The client list includes AT&T, Airbnb, eBay, Archer Daniels Midland, and many other corporate giants. However, it may be her company’s extensive foreign lobbying that will raise the most eyebrows.

Mercury currently represents the state of Qatar, Libya’s national oil company, and three major Chinese corporations: JinkoSolar, Hikvision USA, and Alibaba. The Chinese firms have contended with American tariffs and other restrictions. Hikvision in particular has faced enhanced sanctions from the Biden administration over allegations that the company’s surveillance cameras are used for human rights abuses and military purposes.

Mercury lobbyists, ethics filings show, have worked this year on Hikvision to contact the State Department and the Treasury Department, presumably on lifting the restrictions. There are thousands of lobbyists in Washington, but a firm with a direct line to the president and a history of shaping foreign policy — in exchange for cash — on China is far from the norm.

Consider the case of ZTE, a major Chinese telecommunication company viewed as a national security threat due to concerns that it provides Chinese intelligence agencies with backdoor access to vital communication networks across the globe. In April 2018, the first Trump administration moved to decisively curb ZTE’s growth by banning the state-backed company from purchasing American-made equipment. It was the opening salvo in what was expected to be a global confrontation with the Chinese telecom industry.

In response, ZTE hired Mercury on a $75,000-per-month retainer to unwind the decision. One of the primary lobbyists on the campaign was Bryan Lanza, a former Trump 2016 campaign staffer who works as a partner at the firm. Records show that he promptly began contacting White House and sanctions officials on behalf of ZTE.

Lanza and Eric Branstad — the son of Trump’s ambassador to China, Terry Branstad — also travelled to China the following month. The meeting would not have been known had Chinese officials not publicised the gathering. The China Development Research Foundation, a group tied to the Chinese Communist Party’s United Work Department, which works to spread China’s political influence abroad, published pictures of Lanza’s June 2018 delegation.

In a move that shocked observers, Trump tweeted in May of that year that he was rethinking the restrictions and would negotiate a deal to back down. “President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast,” he wrote. “Too many jobs in China lost.” In July 2018, the Commerce Department reversed course and lifted the ban on ZTE.

For some Trump insiders, the elevation of Wiles, who has previously lobbied on behalf of other foreign interests, including a Nigerian political party, feels like déjà vu. John Kelly, a former Marine Corps. General, was an establishment figure who also spun through the revolving door and served on boards of several defence contractors. He later turned on Trump, accusing him of being a fascist who would govern as a dictator.

“There’s going to be six to 12 months and Trump’s going to figure out he’s being scammed again by his own chief of staff,” a former Trump campaign staffer, who asked not to be named, told me. “And then he’s going to try to correct. And by then, you know, it’s too late.”

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Lee Fang is an investigative journalist and Contributing Editor at UnHerd. Read his Substack here.

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