https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/08/us/politics/tony-podesta-lobbying-democrats.html
The Russia Inquiry Ended a Democratic Lobbyist’s Career. He Wants It Back.
Tony Podesta turned to art dealing after becoming ensnared in the Trump-Russia scandal. With his friends running Washington, he is eying a return to lobbying.
WASHINGTON — The collapse of Tony Podesta’s $42-million-a-year lobbying and public relations firm in 2017 amid a federal investigation shook K Street and rendered him toxic — a rare Democratic victim of the Trump-era scandals.
But that was only the beginning of his troubles.
Mr. Podesta, long an outsized character in the influence industry and Democratic fund-raising, turned to his enormous collection of modern art for solace and income. But when the pandemic sent the art market reeling, he sold the penthouse condo in Washington he had been using to show and sell his collection, and secured a loan from the government’s Paycheck Protection Program for struggling small businesses.
Discussions about consulting gigs and a return to a fund-raising circuit that had turned its back on him were halted by a combination of his declining income, pandemic restrictions and an infection from knee surgery that left him hooked to an intravenous antibiotic drip for months.
To top it off, he said, his email accounts and website were frozen after Chinese cyberthieves launched a wide-ranging phishing campaign using one of his domain names.
“It’s not been an easy time,” Mr. Podesta, 77, said in an interview, recalling a low point when he was being attacked on Twitter by former President Donald J. Trump and a television crew was on his block anticipating an indictment.
But the indictment never came.
The Justice Department dropped its investigation, Mr. Podesta’s health began improving and pandemic restrictions were lifting. Mr. Trump was defeated and Mr. Podesta’s longtime allies took control in Washington.
Now Mr. Podesta is exploring a return to a landscape he once dominated.
“I don’t want to recreate what I had, but I sort of miss working, and art alone doesn’t sustain me, because I love politics,” he said.
The reception he gets could help answer some questions about life in Washington after Mr. Trump. Did the backlash to the open access-peddling and corporate influence of the Trump era result in brighter lines between corporate lobbying, fund-raising and governing? Or has the capital simply returned to the clubby culture in which lobbyist fund-raisers like Mr. Podesta held sway?
Early indicators are mixed.
President Biden, who came to office with decades-long ties to Washington’s Democratic establishment, pledged not to accept campaign money from lobbyists or to allow them to serve in government agencies they had recently lobbied without a waiver. Nevertheless, he has drawn criticism from progressives and independent watchdogs for selecting former corporate lobbyists, consultants, lawyers and officials for a number of top administration posts, while lobbyists and consultants with close ties to his administration have capitalized on increased demand for their services.
Mr. Podesta, who has known Mr. Biden and some of his closest aides for decades, noted approvingly that the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee had accepted a combined $2,750 in donations from him last year, and that he had been welcomed at a virtual fund-raiser hosted by the campaign’s chairman, Steve Ricchetti, a longtime friend who once sold his lobbying firm to Mr. Podesta.
Mr. Ricchetti is now a counselor to Mr. Biden in the White House, while his brother Jeff Ricchetti, a former employee of Mr. Podesta’s lobbying firm, has seen his lobbying income increase significantly.
“They hire all these former lobbyists,” Mr. Podesta said. “They shouldn’t not take money from another former lobbyist.”
Mr. Podesta is not just any former lobbyist.
Over the course of three decades, he built one of the highest-grossing firms in Washington, representing companies and interests across industries and ideologies, including military contractors like Lockheed Martin and Boeing, big banks, a tobacco company, pharmaceutical makers and foreign governments including that of Hosni Mubarak, the authoritarian former Egyptian leader, Myanmar’s military junta and entities connected to the Saudi government.