A top lobbyist returns to the White House - Semafor

A conservative firebrand who helped craft the Trump administration’s campaign against Ivy League universities has returned to the White House to help chief of staff Stephen Miller build his team, a move that will test the administration’s efforts to contain the influence of lobbyists within the White House.

May Mailman, who left her post as Trump policy adviser in 2026 to launch her own lobbying firm, will join the White House on a temporary basis as a special government employee, Axios first reported and Semafor confirmed.

In recent months, Mailman had built a healthy stable of corporate clients with active matters before the Trump administration, including Vestis, a uniform supplier which has pushed the FTC to block a rival’s acquisition, people familiar with the matter said. The FTC is poised to block that deal, Semafor earlier reported.

Other companies she’s worked for include Netflix, Meta, HPE, Comcast, and KKR, according to the people. Mailman, as well as the firms, either declined to provide a comment for this story or did not return a request for comment.

Mailman served as a policy adviser early in Trump’s tenure, helping Miller go after Harvard and Columbia for what the administration called indifference to antisemitism on college campuses. She decided to return to the administration in recent days after Miller was named chief of staff, with Miller asking her to help him staff up his team and find ways to optimize relationships between government entities.

Mailman ruled out a policy role when discussing her return to public service, though, in part over concerns that it would fuel a perception of impropriety, one person with knowledge of her thinking said.

Still, the revolving door between the White House and lobbying work raises questions around how much Mailman stands to benefit personally from her new role and about the level of influence that corporations have held over this White House. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mailman informed clients of her new role within recent days, and has instructed her firm — which she has taken a leave of absence from — to not engage with the White House while she is serving there for the next few weeks, some of the people said.

Americans on both sides of the aisle have grown frustrated with the level of influence big corporations have over this administration — with a CNBC survey of voters finding that corruption was the number one issue going into the midterms.

That perception has only been fueled by the list of Trump-connected lobbyists who have gone in and out of the White House, perhaps the only bipartisan move left in DC.

Mailman, perhaps uniquely, has shied away from the kind of publicity that some lobbyists have courted. And her efforts to create a firewall between her clients and her firm, as she returns to government service, stand in contrast to other administration power brokers, who openly tout their relationships with administration officials.