White House Press Aide Raj Shah Dives Into Lobbying Swamp

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

Raj Shah has left his role as White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary and Deputy Assistant to the President. Shah occasionally filled in for Sarah Huckabee Sanders when she was still holding daily press briefings, which have since stopped without notice.

For much of 2018, until he was confirm-end Shah acted as the White House’s point person to ensure the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Shah will “launch and head media affairs firm Ballard Media Group with high-profile lobbyist Brian Ballard,” Shah said in a statement Monday, HuffPost reports. “Jamie Rubin, a former assistant secretary of state for public affairs under President Bill Clinton, has also signed on to lead the project.”

Shah is making the move ahead of other confirmation battles and an extraordinarily high attrition rate. This week William Barr, President Trump’s far right wing religious extremist nominee to become Attorney General will face his first confirmation hearings.

“As the Trump administration begins its third year, a quarter of the President’s Cabinet is filled by acting department heads,” CNN reports. “On top of that, across the government, almost 40% of key leadership positions that require Senate confirmation are vacant.”

Sarah Sanders was expected to exit the White House by the end of last year. That does not appear to have happened.