Like other former administration officials, ex-chief of staff Reince Priebus is banned from lobbying the White House or any senior administration officials under the terms of President Donald Trump’s ethics pledge. | Win McNamee/Getty Images Former Trump chief of staff Reince Priebus offered advice to T-Mobile

Former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus has offered advice to T-Mobile, according to three people familiar with the situation, making him at least the second Trump insider in contact with the company in recent months.

Two of the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss it, said Priebus had communicated with T-Mobile about its merger with Sprint, which requires approval from the Justice Department.


The people familiar with the conversations could not say whether any formal arrangement existed between Priebus and the company. Priebus declined to comment. T-Mobile didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

Priebus, who spent less than six months as chief of staff before President Donald Trump fired him, rejoined his old law firm, Michael Best & Friedrich, in October as president and chief strategist. He’s revealed little about the work he’s done since then, though he told POLITICO in November he was signing up clients.

“I'm not selling access,” Priebus said at the time. “I'm merely providing strategic advice and helping them handle their problems.”

Like other former administration officials, Priebus is banned from lobbying the White House or any senior administration officials under the terms of Trump’s ethics pledge. The ban doesn’t cover consulting or legal work that doesn’t meet the definition of lobbying.

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T-Mobile has already leaned on Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager, for advice on the Sprint merger since announcing its plans in April.

T-Mobile retains Turnberry Solutions, a lobbying firm started by two of Lewandowski’s former colleagues that operates out of the same Capitol Hill rowhouse where Lewandowski lives and works while in Washington. T-Mobile has said Lewandowski isn’t doing any work for the company that meets the definition of lobbying.

T-Mobile, which spent nearly $8.4 million on Washington lobbying last year, also has more than two dozen other lobbying firms on retainer, according to disclosure records.

Helping companies win government approval of potential mergers is a lucrative business on K Street. AT&T hired nine separate outside lobbying firms to lobby on its merger with Time Warner, which a federal judge approved this month over the Justice Department’s objections.

T-Mobile hasn’t hired Michael Best Strategies, the lobbying arm of Priebus’ firm, according to disclosure records.

Sprint has hired Seth Bloom, a former counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee, to help win approval of the merger. SoftBank, the Japanese company that owns most of Sprint, has retained its own lobbyists to work on the issue.

Priebus wouldn’t be the first former chief of staff — sometimes referred to as the second most powerful position in Washington — to offer advice to companies while his old boss was still in the White House.

President Barack Obama’s second chief of staff, Pete Rouse, joined the law firm Perkins Coie in Obama’s second term, where he offers strategic advice to corporate clients without lobbying for them. Other former chiefs of staff serve on corporate boards.

Heading to K Street remains the exception rather than the rule for former chiefs, according to Chris Whipple, who interviewed 17 former chiefs of staff for his book, “The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency.”

That’s true even for some former chiefs of staff who have gone into the private sector. Bill Daley, who succeeded Rouse as Obama’s chief of staff, went to work for a hedge fund after leaving the White House. Another Obama chief of staff, Jack Lew, joined a private equity firm after serving as Treasury secretary.

“I think chiefs of staff should be held to a higher standard, and they are also people who should know better than to immediately go back to the trough in Washington,” Whipple said.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated Chris Whipple's comment about former chiefs of staff in the final paragraph. The quote has been corrected.