The Power Trip: KNIVES OUT ON K STREET

MAGA lobbyists are chasing the old firms out of Washington and updating the art of influence peddling.

- By Ben Terris

BEFORE MY INTERVIEW with the lobbyist Ches (pronounced chess) McDowell, a Republican operative called me with a prediction: McDowell would mention his friendship with Donald Trump Jr. within five minutes. In reality, it took less than two. “Don Jr. and I own a farm together where we bear hunt,” McDowell told me when I asked about the 700-pound stuffed bear that greets visitors in the lobby of his firm, Checkmate Government Relations. Next to the bear is a chess table with a sign bearing the office WiFi password: TRUMPWONTHREETIMES! In case I hadn't caught the point, he later told me, “When Trump got shot, my first thought wasn't, Oh no, a candidate for president has been shot. It was like, My friend's dad has been shot.”

McDowell is a big man with a trim beard and a slow, welcoming drawl. He wore ostrich cowboy boots (in part because they give him a few extra inches, he said), silver warthog cuff links (because he loves hunting in Africa), and a shirt monogrammed with his initials, CFM (which he jokes stands for “Ches Fuckin’ McDowell”). In his short time in Washington, D.C., the 35-year-old has earned a reputation as someone who can get the ear of the president. The son of Baptist pastors from Welcome, North Carolina, McDowell began his career as a bankruptcy lawyer before setting up a lobbying practice in his home state. In January, after McDowell's younger brother, Addison, became a congressman amid the Republican wave that brought Trump back to power, McDowell came to Washington too. By April, he had opened an office on Pennsylvania Avenue.