Trump backs adviser accused of pay-to-play scheme (Boris Epshteyn) as ouster attempt backfires
Source: The Guardian
Trump backs adviser accused of pay-to-play scheme as ouster attempt backfires
President-elect defends Boris Epshteyn, who was accused of asking potential nominees to pay fees, amid infighting
Hugo Lowell in New York
Wed 27 Nov 2024 14.00 GMT
Last modified on Wed 27 Nov 2024 15.45 GMT
An attempt to force the ouster of Boris Epshteyn, a top adviser to Donald Trump, over accusations that he asked potential administration nominees to pay monthly consulting fees in exchange for lobbying for them appeared to have failed as the president-elect came to his defense.
Trump told aides at the Mar-a-Lago club, from where he is running the presidential transition, that he was irritated by what he viewed as an attempt to undercut “my people”, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The remarks underscored Epshteyn’s staying power and the trust he has engendered from Trump after he guided him and his legal team through repeated legal peril from his federal criminal cases during the 2024 campaign.
It also showed how trying to kneecap advisers with negative press coverage no longer persuades Trump as reliably it once did and may even have the opposite effect. The president-elect has increasingly taken issue with what he perceives to be a media pile-on, comparing it to how he felt hounded by prosecutors.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/27/boris-epshteyn-trump
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