Trump Didn’t Drain the Swamp. He Restocked It With His Own People.

Donald Trump did not drain the swamp. He changed who runs it, who profits from it, and whose loyalty gets you a seat in it. This week he swapped one longtime Washington insider for another and called it a new chapter. I don't buy it, and you shouldn't either.

The week's news makes the case. After Republicans got hammered on November 3, with Democrats projected to take both the House and Senate, Trump announced that Susie Wiles was out as chief of staff and Stephen Miller was in. Wiles isn't leaving politics. She's moving to Trump's outside political operation. So the reshuffle moves a veteran operative from one box on the org chart to another and puts a different veteran operative where she sat.

Look at the résumés. Wiles got into politics in 1979, working for Jack Kemp. After that came Reagan's campaign and White House, the first Bush campaign, years of Florida politics, Rick Scott, Ron DeSantis, and several Trump campaigns. She registered to lobby for about 40 clients at Ballard Partners, including the city of Jacksonville and a tobacco company, according to the New York Times. Ballard says her work was mostly strategy and messaging. That's 47 years in the machine. Miller has been in Washington since 2007, starting as a congressional staffer, then Jeff Sessions, then the 2016 campaign, then the first administration. Tony Fabrizio has been polling and consulting for roughly four decades.

Let me be clear about what I'm not saying. Time in politics isn't a crime, and a long career doesn't prove corruption. My complaint is simpler. Trump campaigned against exactly this world and then built his operation out of it. You can't run against the establishment while handing the keys to the people who've been the establishment since Reagan.

The clearest evidence is Trump's own paper trail. In Grand Junction on October 18, 2016, he promised a five-year lobbying ban for departing executive branch officials, the same for former members of Congress and their staff, a lifetime ban on senior officials lobbying for foreign governments, and term limits. On January 28, 2017, he signed Executive Order 13770, which bound every appointee by contract to a pledge that included not lobbying their own agency for five years after leaving. Then, on January 19, 2021, in the final hours of his first term, he signed Executive Order 13983 and revoked it. Nobody forced him. He wrote the rule, then erased it on the way out the door. If your reform survives only until the day you stop needing the voters, it was a slogan.

Now follow the money. Bloomberg Government reported a record roughly $5.3 billion in federal lobbying in 2025. Ballard Partners, Wiles' former firm, went from about $19.6 million in 2024 to $88.3 million in 2025, roughly 351 percent growth. Wiles no longer worked there, and those are firmwide numbers, not her income. But Pam Bondi is a former Ballard employee and now attorney general. Sean Duffy came from BGR and is now transportation secretary. In March, Democratic lawmakers said at least 21 former lobbyists held senior administration posts as of 2025. That's their claim, but the Bondi and Duffy résumés are public record.

The family angle is where it gets uncomfortable. Katie Wiles is a director at Continental Strategy, which Bloomberg Government says went from about $1.8 million in lobbying revenue in 2024 to $27.6 million in 2025, roughly 1,422 percent. It registered to lobby for the American Beverage Association. Checkmate, where Chris LaCivita's son worked, went from about $70,000 to $22.2 million. I'm not claiming Susie Wiles or LaCivita arranged a single contract. I'm saying that if Democrats ran this table of relatives and revenue growth, Republicans would call it the swamp. They'd be right.

Miller's own disclosures aren't a scandal, and I won't pretend they are. He reported $508,659 from America First Legal and $202,000 from Rushmore Ventures, $710,659 combined. The disclosure lists Trump's 2024 campaign and transition as Rushmore consulting clients. His wife, Katie Miller, runs a podcast that the Boston Globe reported was sponsored three times by the American Beverage Association, and his disclosure lists recusals tied to her work. Nothing presented shows favors granted. But this is how Washington has always worked: money, access, and family ties in the same small circle, all disclosed on paper and all legal. Trump said he'd end that arrangement, not file it neatly.

Then came Calley Means. A former senior adviser on the Make America Healthy Again effort, Means said on Joe Rogan's show, episode 2578, that he resigned in frustration. He accused Wiles, Fabrizio, James Blair, and other political advisers of putting corporate special interests, campaign money, and midterm strategy ahead of the reforms voters were promised. Those are his allegations, not findings, and I'll leave the policy fights to others. But look at who is saying it. This isn't a Democrat or a cable host. It's someone Trump's own movement recruited to challenge the food and chemical lobbies, and he left believing those lobbies still had a seat at the table. Fabrizio's firm's own biography lists past clients like PepsiCo, Pfizer, Dow Chemical, Altria, Juul, Google, and Bank of America. Historical clients, not necessarily current ones. Still, tell me again who the outsiders are.

This isn't a Republican problem, and I'm not here to carry water for the other side. Democrats are about to take power in Washington and in Lansing, and this week DTE and Consumers Energy sued Michigan over new campaign finance restrictions. Corporate muscle doesn't care about party labels. It goes where the power is. The new majority will get the same treatment from me that this administration is getting now.

That brings me to responsibility, because that's where all of this lands. It's easy to blame the advisers. The advisers didn't appoint themselves. Trump picked Wiles. He picked Miller. He leaned on a political and financial network he knew well, and he kept using it. When the midterms went bad, he didn't question the machine. He moved a piece across the board and said the person leaving had done an outstanding job. That's a president protecting his circle, not cleaning house.

Anti-establishment branding is not anti-establishment governance. Trump changed who controls the swamp, who gets paid by it, and whose loyalty you have to show to stay in it. When the system failed, he replaced one member of that establishment with another. I think that's what happened, and the record is there for anyone willing to read it.

These are his people, his appointments, and his administration. No amount of rhetoric moves that responsibility onto someone else. It stays with him.