Mike Pence's Man In The Swamp

The color of dark money No Images? Click here         Swamp Thing Hello Highliners, This week we bring you a story about one of the few objectively  competent people in the Trump White House: Nick Ayers, Mike Pence's chief of staff. He's very young, very rich and very charming, with a legendary ability to sweet-talk conservative donors. When he went to work for Pence, he held onto his lucrative consulting business, putting him in a position to direct donor dollars and political support into races that his firm is involved in. It's an unprecedented conflict of interest even by the standards of this administration. (As one consultant put it, "It’s not like sticking your hand in the cookie jar. It’s as if he built a penthouse in the cookie jar and had everybody bring him cookies.")  This behavior is less blatant than that of other figures in Trumpworld, but in many ways it's more insidious. The world of political consulting and dark money is exceptionally difficult to penetrate—the writer of this piece, Vicky Ward, spent nine months investigating its most opaque practices. Her story is a portrait of someone who has made an art form of navigating the gray areas of election law, showing that the danger of our post-Citizens United campaign finance system is not just what's illegal, but what has been made possible. —Rachel Morris   READ THE ARTICLE     Highline combines the rigor, depth and obsessiveness of the best magazine journalism with the experimentation that becomes possible when no paper or staples are involved. And our goal is simple: We want to publish stories that stay with you. Did you like reading this email? Forward it to a friend. Or sign up! Can't get enough? Check out our Morning Email or Must Reads.   ©2018 HuffPost | 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 You are receiving this email because you signed up for updates from HuffPost. Feedback | Privacy Policy | Unsubscribe     - - Preferences  |  Unsubscribe