Corey Lewandowski, the former green-energy lobbyist, has launched a consulting and lobbying firm that is already selling itself to clients on the strength of Lewandowski’s proximity to Trump — literally and figuratively.
Avenue Strategies is the new lobbying firm, launched by Lewandowski and fellow Trump campaign aide Barry Bennett. My colleague David Drucker reported the firm would “offer ‘a little bit of everything’ in terms of political consulting and government affairs services. Bennett said he expects to register as a lobbyist but doesn’t know if Lewandowski will.”
The firm also stressed Lewandowski’s personal closeness to Trump — an obvious selling point for potential clients. The firm’s announcment Wednesday touted that its offices will be “just a block from the White House.”
Lewandowski was a subsidy lobbyist under Obama. As I wrote during the campaign:
Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s combative campaign manager, was a subsidy and earmark lobbyist for years. From 2005 through early 2011, Lewandowski was a registered lobbyist at Schwartz Communications, a Massachusetts-based public-relations and lobbying firm. Lewandowski’s clients included biotech firms, solar-panel makers and government contractors.
Lewandowksi successfully lobbied to get a half-million-dollar green-energy earmark, for Borrego Solar, Mother Jones reported earlier this year.
“Passport Systems secured more than $23.9 million in federal dollars between 2008 and 2011,” Mother Jones wrote of another Lewandowski client. “In the six years Lewandowski represented Passport Systems, it paid his firm more than $350,000.”
For equipment-maker Pavilion Technologies, Lewandowski was registered to lobby on “environment,” according to a lobbying registration. Company documents filed with the federal government suggest Lewandowski lobbied the Environmental Protection Agency, the House, and the Senate on rules requiring emissions testing. Pavilion sold emissions-testing equipment.
Donald Trump ran for president promising to “drain the swamp” and stop letting lobbyists call the shots.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
