Peter Schorsch
In the latest edition of FAFO, Axel Springer has quickly gotten to the “find out” part.
Ballard Partners has dropped its lobbying contract with Axel Springer, which is the publisher of POLITICO and Business Insider, after POLITICO ran a story raising questions about Ballard’s relationship with President Donald Trump’s administration.
Axel Springer had a $500,000 deal with Ballard Partners, the powerhouse lobby shop run by Brian Ballard, to help the company “engage with the executive branch.”
Sources familiar with the firm say Ballard determined it to be untenable to represent a media company after the POLITICO report claimed, based on unnamed sources, that Ballard had been iced out of the White House.
The icing on the cake, according to sources within the firm familiar with the events, was a “hit piece” Business Insider published likening Donald Trump Jr. to Hunter Biden.
Ballard’s ditching of Axel Springer supports what Ballard’s owner said after the first POLITICO report just under a week ago: that the report was based on faulty information from anonymous sources. And indeed, Ballard had a meeting with Trump and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles just days after the report.
The POLITICO report claimed that Trump world became disenchanted with Ballard after sources alleged the firm pressured Trump into promoting a “Crypto Strategic Reserve,” which included three cryptocurrencies. One of them was from Ripple Labs, a Ballard client.
POLITICO wrote that five sources indicated that White House officials believed Ballard was profiting from Trump’s name by touting his relationship with the President and Wiles. That relationship is well-known, however, meaning Ballard didn’t need to tout anything. Anyone anywhere near K Street was already aware that Ballard had Trump’s ear.
The report further speculated that some on Ballard’s client list also rankled White House officials, including Harvard University and PBS, two Trump administration targets.
Ballard responded to the report, saying he and his firm “are accustomed to false accusations from unnamed sources due to the success our firm has enjoyed.” He fully disputed the claim that he had become persona non grata at the White House. Even POLITICO noted that there was reason to believe him, including invitations to Ballard for Trump fundraisers and a scheduled call with senior Trump officials after the March crypto incident.
If a disputed report from POLITICO wasn’t enough for Ballard to reconsider its professional relationship with Axel Springer, a second Business Insider report sealed the deal.
There, author Bethany McLean offered myriad examples of Trump Jr. cashing in on his father’s presidency, going so far as to compare him to one of the many boogiemen on the right, former President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter The lede was not buried. At all. It was right in the headline: “Don Jr. is the new Hunter Biden.”
At best for Axel Springer, the breakup with Ballard is as simple as a conflict of interest — Ballard reps the most powerful client in the world, Trump, and can’t afford to be affiliated with a media group that bashes his administration. At worst, Ballard’s diss calls into question the validity of its reporting.
Nevertheless, with its decision to ditch a media client, Ballard has flipped the script on the “iced out” narrative and, in doing so, could have saved face even if there was trouble in Mar-a-Lago paradise.
