The White House directed federal officials in late August to clear tens of millions of dollars’ worth of impounded vapes for U.S. sale after private conversations with Trump political adviser Chris LaCivita and his lobbyist son, the Wall Street Journal exclusively reported Friday night.
Customs and Border Protection officers in Chicago had held shipments of Chinese vapes known as “Geek Bar” earlier this year, and some officials suspected parts of the cargo had been declared as something else, according to the Journal’s sources. The Food and Drug Administration has never authorized a Geek Bar product for sale in the U.S.
The brand is widely used by minors: 64.1% of middle and high school students who vape reported using Geek Bar, according to the FDA’s 2025 National Youth Tobacco Survey.
LaCivita, who co-managed Trump’s 2024 campaign, told the Journal he contacted senior White House aides to let them know Hillfield, the brand’s U.S. importer, planned to invest $1 billion in an American manufacturing plant. But he denied raising the detained shipments and called claims that he directed government action “laughable and categorically false.”
His son, Chris LaCivita Jr., a registered lobbyist for Hillfield, acknowledged pressing White House and other federal officials to let the company’s vapes in. He insisted none of its shipments were mislabeled and that they qualify under the administration’s new enforcement carve-out. Hillfield has paid his firm, Checkmate Government Relations, $860,000 since late 2025, according to lobbying disclosures cited by the Journal.
In September 2025, federal agents seized nearly 4.7 million unauthorized e-cigarettes worth $86.5 million in Chicago, billed as the largest bust of its kind. This May, the FDA said it would stop enforcing the law against certain unauthorized vapes whose makers had started the approval process.
White House spokeswoman Allison Schuster insisted “the only special interest” guiding Trump is “the best interest of the American people.”
Hundreds more Hillfield shipments are now sitting in Chicago awaiting an FDA decision, the Journal reported.
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