Months after Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, quit the lobbying firm he co-founded after the 2016 election, he appears to be working with a new one, reviving questions about whether he is still cashing in on his relationship with the president.

The firm, Turnberry Solutions LLC — a name that calls to mind Trump Turnberry, the president’s Scottish golf resort — is staffed by two lobbyists who worked for Lewandowski’s old firm. While Lewandowski has denied any link to the firm, there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary.


Lewandowski was on a recent conference call between Turnberry and one of its clients, according to the client, and Turnberry also created an email address with his first name on it. A source familiar with the firm told POLITICO that Lewandowski also traveled to Poland earlier this month with two of Turnberry’s lobbyists to pitch the firm’s services to the Polish government.

It’s not clear when Lewandowski started working with Turnberry.

The firm started lobbying last month for two clients, Elio Motors and the Center for Sportfishing Policy, according to disclosure filings made public this week. The Turnberry lobbyists listed on the filings, Jason Osborne and Mike Rubino, are both veterans of Avenue Strategies, the lobbying firm Lewandowski started last year with another Trump campaign veteran, Barry Bennett. Lewandowski quit Avenue in May after a series of unflattering stories about him appearing to sell access to the White House.

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According to a source with knowledge of the matter, Bennett fired Osborne in June after discovering that Osborne had told one of Avenue’s clients, the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration, that he was leaving to start a new firm with Lewandowski.

Lewandowski has insisted he isn’t working with Turnberry.

“Get your facts right,” he said in a brief interview on Friday. “I have nothing to do with Turnberry Solutions.”

Osborne did not respond to requests for comment. Rubino initially agreed to an interview but later changed his mind. “Nothing to comment on,” Rubino wrote in an email. “It’s a business and we are lobbying on behalf of our clients. Which is something that happens across DC on a daily basis. There’s no news here and whatever additional news you publish is sensationalistic #fakenews.”

Elio Motors hired the fledgling firm after an Elio investor made an introduction this summer, according to Joel Sheltrown, Elio’s vice president for government affairs, who declined to name the investor. Elio is developing a super-economical three-wheeled car and was looking for help getting Congress to pass legislation that would clear up the regulations that apply to such vehicles. The company had previously retained a Democratic-leaning lobbying firm, Heather Podesta + Partners (which has since changed its name to Invariant), but scrapped the contract after Trump’s surprise victory.

“We felt we needed a firm with Republican ties,” Sheltrown said.

Lewandowski was on an initial conference call between the company and Turnberry, but Sheltrown said he didn’t know whether Lewandowski would play a role in advising or advocating for the company. “He knows a lot of people in D.C.,” Sheltrown said. “He may be able to facilitate a meeting for us.”

But Sheltrown said Osborne is doing the bulk of the work.

“If I’ve got an issue that I need some answers on, I call Jason. I don’t call Corey,” Sheltrown said. “If Jason has a question, I’m sure he calls Corey.”

Asked why he had a Turnberry email address, Lewandowski responded by text message. “My email is at Lewandowski Strategic advisors,” he wrote, referring to another firm he started after leaving Avenue. “Thanks for your continued interest in my daily life.”

Turnberry is also making overtures to foreign governments, according to a source familiar with the firm. Lewandowski, Rubino and Osborne flew to Poland earlier this month to pitch the Polish government, according to the source.

Lewandowski has touted his access to Trump outside his work with Turnberry, too. In a recent conversation with Elin Suleymanov, the Azerbaijani ambassador to the U.S., Lewandowski promised that he could get the Azerbaijani president a meeting with Trump, according to a source familiar with the exchange. Asked whether he had promised access, Lewandowski responded by text message: “No — I don’t do foreign work. Sorry.”

The ambassador said he didn’t have “any information” on whether Lewandowski works for Azerbaijan.

Lewandowski had a prime opportunity to hobnob last week with potential clients at an off-the-record luncheon discussion with Eric Bovim, a managing director at the Signal Group, a lobbying firm, at the Hay-Adams Hotel, across the street from the White House. About three dozen “ambassadors and corporate types” attended the luncheon, according to a source in the room, but Lewandowski “did not sell himself or his firm.”

Lewandowski denied pitching foreign governments and said it was “100 percent factually inaccurate” that he had gone to Poland. The Polish Embassy did not respond to requests for comment.

Lewandowski never registered as a lobbyist even while he was working for Avenue, and maintained that his consulting work didn’t meet the threshold for lobbying. After quitting Avenue in May, Lewandowski started a new firm , Lewandowski Strategic Advisors LLC, and signed Community Choice Financial, an Ohio payday lender, as one of his first clients.

But Lewandowski told The New York Times that he didn’t plan to register as a lobbyist.

“I don’t lobby and I don’t intend to lobby — ever,” Lewandowski wrote in an email.

