it earned in all of 2024,” the outlet observed. “Miller Strategies, run by super-lobbyist Jeff Miller (the firm’s website includes a link to a Wall Street Journal article proclaiming Miller ‘Trump’s K Street rainmaker’ for his prominent role in campaign fundraising), reported earning $8.6 million in the first three months of this year. In all of 2024, it only reported $12.6 million.”
Despite claiming on the campaign trail that he was “not a big person for lobbyists” and that politicians “have to stop listening” to them, Trump has shown a willingness to do their bidding at the start of his second term in the White House.
Earlier this month, as Common Dreams reported, Trump signed an executive order aimed at delaying Medicare negotiations for a major category of prescription drugs after pharmaceutical industry lobbyists pushed aggressively for the change.
On Monday, The Lever reported that Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “hid data that mapped out the locations of thousands of dangerous chemical facilities, after chemical industry lobbyists demanded that the Trump administration take down the public records.”
“After President Donald Trump’s victory in November, chemical companies donated generously to his inauguration fund,” the outlet observed. “Oil giant ExxonMobil, which is a member of the American Chemistry Council, the industry’s main lobbying arm, donated $1 million. The multinational chemical company DuPont donated $250,000.”
Trump has placed Lynn Dekleva, a former lobbyist for the American Chemistry Council and DuPont, at the head of an EPA office with “the authority to approve new chemicals for use,” The New York Timesreported in February.
During her time with the American Chemistry Council, Dekleva led the group’s lobbying campaign to limit EPA regulations on formaldehyde, which the U.S. National Toxicology Program labels as a known carcinogen.
