President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is facing internal strife over the alleged conduct of a senior adviser, Boris Epshteyn, who has been accused by at least one Republican politician of seeking to personally benefit from his ability to influence Trump’s power. Little cupboard chooses.
Former Missouri Governor Eric Greitens filed an affidavit with the transition team alleging that “Mr. Epshteyn’s general tone and demeanor gave me the impression of an implied expectation to enter into business transactions with him before he would advocate or propose my appointment to the government. President.”
“This created a sense of unease and pressure on my part,” said the statement, which was first obtained by the online publication Just the News and shared with CBS News. Greitens and his attorney, Timothy Parlatore, verified the one-page document with CBS News.
Parlatore confirmed to CBS News that the statement was filed in connection with an internal investigation being conducted by David Warrington, who served as general counsel to the Trump campaign. According to Parlatore, Warrington interviewed Greitens late last week about his interaction with Epshteyn and then asked Greitens to submit the statement. Warrington did not respond to a request for comment.
“It was important to me to protect the president because I was concerned about the ethics of what was happening,” Greitens told CBS News. “Very specifically, I was concerned that there was an offer to advance a nomination in exchange for financial payments.”
Epshteyn told CBS News that he is “honored to work for President Trump and with his team.”
“These false claims are false and defamatory and will not distract us from Making America Great Again,” Epshteyn said in his statement.
Trump’s transition team confirmed it had conducted a review and now planned to move forward with the matter, as first reported by CNN. “As usual, a broad review of the campaign’s advisory agreements has been carried out and completed, including with regard to Boris, among others,” said transition spokesman Steven Cheung. “We will now move forward together as a team to help President Trump make America great again.”
Epshteyn has been a near-constant figure at Trump’s side in recent years, keeping him in the air and helping coordinate his multiple legal teams behind closed doors. These teams have had undeniable success, obstructing Trump’s two federal criminal cases before they could go to trial and thwarting a state case against Trump in Georgia. Trump was convicted in the only case that went to trial, in New York, but the sentencing in that case was recently postponed indefinitely. On Monday, special prosecutor Jack Smith asked a federal district court for a ruling reject the charges against Trump stemming from an alleged scheme to undermine the transition of power after the 2020 election, and he also sought to end his attempt to revive the case against Trump stemming from his alleged abuse of sensitive government documents.
Epshteyn, who was born in Russia and immigrated to New Jersey with his family when he was 11, was introduced to the Trump sphere by Georgetown University classmate Eric Trump. He started as a low-level staffer during Trump’s first run for office and parlayed that into a junior position on the White House communications team. Two months later, he abruptly resigned due to unclear circumstances, but by then he had managed to win over Trump as his loyal confidant and fixer.
Epshteyn’s supporters praise his ability to carry out orders and solve problems, which they attribute to a frenetic energy, his bulldog personality and a shrewd understanding of the political dynamics of Trump’s advisers. Epshteyn has become so close to Trump that the president-elect jokingly calls Epshteyn “my psychiatrist,” The New York Times first noted. According to multiple sources, Epshteyn’s access to Trump is sometimes matched only by family members.
In the weeks since Trump won his second term as president, Epshteyn has been a mainstay in discussions about filling the Cabinet. The New York Times reported that Epshteyn was instrumental in recommending former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz to serve as attorney general, a bid that ultimately fell out of favor and was withdrawn.
The status of Epshteyn’s consulting firm in assisting with the transition is unclear. But before the 2024 election, the company seemed robust. A review of publicly available data shows that his company has received more than $1 million from Trump’s campaigns and aligned PACs since 2020, and another $1.2 million from other campaigns.
While there is nothing new about political consultants – on both sides of the aisle – using their connections, interviews with about two dozen Trump advisers, lawyers and allies show that Epshteyn’s political consulting work has drawn both praise and resentment.
CBS News spoke to more than a half-dozen Republican candidates who have aligned themselves with Epshteyn. Many described his pitch, in which he offered a range of services, including “strategic advice” on messaging and growing a candidate’s social media presence. But almost all those interviewed said his access to Trump had appeal.
As his 2022 Republican Senate primary approached, Don Bolduc wanted to make sure Trump didn’t play spoiler by endorsing one of his New Hampshire rivals. Bolduc said he turned to Epshteyn “to effect interference within the Trump circle.”
Such a service is not cheap. “I thought $100,000 was a lot of money for what we were asking for, but that’s what we paid,” said Bolduc, who added that Epshteyn gave “no guarantee” that Trump would not support a rival.
Bolduc won his primary after Trump remained neutral. He told CBS News that while it seemed to him he got what he paid for, the experience left him disillusioned with the transactional side of elections. After the campaign ended in defeat in the general election, Bolduc said he had chosen to leave politics for good.
“There is nothing honorable about politics,” said Bolduc, a retired Army brigadier general. After his unsuccessful Senate race, Bolduc enrolled in a police academy and, at the age of 60, became an aspiring small-town police officer.
After publication, Rick Wiley, a senior adviser to Bolduc’s campaign, told CBS News that Epshteyn “was retained by General Bolduc’s campaign for strategic media advice with conservative media, and he delivered.”
Wiley mentioned three shows Bolduc appeared on, saying they allowed “his campaign to reach supporters and voters across New Hampshire and across the country.”
Among those who hired Epshteyn for his campaign services in the past was Greitens, who served as governor of Missouri during part of the first Trump term. In the weeks since Trump won re-election, Greitens said he had contacted Epshteyn for help in qualifying for appointment as secretary of the U.S. Navy.
“During the conversation, despite the absence of an explicit offer, Mr. Epshteyn’s comments and behavior suggested that he might be happy to offer a position in the administration in exchange for financial consideration, but such offer would happen in a subsequent discussion,” Greitens wrote. . “He stated that there ‘would be time for that later’ and that it ‘wasn’t time for that yet’.”
“Mr. Epshteyn’s general tone and conduct gave me the impression of an implicit expectation to enter into business transactions with him before advocating or proposing my nomination for president,” Greitens wrote. “This created a feeling of unease and pressure on my part.”
