A top Donald Trump campaign adviser — who apparently was shown classified documents by the former president — has a top post at a lobbying firm serving Chinese entities that potentially pose a national security threat and help Beijing commit human rights abuses.
Susie Wiles works on Trump’s 2024 campaign and is co-chair of Mercury Public Affairs, which has taken millions of dollars in recent years from Chinese companies such as Yealink, Hikvision and Alibaba.
Wiles, a veteran of several GOP campaigns including Ron DeSantis’ 2018 run for Florida governor, has also been identified as one of several people to whom the 45th president allegedly revealed sensitive material, ABC News reported late Wednesday.
According to a 37-count indictment brought earlier this month by special counsel Jack Smith, a “PAC representative” — reportedly Wiles — visited the 77-year-old ex-president at his Bedminster, NJ, golf club in August or September 2021 and was improperly shown a classified map of a foreign nation.
Trump told the person “he should not be showing the map” and “to not get too close,” prosecutors say.
If confirmed, the episode is further complicated by both Wiles’ high standing in the Trump campaign and her firm’s lobbying for potential hostile entities — though a search of the Justice Department’s registry of foreign agents indicated Wiles had not worked directly for those clients.
“Susie could put Trump away for years in just one minute of testimony to Jack Smith,” a rival GOP operative told The Post. “She’s got Trump by the balls, which means she can name her price for her loyalty and Trump can’t say no.”
“Jack Smith and the Special Counsel’s investigation is openly engaging in outright election interference and meddling by attacking one of the leaders of President Trump’s re-election campaign,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement that did not address his adviser’s lobbying work. “President Trump has consistently been in full compliance with the Presidential Records Act, which is the only law that applies to Presidents and their records.”
The telecommunications company Yealink, whose products were flagged for security issues, reportedly paid Mercury $240,000 in 2022, according to lobbying disclosures.
In September 2021, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) wrote a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo noting a security analytics company found Yealink phones contained software to secretly record calls and track web browsing on local networks.
That data can then be transferred back to administrators in China, where companies must comply with any government requests to hand over information related to national security.
Mercury did not terminate its business with Yealink until May 2023.
The lobbying firm also had the US subsidiary of Hikvision as one of its largest foreign clients last year, raking in more than $1.7 million, according to the money-in-politics tracker OpenSecrets.
Hikvision makes video surveillance equipment for the Chinese government, some of which has been used to locate and detain Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, Axios reported in April.
Since 2019, the Commerce Department has barred US companies from selling goods or services to Hikvision, but not all of its subsidiaries.
In November, the Federal Communications Commission also rejected new-device authorizations for Hikvision and other companies that were deemed national security threats.
It is unclear whether Wiles’ firm kept Hikvision as a client into 2023.
Mercury also still receives payments from Alibaba, in which the Chinese government holds a minority stake.
Since 2022, the lobbying firm has collected $400,000 from its work with the tech giant.
Wiles did not respond to a request for comment.
The former president was arraigned earlier this month on charges of having withheld sensitive intelligence information and then lying to federal officials about it. Trump has maintained he “did nothing wrong.”
