Donald Trump wants to crush The Swamp. The leaks, the sneaks, and the secrets are all there. Our writers, David Gardner, Farrah Tomazin, and Sarah Ewall-Wice, are sifting through the ooze so you don’t have to. Don’t miss out.
In this week’s news from the ooze: Cheryl Hines, Reince Priebus, Sean Connery, Alexis Wilkins, Zohran Mamdani, Tucker Carlson, Olivia Nuzzi, Adam Friedland, Brian Ballard, Dana White, Edward Lozansky, Abe Hamadeh, John LeCarre, Neil Bush, Jeff Miller, RFK Jr., and Keystone Kash.
Keystone Kash and His Country ‘Star’ Girlfriend’s Secret MAGA Past
Alexis Wilkins has suddenly found fame as FBI Director Kash Patel’s long-distance boo, but the aspiring country singer was working in Washington as recently as January.
Think how much easier it would have been for the trouble-prone FBI boss if the former child actress (who appeared in two episodes of Modern Family) had stayed put in D.C. rather than moving to Nashville to further her music career.

When Donald Trump launched his second term in a storm of chainsaw smoke, Wilkins was working as press secretary for Rep. Abe Hamadeh, the Republican congressman for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District..
“Honored to be a part of ushering in leadership for a safer, more prosperous, GREATER nation. Excited to be on the team. 🇺🇸 Let’s make answering to the people great again,” Wilkins wrote on her X account on December 9, 2024.

She started work for Hamadeh, on January 3, 2025, helping him set up his office. By February 6, she was no longer doing comms for the Trumpy lawmaker.
According to public records, she earned precisely $7,083.33 for her month’s work, putting her above average when it comes to the congressional pay scale.
The Swamp has reached out to Wilkins to ask what precipitated such a short tenure on Capitol Hill. Why not “quiet quit” like everyone else?
Clearly, Patel, 45, is determined to support and protect his girlfriend, who, at 27, is nearly half his age, relying on taxpayer dollars to pay the bill to do so.
His use of the feds’ jet to watch her sing at a wrestling match in Pennsylvania made headlines, as did his apparent insistence that she needs a SWAT team to protect her from potentially troublesome fans while singing The Star-Spangled Banner at an NRA convention in Atlanta.
Wilkins was raised partly in England and Switzerland before moving to Arkansas when she was nine. Her father worked for Gillette, her mother worked in aerospace, and the family shuttled back and forth to Los Angeles when she was a teenager so she could pursue her acting career.
She has been dating Patel since January 2023, and makes no secret of her MAGA views on X. She used to be a contributor to the conservative video network PragerU. She even went to the same bougie Swiss school, College du Lemon International School, as Tucker Carlson, before studying business and political science in college.
Less MAGA, but still Republican, she sat next to Neil Bush—brother of President George W. Bush—at a Points of Light GenerationOn Block Party in 2015 in Los Angeles, California.

“My family raised me to be a strong woman with strong conservative values, and I’m certainly not about to apologize for it despite the baseless attacks from the fake news, biased media, or those who seek to twist my hard work or my relationship for clicks,” she told The Swamp.
Fortunately for the FBI director, his girlfriend doesn’t have any upcoming concerts. But maybe Kash can tag along with her next time in a vehicle with a lighter carbon footprint—like a pink LEGO Cadillac.
The Russia House (not that one) (or that one) for Sale
In its prime, Russia House at 1800 Connecticut Avenue in Dupont Circle was a focus for the Russian community in America’s capital. Founded in 1991 by Edward Lozansky, the beaux-arts house (nothing to do with the John le Carre book or the movie starring Sean Connery) was bought, in part, from the advance on the nuclear physicist’s book about his struggle to reunite with his family after emigrating from Russia in 1976. Although Moscow had agreed that his wife, Tatiana, the daughter of a Soviet general, and their daughter, Tania, could follow Lozansky to the U.S., it took six years before they were finally permitted to fly to Washington. The house cost Lozansky $700,000, and it’s up for sale this week for $7,400,000.

Hines and Nuzzi in Book Race to the Bargain Bin
It seems there is not the fascination with RFK Jr.’s women that some publishers may have expected. His wife, Cheryl Hines, 60, had a new hardcover book, Unscripted, published on November 11, which was approximately #28,206 on Amazon this week. The former star of Curb Your Enthusiasm was ranked #41 in “Rich and Famous Biographies.” So much for the woman who actually sleeps with RFK Jr.. What about the one who just fantasizes about it? Kennedy’s “digital lover” Olivia Nuzzi, 32, has a book out next Tuesday—American Canto—that apparently discusses her cerebral affair with the HHS secretary that cost the now Vanity Fair West Coast Editor her “reputation.” Her pre-sales ranking, despite a glut of publicity, was #17,375.
Mamdani’s MMA at the Oval
Waiting for his historic chat with Donald Trump at the White House on Friday, New York’s Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani took a moment to check out the coffee table books. No doubt he expected glossy picture books on past presidents or D.C. history. But the tome he chanced on was UFC at the White House. It was a book about the president’s plan with Dana White to hold a fight night on the South Lawn next June. Mamdani flipped through the book, trying to focus on the mission ahead. “Are you gonna go?” he was asked on comedian Adam Friedland’s podcast. His answer was a firm no, and Friedland followed up: “How did you not laugh?” Mamdani said he was too busy worrying about his city. Trump is already spending a small fortune on a ballroom, which will add 90,000 square feet to the White House. A UFC octagon only requires 750 square feet, so a permanent fighting stage would easily fit into those plans.
Show me the money…
Thanks to his generous donors/suck-ups, Donald Trump is moving full speed ahead on building his $300 million ballroom in place of the historic East Wing. But it turns out, many of those corporate donors all have one thing in common: their lobbyists. Two-thirds of the corporations named to cough up funds for Trump’s gold-plated vanity project are clients of Brian Ballard, Jeff Miller, and Reince Priebus. A report from Public Citizen shows Ballard’s firm represents 11 of the donors including big names like Amazon, Booz Allen Hamilton and T-Mobile. Booz Allen paid Ballard’s firm $270,000 this year while another ballroom donor NextEra Energy paid the firm $150,000, according to OpenSecrets. Miller’s firm represents six, ranging from Altria and Apple to Peter Thiel’s Palantir Technologies. Altria paid the firm some $300,000 this year. Apple paid the lobbyist $540,000. The firm that Trump’s first-term chief of staff Priebus works for, Michael Best & Friedrich, reps five of the big name donors shared by the White House including Lockheed Martin which has paid the firm $140,000 this year and Microsoft which forked over $140,000 to the firm for work. The nonprofit organization called it a giant loophole for potential favor-seeking. Many of the corporations, including those in the tech and defense industries, have major government contacts and interests before the federal government. The White House isn’t the only thing doubling in size. The Swamp is, too.
Aww, Look, I’m Compensating
Trump was desperate to win the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize and if you glanced at his desk during his recent meeting with New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, you might think he had. In the foreground to Trump’s left, facing the cameras, sat a large, gold medal displayed in a dark-brown wood box.

From a distance, the medal looked like an impressive objet—like something a world leader might receive for ending eight wars in eight months. But zooming in for a closer look—Enhance!—revealed the coin was merely cosplaying as a Nobel Prize. In reality, the coin bore the Presidential Seal (of Approval.)

And who better to earn the Presidential Seal of Approval than the President himself? It’s unclear why the medal was so prominently displayed, but since this is Trump, who peddles his own brand of wine at Coast Guard-run stores, it’s possible that he used the highly-watched Mamdani meeting as an ad for his latest “Collector’s Item.” The coin does look suspiciously like the “Trump 47th President Gold Coin” available online. According to the website, the coin was “Crafted with exceptional detail and quality…designed for those who appreciate prestige and legacy.” The non-monetary tribute can be purchased for $37.19 (marked down from $61.99) and includes a plastic protective case.






