President Trump’s new White House chief of staff is wasting little time trying to differentiate himself from his predecessor.
The office of Stephen Miller, a longtime Trump aide who was elevated to chief of staff last week after Susie Wiles was ousted, issued a memo forbidding White House staff from meeting with lobbyists about policy issues on the building’s grounds without prior approval, according to a person who received the memo and was not authorized to disclose it.
“No President in history has fought more relentlessly, selflessly or courageously for the American People than President Trump,” reads the memo. “Following his example, White House staff are expected to dedicate their time unwaveringly to the working people of the nation.”
On Friday, a White House official issued a statement saying the new policy was “much stricter” than the one in place previously. However, the statement did not address questions about what prompted the change.
The memo, which was posted on social media by a podcaster allied with Mr. Trump on Thursday and also reported by Politico, follows claims last week by a former top Trump administration health adviser who accused the White House of catering to lobbyists and their clients who had raised significant funds for the president’s political groups and projects.
Calley Means, a prominent figure in the Make America Healthy Again movement, blamed Ms. Wiles.
Mr. Means, who resigned last month from the Department of Health and Human Services, contended that Ms. Wiles tilted administration health policy to favor corporate donors who hired well-connected lobbyists over ordinary Americans.
He specifically cited Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm where Ms. Wiles once worked, and Ms. Wiles’s daughter, Katie Wiles, who is a partner at the lobbying firm Continental Strategy.
“So if you’re a special interest and you want to get something done, the secret’s out,” Mr. Means said during an interview on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. “You pay Susie’s daughter, and it was openly discussed when they had a client.”
The White House pushed back on the claims and has said that Katie Wiles did not discuss her business with her mother.
Continental Strategy has said that Katie Wiles does not lobby the U.S. government on behalf of any clients.
Susie Wiles did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday night.
Ballard Partners and its founder, Brian Ballard, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday night.
But in a statement posted on social media on Sunday, Mr. Ballard said his firm’s interactions with Ms. Wiles as chief of staff were “limited and have been the exception, not the rule.”
Mr. Ballard has helped facilitate access to the president and his team for clients who have donated to the Trump-backed super PAC, the White House ballroom project and other projects favored by Mr. Trump. Those clients have sometimes benefited from changes in administration policy.
It is a far cry from 2016, when Mr. Trump ran as a Washington outsider promising to “drain the swamp.”
Mr. Miller started working for Mr. Trump during that campaign.
The podcaster who posted the memo, Benny Johnson, called it “a marked break” from Ms. Wiles’s leadership “and a signal that there is a massive crackdown coming.”
The memo requires Mr. Trump’s staff to receive approval from the White House Counsel’s Office for meetings in the White House complex with registered lobbyists.
Staff are asked to refer lobbyist inquiries to the Office of Public Liaison, the memo instructs, calling the office “the primary point of contact for engagement with external stakeholders.”
The memo nonetheless leaves wiggle room for special interests. Lobbyists could meet staff at venues Mr. Trump frequents outside of the White House complex, like his Mar-a-Lago resort and golf clubs. And many corporate executives have direct relationships with Mr. Trump, independent of their lobbyists.
Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.
