BRANSTAD, ERIC

Former Commerce Department aide

“president xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast,” Trump tweeted on May 13, 2018. The unexpected declaration, coming one month after Trump’s Commerce Department had banned ZTE from purchasing American-made parts because it had sold technology to North Korea and Iran, floored his own national security adviser, John Bolton, who later called it “policy by personal whim and impulse.” But it must have delighted Branstad.

At the time, Branstad was working at the lobbying firm Mercury Public Affairs, which had a $75,000-a-month contract with a law firm hired by ZTE to roll back the sanctions. According to the Intercept, Branstad took the gig at Mercury just months after stepping down from his job at the

Commerce Department. Even more troubling, Branstad’s father, former six-term governor of Iowa Terry Branstad, was serving as ambassador to China.

Though Branstad never registered as a lobbyist for ZTE, in June 2018, he and a ZTE lobbyist at Mercury did travel to China, where they met with Chinese-government groups. In an interview with the Intercept, Branstad denied involvement with Mercury’s ZTE account and said he had traveled to China to “culturally connect and show good feelings.” (Ethics rules clearly prohibit former officials from lobbying their own departments for five years after they leave.) He now works as a senior adviser to the Trump campaign.