The 2015 Ashley Madison hack led to the leak of millions of email addresses for users, including government officials and business executives. | Getty Name of Trump admin hire surfaced in Ashley Madison hack

The Trump administration has hired the former executive director of the Louisiana Republican Party whose name turned up on a list of accounts released in the 2015 hack of the cheating website Ashley Madison.

Jason Doré started on Monday as assistant chief counsel for external affairs for the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy, he confirmed to POLITICO on Monday. His office advocates on behalf of small businesses to the federal government and helps address concerns about regulations that may impact small businesses.


In 2015, Doré told the New Orleans Times-Picayune he used the Ashley Madison site for opposition research. He said on Monday he stood by that explanation. He told POLITICO the incident “really never came up” in his recent job interviews.

“I addressed it at the time. It’s not a secret,” he said of the episode.

Doré remained executive director of the state party, and when he resigned on Friday he was the longest-serving executive director of a Republican state party in the country, he said.

The SBA’s advocacy office, where Doré will work, did not respond to a request for comment, and an SBA spokesman did not comment because the advocacy office is "a separate, independent office." The White House said Doré was not a political hire from the Presidential Personnel Office and did not comment further.

The 2015 Ashley Madison hack led to the leak of millions of email addresses for users, including government officials and business executives, registered on the site. Doré told the Times-Picayune that he used his account, which was created in his name in 2013 and used his former personal credit card billing address, for legal work at his firm, Doré Jeansonne. Doré, a graduate of Louisiana State University and LSU law school, spent $175.98 on the site, the paper said.

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“As the state’s leading opposition research firm, our law office routinely searches public records, online databases and websites of all types to provide clients with comprehensive reports,” Doré told the paper at the time. “Unfortunately, it ended up being a waste of money and time.”

During his time leading the Louisiana GOP, Doré said the party made gains in the U.S. Congress and state legislature. “We won majorities on the Supreme Court and the state Board of Education and the Public Service Commission, all first-time things, and defeated Mary Landrieu, which was a big deal,” he told POLITICO.