Susie Wiles resigned as Donald Trump’s chief of staff last week, as Republicans absorbed a devastating midterm defeat that gave Democrats control of both the House and Senate.
At 69, Wiles served as the president’s chief gatekeeper, controlling access to Trump and determining which issues reached the Resolute Desk.
After the loss, Republican figures and MAGA influencers turned against her, with some calling for Wiles to accept responsibility for the party’s failure.
Calley Means, a former senior aide to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., went further. He accused Wiles of prioritizing the donors financing the midterm effort over the interests of voters.
In a bombshell interview with Joe Rogan, Means alleged that Wiles intervened to stop a federal review of children’s sugar consumption. According to Means, she told him: ‘I need the sugar industry money. I need the money for the midterms.’
Wiles rejected the allegation. A spokesperson described it as ‘outrageous, defamatory, and provably false.’
Representative Robert Garcia, the California Democrat expected to chair the House Oversight Committee, said he nevertheless plans to examine Means’ claims. Attorney General Todd Blanche has said the Justice Department will not open an investigation.
The controversy has intensified scrutiny of the money flowing through Trump’s Washington, where corporations pay lobbying firms millions of dollars to influence federal policy.
Wiles’ younger daughter Caroline, 40, married Bret Worley, 30, at Trump’s Virginia winery in June
Former White House chief of staff Susie Wiles with her younger daughter Caroline
Before entering the White House, Wiles spent almost a decade as a managing partner at Ballard Partners, leaving the firm in 2019. Its federal lobbying revenue climbed from under $20 million in 2024 to more than $88 million last year. Senate records show the firm brought in over $98 million during the first nine months of this year.
Brian Ballard, the firm’s founder and a major Trump fundraiser, said Sunday that Ballard Partners’ dealings with Wiles while she was chief of staff ‘have been limited and have been the exception, not the rule.’
Both of Wiles’s daughters are also involved in Washington’s lobbying and business networks, although a White House official said last month that Wiles ‘does not discuss work matters with her daughters.’
Wiles’s older daughter, Katie, is a partner at Continental Strategy, a lobbying firm that receives $35,000 a month from Republika Srpska, a pro-Russian region of Bosnia.
Katie came under scrutiny last month after a photograph surfaced showing her holding a rifle alongside the region’s interior minister, who has received an honor from Vladimir Putin. Her firm said she has never discussed the region with U.S. officials.
Wiles’s younger daughter, Caroline, 40, married into another politically significant industry. Her husband, Bret Worley, 30, whom she wed at Trump’s Virginia winery in June, operates a hemp business.
His company, MC Nutraceuticals, supplies brands with hemp-derived THC, the intoxicating compound in marijuana used in products including gummies, vapes and beverages.
A legal loophole has allowed companies such as his to sell THC products at gas stations and smoke shops throughout the United States. Congress voted last November to close that loophole, prompting industry warnings that the ban could destroy the sector.
Trump called on Congress in April to revise the measure. ‘We must get this done RIGHT and FAST,’ he wrote on Truth Social.
The Daily Mail can now disclose that, one week later, money from the hemp industry was paid to a little-known company operated by Caroline.
The political fund of Hemp Industry & Farmers of America, or HIFA, a trade association opposing the ban, paid $15,000 to Retriever Consulting, where Caroline is listed as manager. Retriever was established by her future father-in-law, Jeff Worley. His son Bret, whom Caroline married several weeks after the payment, had previously served on HIFA’s board.
The ban was ultimately delayed and moved into the year-end funding legislation, which lawmakers must approve by December 11.
The White House has previously denied that Wiles pushed for the delay.
Trump and Wiles share lunch at the White House in March
Jeff Worley and Caroline Wiles celebrate their engagement in the Lombardy Alps
A spokeswoman for Caroline said Retriever was ‘no longer in use and in the process of termination.’ She added that Caroline ‘has not lobbied for HIFA or any specific company.’
Caroline also serves as vice president of federal affairs at Rubin, Turnbull & Associates, a Florida lobbying firm. Its federal lobbying revenue rose from below $200,000 in 2024 to more than $7 million in 2025, Wiles’s first year in the West Wing. Senate records show the firm’s revenue exceeded $8 million during the first nine months of this year.
Caroline is not registered as a federal lobbyist.
The $15,000 HIFA payment to Caroline’s company is now prompting ethics concerns and could give Democrats additional ammunition when they regain subpoena power in the next Congress.
‘Fifteen thousand doesn’t seem to be a huge amount of money, but you have got to do something for it,’ Richard Painter, who served as chief White House ethics lawyer under George W. Bush, told the Daily Mail.
‘I think one of the questions that would come up is what services did the daughter perform for the contract?’ Painter said. ‘I would have to do quite a bit of work to get $15,000.’
Painter said the timing of the payment ‘will certainly draw questions from Congress’ and that lawmakers could subpoena records related to the deal ‘come January,’ when Democrats take control of the chamber they won last week.
‘These Trump-related lobbying firms have got very, very wealthy on the Trump administration,’ said Craig Holman, a lobbying specialist with the watchdog organization Public Citizen.
‘This is a clear line of direct influence peddling,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘Unfortunately it’s not illegal but it does mark everything about the Trump administration.’
‘If we got rid of someone like Susie Wiles out of the administration, someone like Caroline Wiles would not have that type of influence,’ Holman said before Wiles resigned.
The Daily Mail has sought comment from the White House, Susie Wiles, Rubin Turnbull and the Worley family.