It's unclear exactly when Jeff Wood began working for the campaign. | Getty Trump campaign taps GOP energy lobbyist as adviser The adviser is a former aide to Sen. Jeff Sessions.

The Trump campaign has recruited a Republican lobbyist and former aide to Sen. Jeff Sessions to advise the nominee on energy policy, according to sources familiar with the campaign.

Jeff Wood’s role in the Trump campaign is yet another sign of Session's influence on the nominee’s policymaking apparatus, which has suffered from internal tension in recent weeks. Wood served as a legal counsel for Sessions from 2011 to 2014, focusing on energy and environmental issues, before becoming a partner at Balch & Bingham, a firm where he served earlier in his career.


Before joining Sessions’ office, Wood was an in-house lawyer at Nashville-based Ingram Barge Company, a leading inland waterway shipping business.

Sessions endorsed Trump in February, long before the New York developer locked down the Republican nomination, in a perceived blow to Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) primary hopes.

According to public records, Wood has lobbied for Southern Company and the Alabama Power Company.

Wood is working closely with Andrew Wheeler, another Trump campaign energy adviser. Wheeler is the co-leader of the energy and natural resources practice at the firm Faegre Baker Daniels and a former Republican staff director on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Trump's campaign has also received high-level energy policy advice from Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm (a contender for energy secretary in a Trump administration), Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray and North Dakota Rep. Kevin Cramer.

Wood, Wheeler and the Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment. It's unclear exactly when Wood began working for the campaign.