Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm with close ties to President Trump, has drawn a surge of high-paying clients with foreign interests seeking access to the administration and federal agencies. Led by top Trump fundraiser Brian Ballard, the firm raked in more than 200 new clients in the wake of Trump’s election win, setting a new record for lobbying revenue last year, topping $88.1 million.
The Florida-founded firm, which employed Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, is known for its founder’s decades-long relationship with Trump and his ability to set meetings with the president and the executive branch. Brian Ballard reportedly raised over $50 million for Trump’s 2024 campaign.
Many of its biggest spenders in 2025 were foreign companies or clients with significant foreign business interests. Ballard reported millions of dollars in payments from clients including oil and gas company Balkan Energy, based in Albania; TotalEnergies, for its liquified natural gas project in Mozambique; critical minerals company Korea Zinc; and TikTok, as its Chinese owner ByteDance negotiated new U.S. ownership.
Several more of Ballard’s top lobbying clients have foreign ties: one is the New Era Fund, examined in detail below, a defense and aerospace investment fund for ventures with Saudi Arabia. A second is the holding company of Bancrédito, a Puerto Rican bank in liquidation after a bribery scandal. A third is the former fugitive and cryptocurrency billionaire Roger Ver, who cut a deal with the Department of Justice (DOJ) over tax evasion charges after living in Mallorca.
Nearly all of these clients hired Ballard Partners after Trump’s election win—quickly becoming among the firm’s top lobbying spenders. (TikTok hired the firm a few months before the 2024 election.) And nearly all have benefited directly from Trump administration actions. Altogether, these seven clients paid the firm more than $7 million for lobbying during Trump’s first year back in office, and three of them were its top spenders.
On top of its federal lobbying for foreign companies, Ballard Partners has also registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) to represent foreign governments, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Japan, and Saudi Arabia, earning from $1 million to $2 million annually. Foreign clients are still coming in: November, Ballard inked a contract, worth $1 million a year for up to five years, to represent Uzbekistan’s national oil and gas company. The country, criticized by Human Rights Watch for civil liberties restrictions, had just signed a trade deal with the U.S. and is seeking investments in the state-run Uzbekneftegaz.
Ballard's rush of foreign lobbying revenue comes after AG Pam Bondi, on her first day in office, drastically limited the enforcement of Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), laws that have been used to investigate and prosecute political corruption. Bondi’s Feb. 5 memo to DOJ staff outlined a focus on “more traditional espionage” by foreign actors, lessening attention to cases involving bribery, like the indictment of Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) and payments from Azerbaijan. (Cuellar, a member of the the House Appropriations Committee, was later pardoned by Trump.) Bondi was listed as key personnel on Ballard’s 2019 foreign-agent work for the embassy of Qatar, which included consulting and advocacy on U.S. relations and anti-human-trafficking issues. In May, she approved Qatar’s gift of a $400 million luxury jet to Trump.
As Ballard Partners builds out its D.C. office, and dethrones lobbying heavyweights like Brownstein Hyatt for the title of highest-earning shop in town, it has been expanding its partnerships across the globe. In August 2024, the firm announced the launch of the Ballard Global Alliance, touting “exclusive partnerships” with strategic communications and public affairs firms abroad. With offices in Tel Aviv, Istanbul, Lagos, Riyadh, and elsewhere, the Alliance brought on several new partners in 2025, including firms in Brussels, Canada, and Mexico City. Not long after the Trump administration’s attack on Venezuela in the first days of January, the firm launched a Western Hemisphere Affairs Practice, featuring a dedicated Venezuela Working Group. The effect is that a prominent Trump campaign bundler is expanding his network to funnel foreign lobbying interests into the executive branch.
In October, Brian Ballard and his firm’s partners were on the guest list for a thank-you dinner at the White House for donors to Trump’s ballroom project, according to CBS News, alongside a few other lobbyist-bundlers. The event gave them an opportunity to mingle with billionaire donors in Trump’s orbit, like TikTok owner Jeff Yass and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
Ballard Partners declined to comment on detailed inquiries from Sludge regarding its lobbying disclosures for the New Era Fund, Balkan Energy, and Korea Zinc, or how its lobbying relates to its FARA-registered work for Saudi Arabia.
Saudi-Tied VC
In August, a new investment partnership with Saudi Arabia, called the New Era Fund, hired Ballard Partners as its first and only lobbyist. A source with direct knowledge confirmed to Sludge that the client is the same fund that the White House announced in May, with some fanfare, as the New Era Aerospace and Defense Technology Fund. It was billed as a $5 billion sector-specific fund that was part of “the largest defense cooperation deal in U.S. history” and “a clear demonstration of our commitment to strengthening our partnership” with Saudi Arabia. The fund’s structure is still opaque: the New Era Fund does not appear to have filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and it has no public web presence.
For the New Era Fund, described as a capital growth fund, Ballard lobbied on the issue of “Advancing Defense and Aerospace cooperation between the United States and Saudi Arabia.” The registration listed a residential address in Rhode Island, and said that no foreign entities contribute to its lobbying activities. Unusually for such a high-spending client, the filings list Ballard as the only lobbyist on the account.
Ballard Partners was paid $1.2 million by this new client: in the third quarter, $600,000 for lobbying (amended upward from $400,000), though the disclosure says Brian Ballard did not contact any covered officials in Congress or federal agencies; and in the fourth quarter, $600,000 for non-lobbying activity. Firms are allowed to report some payments as non-lobbying income, typically from research, meetings, strategy discussions, and other planning.
Ballard has also registered under FARA for the embassy of Saudi Arabia. A contract signed March 31 shows a $60,000 monthly fee for communications strategy, event organizing, and outreach services for one year, or $720,000 total. The firm reports to the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., Reema bint Bandar Al Saud.
In November, Trump announced agreements deepening a defense and economic partnership with Saudi Arabia, which under Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has a history of domestic repression and human rights violations.
“The closer MBS gets with the U.S. in defense cooperation, the more arms sales he attracts, the easier it is for him to stay in power and for Saudi Arabia to thwart any external competition,” said Ben Freeman, director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the transpartisan Quincy Institute.
Freeman said that the headlines generated from the announcement of the Saudi partnerships serve to appeal to Trump’s ego, enabling him to promote deals. “They’re catering to Trump at the same time, so it’s really two-for-one for MBS,” he said.
In a follow-up post touting its May deal with the Saudis, the White House quoted praise from “New Era Fund and New Vista Capital General Partners Adam Kaplan and Kirsten Bartok Touw, along with Saudi Excellence Co. Chairman Sheikh Abdullah Zaid Al-Meleihi.”
Al-Meleihi, a businessman and tech investor, joined Ballard Partners as a partner in the new Riyadh office in July 2024. Saudi Excellence, a holding company based in Riyadh, makes plays in AI and drone startups: it inked a 2023 deal with an autonomous drone company, works with space technology companies, and announced a deal with a U.S.-based AI and robotics company.
Kaplan is an entrepreneur and investor whose LinkedIn page mentions an adviser role with New Vista Capital, under a section that lists his affiliations via the “GCC,” or Gulf Cooperation Council. Kaplan shares a last name with a family linked in public business and residential records to the New Era Fund’s address in Rhode Island. Kaplan is the co-founder of satellite imagery and AI company Edgybees and belongs to an association of Israeli tech startup founders. His LinkedIn profile mentions an ongoing stealth venture that began in July 2024. Kaplan did not respond to a request for comment.
Bartok Touw, co-founder and managing partner of venture capital firm New Vista Capital, which focuses on the defense and aerospace sectors, appears often on podcasts and at industry events. New Vista, described by Tectonic Defense as an “inside-the-Beltway VC if there ever was one,” was founded in 2020 by aerospace investor Touw, former Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg, and retired U.S Air Force Gen. Stephen “Seve” Wilson. The firm invests in early-stage companies aiming for government contracts in areas like autonomous vehicles, space-based technologies, and AI systems. In July, Touw and the New Vista Capital Fund filed with the SEC for a new offering of securities, and in December announced its debut $60 million fund, signaling interest in areas like the Trump administration’s “Golden Dome” missile shield.
A 2023 letter from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to the Department of Defense’s Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) flagged Bartok Touw as an OSC adviser with investment stakes in defense companies that present a clear conflict of interest. “I am concerned that this office is already too cozy with private investment firms,” the letter said. “For example, when there was a run on Silicon Valley Bank, OSC was one of the offices urging government intervention.”
New Vista’s portfolio startup Castelion, a hypersonic missile company, was awarded new Army and Navy contracts in October, and last year was awarded some $59.2 million in defense contracts with the Air Force. In December, Castelion closed a Series B funding round of $350 million, which it said positions it to deliver “a top Pentagon modernization priority” in hypersonic munitions. Also last year, portfolio company Hawkeye 360, a space-based analytics company for defense and commercial clients, announced a new $100 million deal with an international partner, after in May getting the green light for foreign military sales to India in a deal worth around $131 million.
Sludge inquired with Bartok Touw and New Vista Capital about the firm’s relationship with the New Era Fund and investment money from Saudi Arabia, and did not receive a response.
Albanian Oil
The fossil fuel company Balkan Energy DMCC, whose name uses a Dubai free-zone designation, is based in Tirana, the capital of Albania, according to Ballard’s registration. The company quickly became the top lobbying client of Ballard Partners last year after hiring the firm in March. The company paid Ballard $1.7 million for lobbying, including a hefty $750,000 in the fourth quarter of 2025 alone—for comparison, more than Palantir paid the firm for lobbying all year. Previously, Balkan Energy had only spent $25,000 on lobbying, in the first quarter of 2024, with the law firm McCarter & English.
The company’s website says it operates in the trade and transport of crude oil, methane gas, and petroleum products like fuels. It mentions its “presence in the United Arab Emirates and South Africa,” though it names no employees and its site has not been updated in years. Its phone number and webform are not in operation.
For Balkan Energy, Ballard Partners lobbied the State Department, National Security Council, and White House Office on “assistance and guidance breaking into foreign energy markets.” In addition to Brian Ballard, lobbyists on the account included senior partner Sylvester Lukis and Jasmine Zaki, managing partner of Middle East and North Africa practice.
The firm has worked for clients in the country before: in 2017, Ballard Partners was hired as a foreign agent by the Socialist Party of Albania, whose leader Edi Rama remains prime minister of the country. The firm provided advocacy and communications advice to the party in its dealings with U.S. leaders, a 12-month deal worth $20,000 a month, at a time when the party was facing scrutiny from the European Union and criticism from its conservative rivals over election practices.
While Albania has boosted its renewable energy capacity under Rama, arranging to transmit clean energy to customers like Italy, the country was still exporting crude oil from aging infrastructure, according to a 2023 article from Agence France-Presse.
Critical Minerals, ‘Bitcoin Jesus,’ and Others
In July, Korea Zinc, the world’s largest zinc smelter, hired Ballard Partners, and spent $1.2 million lobbying with the firm on “critical mineral and metal development,” a key issue for the Trump administration. In addition to the Department of Defense (DOD), Department of Energy, the U.S. Senate, and others, the firm lobbied the Director of National Intelligence.
Late last year, Korea Zinc announced the refurbishment and construction of a $7.4 billion critical minerals refinery in Tennessee, largely funded by billions in U.S. government loans and subsidies, saying the DOD will hold a 40% stake in the venture. Ballard Partners applauded the deal on X, writing, “Proud to partner with Korea Zinc as they deliver on President Trump’s mandate to reshore manufacturing & secure U.S. supply chains.” The administration taking equity stakes in critical minerals companies marks a departure from previous policy, signaling to markets that projects without such support are at greater risk.
For many of these high-spending foreign clients, Ballard Partners’ quarterly lobbying disclosures are sparse on details, providing little view on the services it performs for millions in lobbying revenue. For example, from November–December, the firm was paid $630,000 by the law firm representing Bancrédito for lobbying of the White House Office, by Ballard and Lukis, on the issue of “Banking regulatory restrictions and requirements.” The bank’s holding company filed a lawsuit in the previous months against three international law firms, contesting legal advice that it says led to a $15 million fine.
TotalEnergies, the oil supermajor based in France, paid Ballard Partners $770,000 to lobby for its LNG production project in Mozambique, with over half that amount spent in the first quarter of the year in lobbying the White House Office. The firm listed only two lobbyists on the account: Ballard and Dan McFaul, managing partner in D.C. and a 2016 Trump transition team member. In March, the U.S. Export-Import Bank approved a $4.7 billion loan for the project that had initially been awarded during the first Trump administration. The project was enmeshed in a reported massacre and other severe human rights violations.
In Ver’s case, Ballard and three lobbyists at the firm were hired in September, and were paid $900,000 by his lawyers, Chris Kise & Associates, to lobby the White House and DOJ on “U.S. government crypto currency enforcement policy.” Known as “Bitcoin Jesus,” Ver had long encouraged wealthy individuals to take up residence in Saint Kitts and Nevis, which does not apply individual income taxes. In the October settlement, Ver entered a deferred prosecution agreement, admitting he failed to disclose Bitcoin holdings in 2014 when he renounced his U.S. citizenship, and agreed to pay a $50 million penalty, avoiding prison time.
TikTok hired the firm on Aug. 1, 2024 to lobby on “Issues related to internet technology, regulation of content platforms,” spending $600,000 in 2025 lobbying Congress, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the White House Office. Throughout last year, Trump repeatedly delayed a legally-mandated deadline for the app’s owner ByteDance to sell off its holdings to an American company or be banned. Finally, last month, TikTok announced it had completed a deal for a new U.S. ownership structure that will preserve an almost 20% stake for ByteDance in the app—and, according to Bloomberg, send the Beijing company 50% or more of its overall profit.
