Former Trump national security adviser joins lobby firm

One of the earliest members of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition is headed to K Street.

Andy Keiser, a former chief of staff to former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) who advised the transition on national security, has joined the all-Republican firm Navigators Global.

“Andy will provide our clients with unique insights on the incoming Administration,” said Phil Anderson, the president of the firm. “He will also bring best-in-class relationships in the House Republican Conference, and reach into the Senate and Trump Administration.”

{mosads}During his time on the transition, Keiser “prepared and advised on the policy, personnel and agency action teams on all aspects of the national security portfolio during the initial pre-election planning phase of the Trump transition team” as the deputy national security adviser for Trump for America, Inc., the statement says.

Keiser spent 14 years as a senior House staffer. In addition to working for Rogers, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, he also served as a senior adviser to the intel panel.

Rogers had played a role in advising the transition on national security issues. Last month, Vice President-elect Mike Pence took the reins of the transition effort from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R). The changes caused a shake-up last month that led to the dismissal of some staff put in place by Christie, including Rogers.

At the time, several registered lobbyists were working on the transition team, but many of them departed when they were told they would have to stop working for clients. The lobbyists who left included Rob Collins of S-3 Group, Mike Catanzaro at CGCN Group, Martin Whitmer at Whitmer & Worrall, J. Steven Hart at Williams & Jensen and Cindy Hayden of the tobacco giant Altria, among others. 

Others — including David Bernhardt of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck who is leading Interior Department issues for the transition and Jim Carter, an in-house lobbyist for Emerson, who’s working on tax reform for the transition — have terminated their lobbying registrations to keep working for Trump. 

During the final weeks of the campaign, Trump promised to “drain the swamp” in Washington, nixing the influencers and so-called “special interests.”

In addition to the ethics pledge applying to transition members, he said he would move immediately to ban former administration officials from lobbying for five years after they leave as one of his first acts in the Oval Office.

The five-year ban would stop “officials from becoming lobbyists after they leave government service and making a fortune,” Trump said in a campaign speech in Gettysburg, Pa., days before the election.