President Trump first came to Washington as an outsider who had campaigned against the permanent professional political class.
But new financial disclosure filings highlight the expansion of a political cottage industry that revolves around him, one that has been quite lucrative for some of his closest aides.
The filings, which are mandatory and appear to have been posted on the White House website on Friday without any announcement, detail the finances of dozens of officials in the two years before they joined Mr. Trump’s administration.
Top Trump advisers like Dan Scavino, a deputy chief of staff, and Sergio Gor, the director of the presidential personnel office, reported making more than $1 million each from media-related ventures linked to Mr. Trump.
Others — including the powerful White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and the influential policy adviser Stephen Miller — reported being paid by think tanks or advocacy groups created to support Mr. Trump’s initiatives.
Two lawyers in the White House Counsel’s Office — the head of the office, David Warrington, and a deputy named Gary Lawkowski — worked at the law firm founded by Harmeet Dhillon, who is now serving as assistant attorney general. At the firm, Mr. Warrington and Mr. Lawkowski represented a Trump-allied Tennessee state legislator whom Mr. Trump pardoned in March for campaign finance-related crimes. Mr. Warrington also represented a so-called fake elector from Michigan, and Mr. Lawkowski represented Mr. Trump, as well as Kash Patel, who is now serving as the F.B.I. director.
And a number of officials were paid as consultants by Mr. Trump’s own campaign and supportive political groups before entering the White House.
“This is Trump Inc.,” said Jonathan Guyer, who tracked the financial interests of incoming officials in the administration of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as a journalist for left-leaning publications, and is now tracking the interests of incoming Trump officials as an analyst at the Institute for Global Affairs, a think tank linked to Eurasia Group. “This is a network of lawyers, strategists, consultants, investors who are all, it seems, working in overlapping efforts to advance Trump’s interests.”
Mr. Guyer noted that many of the institutions and networks listed on the new filings emerged after Mr. Trump and his aides left office in 2021 under a cloud left by the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters.
“After Jan. 6, it was pretty difficult for a lot of Trump officials to get employment with brand-name institutions,” he said. “This kind of parallel set of institutions has been born in the wake of Trump’s exit from Washington in 2021.”
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement that the disclosures demonstrate the administration’s commitment to transparency rules and the willingness of aides to forego private sector opportunities.
“It’s no secret that President Trump hired an incredibly talented and successful team of people, many of whom helped secure the most historic campaign victory in American history, and have now given up their successful private sector careers to serve the American people at the White House,” she said.
Mr. Trump’s social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, paid $860,000 in consulting fees to Mr. Scavino, who also reported earning more than $1 million in capital gains income through an apparent stake in the company, according to his disclosure statement. The disclosure statements list precise values for some types of income, but only ranges for other types.
Mr. Scavino’s disclosure shows that he was also paid $376,846 as a salary and bonus by Mr. Trump’s campaign, as well as $121,555 from the Republican National Committee, plus fees for his social media content, including $112,286 from a company called Urban Legend Media and $76,537 from X Corp., Elon Musk’s social media platform.
Mr. Gor earned more than $1.5 million in salary and dividends from Gold Standard Publishing, according to his disclosure. The company was listed on prior disclosures as having paid Mr. Trump $5.75 million in royalties related to a book of photos from his first term. Mr. Gor is also listed in his disclosure as having served as president of Winning Team Publishing, which he co-founded with Donald Trump Jr. and which has published Trump-themed books.
Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, was paid $192,040 in salary by Affinity Partners, according to his disclosure. Affinity is a $3 billion investment firm run by Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner that has accepted money from government wealth funds in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Nonprofits supportive of Mr. Trump were also a major source of revenue for some of the president’s advisers.
Mr. Miller, a deputy chief of staff who is helping to orchestrate Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown, created a nonprofit group in 2021 called America First Legal that has filed litigation targeting “woke corporations,” school districts that promote pro-transgender attitudes and other causes célèbres of the president’s. . America First Legal paid Mr. Miller nearly $509,000, according to his disclosure. It shows that he was also paid $202,000 by a consulting firm called Rushmore Ventures whose clients included Mr. Trump’s campaign and transition.
The nonprofit group America First Policy Institute was created by Mr. Trump’s allies in late 2020 as a sort of shadow administration to develop and push policies that could be implemented by a second Trump administration. Two of its leaders, Linda McMahon and Brooke Rollins, the secretaries of education and agriculture, respectively, have joined Mr. Trump’s cabinet.
The new disclosures show that America First Policy Institute paid others now serving in the White House, including Heidi Overton ($303,823), James Sherk ($206,305) and Lea Bardon ($151,000).
Ms. Wiles was paid by America First Policy Institute as a consultant through an entity called MSGDMNSM Ventures XXV LLC, through which she provided communications consulting, according to her disclosure. It indicates that she was paid a total of $401,722 by the entity, through which she also represented divisions of the tobacco company Swisher. Her affiliation with MSGDMNSM appears to be related to her work for the lobbying firm Mercury Public Affairs, which she joined in 2022.
She also collected nearly $4.4 million in income from her consulting firm Right Coast Strategies, according to her disclosure. It lists clients for Right Coast including the Trump campaign, for which she served as co-manager, as well as the Republican National Committee, the pro-Trump cable network Newsmax and the lobbying firm Ballard Partners. Ms. Wiles had worked at Ballard Partners, which is based in her native Florida and is run by the Trump fund-raiser Brian Ballard, until she joined Mercury.
Right Coast ceased operations at the end of last year, and Ms. Wiles divested her ownership interest in MSGDMNSM Ventures XXV LLC, according to her disclosure.
Other political operatives who worked to help the Trump campaign also reported earning big paydays through their consulting firms.
Taylor Budowich, a deputy chief of staff, was paid nearly $1.7 million by a consulting firm that represented the Trump campaign and groups created to support it, according to his disclosure.
James Blair, a deputy chief of staff who served as the campaign’s political director, reported receiving nearly $2.6 million in salary, bonuses and ownership distributions from his former firm. It represented Mr. Trump’s campaign and PAC, as well as other clients, including U.S. Sugar Corporation.
Alex Pfeiffer, now serving as a deputy communications director, earned $583,131 from his consulting firm, which represented PACs that supported Mr. Trump’s campaign, according to a disclosure. It shows that Mr. Pfeiffer’s firm was also paid by aligned clients including the American Conservative Union, which hosts the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, and The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news outlet.
The White House on Friday also released disclosure statements detailing the finances of Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance last year — a narrower period than covered by the staff disclosures.
Mr. Trump’s disclosure showed that his family had profited extensively from its forays into cryptocurrency, including the firm World Liberty Financial, in which his stake earned about $57 million.
Mr. Vance’s disclosure shows that he earned between $100,000 and $1 million in interest income from Narya Capital, a venture capital firm that he started in 2020 with financial contributions from the tech investor Peter Thiel, a longtime patron of Mr. Vance and an early Silicon Valley supporter of Mr. Trump, as well as the former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt and the billionaire investor Marc Andreessen. Mr. Vance also reported between $50,000 and $100,000 in royalties from his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” and between $15,000 and $50,000 in rental income from a home in Washington.
To be sure, not every arrangement detailed in the disclosures of White House staff aligned closely with Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance, or their agenda.
Sean Hayes, a deputy White House counsel, earned more than $1 million in salary from the elite law firm WilmerHale, for which his clients included Harvard University, according to his disclosure. Both WilmerHale and Harvard have been targeted by the Trump administration.
Kenneth P. Vogel is based in Washington and investigates the intersection of money, politics and influence.
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