Mercedes Schlapp

Ms. Schlapp previously served as cofounder of Cove Strategies, FOX News Contributor, columnist for The Washington Times, and Sirius XM radio host. Ms. Schlapp has been a board member and paid strategic communications consultant for the National Rifle Association, a role she gave up the month she entered the White House. In 2015 she earned $60,000 from the N.R.A. for an average of one hour of work per week, according to N.R.A. tax filings, and $45,000 in 2016. Business is in the meantime booming at Cove Strategies, the lobbying and public relations firm the Schlapps founded in 2009 (Ms. Schlapp stepped away from the business when she took her White House job). Their lobbying income alone has surged in the year since Mr. Trump took office, to more than $1 million in 2017 from $600,000 in 2015. Koch Industries — Mr. Schlapp is a former chief Washington lobbyist for the corporation — was Cove’s first client. He said there was even more income from Cove’s strategic communications work, which he declined to reveal. The Schlapps met in the George W. Bush White House, where Ms. Schlapp, who is known as Mercy and grew up in Miami as the daughter of a Cuban émigré, was a liaison to Hispanic and specialty news media outlets.