One of Donald Trump’s top political advisors, Florida strategist Susie Wiles, is lobbying for tobacco company Swisher as it battles a Biden administration proposal meant to reduce youth smoking.
Wiles registered to lobby for Swisher on January 1 of this year on the topic of “FDA regulations,” according to a document filed with Congress. Until Aug. 28, Mercury Public Affairs, the bipartisan political consultancy where Wiles is a co-chair, had not filed quarterly lobbying reports for Wiles’ work on behalf of Swisher, as required by the Lobbying Disclosure Act. After Sludge inquired about the absent disclosures, Mercury Public Affairs filed a form it marked as an amendment, reporting $30,000 in income in the second quarter from Wiles’ lobbying of Congress regarding Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations. Mercury still has not filed a report of Wiles’ Swisher lobbying for the first quarter of the year, despite being required by the Lobbying Disclosure Act to do so.
In the months ahead, the FDA is expected to finalize a pair of long-awaited rules, proposed by the Biden administration in April 2022, that would prohibit characterizing tobacco products as menthol or selling cigars marketed as having any other flavor besides tobacco. Swisher, which offers a wide range of flavored cigarillos, is opposing the tobacco product standards, arguing that they violate the First Amendment, among other things.
“The proposed rules would help prevent children from becoming the next generation of smokers and help adult smokers quit,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra in the announcement. “Additionally, the proposed rules represent an important step to advance health equity by significantly reducing tobacco-related health disparities.”
Mercury did not respond to Sludge’s questions about Wiles’ lobbying activities.
Wiles, a veteran political strategist who previously led campaigns for Florida Sen. Rick Scott and Gov. Ron DeSantis, is one of a trio of consultants steering Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign bid. Wiles was a key player in Trump’s 2016 win in Florida, before being unceremoniously ousted from Trump’s re-election bid in 2019 amid feuding with former allies like DeSantis.
In March 2021, Wiles was brought back into Trump’s inner circle to oversee campaign fundraising and serve as the chair of Trump’s Save America PAC, a leadership PAC which since the start of that year has received $125 million, according to Federal Election Commission figures. Since her return, she’s been recognized as a close confidant of Trump.
According to an analysis by the nonprofit OpenSecrets, about 71% of Save America PAC’s spending this year has gone toward Trump’s legal costs as he is facing numerous federal and state indictments, totaling $21.6 million so far.
Until last year, Wiles had worked for more than decade as a managing partner in the Jacksonville office of government affairs firm Ballard Partners, which was founded and led by Brian Ballard, a top Trump fundraiser in 2016. In 2017, during the Trump administration, Wiles registered as a federal lobbyist, racking up dozens of clients including Jacksonville Electric Authority, General Motors, and fossil gas company Eagle LNG Partners. In April 2019, Ballard Partners registered Wiles to lobby on “Tobacco and Vaping industry issues” for SI Group Client Services—the cigar company known as Swisher International.
In February 2022, public strategy firm Mercury Public Affairs announced that it had brought on Wiles as a co-chair in its Florida and Washington, D.C. offices.
Some of Mercury’s other clients include oil & gas companies Energia and Aiteo, fossil fuel trader Coral Energy, Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group, and Blue Cross / Blue Shield, according to records maintained by OpenSecrets.
Swisher International followed Wiles to her new firm Mercury, where it is her only registered lobbying client to date. Until this week, Mercury had not filed a report disclosing the targets of her communications on behalf of the cigar maker, which were the U.S. House and Senate.
Delaney Marsco, senior legal counsel in Ethics for the nonprofit watchdog Campaign Legal Center, told Sludge, “Under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, a lobbyist is required to file quarterly reports if they are registered as a lobbyist during the reporting period unless a termination is filed.”
Swisher advertises sweet cigarillos in flavors like cream, white grape, blueberry, purple swish, and island bash, a marketing tactic that would be banned by one of the proposed FDA rules. In a statement responding to the FDA’s proposal, Swisher pushed back, describing concerns about youth usage of flavored cigars as “without scientific basis” and arguing that consumers should be able to make their own choices.
Swisher International filed a regulatory comment opposing the FDA’s proposed flavor ban in August 2022, submitted by Executive V.P. and General Counsel Christopher L. Casey along with law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. In its pushback, Swisher argues that the FDA’s proposed rule is impermissibly broad and “would violate the First Amendment” by threatening to “chill manufacturers’ ability to communicate about their own products with customers who are willing listeners.”
