Trump’s 2025 national security aides turn up on a week of new K Street registrations

By Staff Reporter

WASHINGTON — A year ago Micah Ketchel was a senior adviser at the State Department, the last stop in a run that took him from Rep. Mike Waltz’s chief of staff to the White House National Security Council. In the past week his name has appeared on three new federal lobbying registrations filed by Ballard Partners: for a South Korean-owned memory-chip maker, a trucking giant and a Cyprus investment company.

Ketchel is one of several aides from the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, and from the Senate staff that wrote this year’s spending bills, who turn up on the 201 new lobbying registrations posted to the Senate’s Lobbying Disclosure Act database from Oct. 12 through Oct. 19, according to a Washington Inquisitor review. Registrants must list each lobbyist’s “covered” government jobs from the past 20 years, under the law’s disclosure rules, which is how the moves show up in the records.

The national security alumni

Ballard Partners announced in November 2025 that Ketchel had joined as a partner to lead a new critical-minerals practice. The release said he had most recently served as senior adviser in State’s Bureau of International Organizations, “where he acted as a primary liaison between the Bureau and the United States Ambassador to the United Nations”. His firm biography lists him as a partner in Washington and Caracas.

Ketchel’s filings list his covered positions as “Senior Advisor, State Dept. 2025; Special Assistant to the President & Senior Advisor to the NSA, White House 2025; Chief of Staff, US Rep. Mike Waltz 2019-2025.” The new clients:

The Solidigm registration also names Thomas Boodry, whom the filing lists as “Spec. Asst. to President Donald Trump & Sen. Dir. for Leg. Affairs, WH, NSC, Jan2025-April2025,” after more than two years as Waltz’s legislative director. Hunter Morgen, on the same filing, lists White House trade and policy jobs from Trump’s first term. Ballard’s January announcement of a Western Hemisphere practice and Venezuela working group put Ketchel, Boodry and Knott on that team.

Knott, who the J.B. Hunt filing says was chief of staff to Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) from 2023 to 2026, added a note to his entry: “Lobbying does not include Senate.” Federal law bars senior Senate staff from lobbying the Senate for a year after they leave.

From Interior and Senate Appropriations

At Squire Patton Boggs, Adam Suess is listed on a new registration for Woodside Energy USA Services, the U.S. arm of Australia’s Woodside Energy Group, on “Section 232 and Section 301 tariff issues.” His covered positions: acting assistant secretary and principal deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management at the Interior Department from March to October 2025, then senior counselor to the secretary until February 2026. Squire announced his hiring this year. He also lobbies for the Alaska gas venture Polar LNG, according to the firm’s third-quarter report.

At Akin, Jen Becker-Pollet is named on new registrations for Radia Inc., on “strategic airlift capabilities,” and for building-products maker Carlisle Companies. Her filing lists her as clerk of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on financial services and general government from May 2024 to March 2026. Akin announced her arrival March 30, saying she had been lead Democratic staffer on a subcommittee overseeing about $30 billion a year. Truman Reed, who lists jobs as deputy chief of staff and legislative director to Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-Texas) through 2025, appears on the Carlisle filing and on a new registration for IRH Global Trading, an Abu Dhabi metals company whose listed owners include International Holding Company.

What the filings don’t show

Registrations disclose who a firm expects to lobby and on what. They don’t show fees, which arrive with quarterly reports, or which officials the lobbyists contact. None of the registrations reviewed lists a specific federal agency as a target. Nothing in the filings indicates that any of the lobbyists broke ethics rules, and moving from government to lobbying is legal, subject to cooling-off periods for senior officials.

Third-quarter lobbying reports are due Tuesday, Oct. 20, and will show what several of these clients paid. The Inquisitor sent questions to Akin, Squire Patton Boggs, Solidigm and J.B. Hunt about the hires and the scope of the work, and asked the watchdog group the Revolving Door Project how it views the pace of 2025 alumni registering. None had responded by publication time Tuesday morning. Ballard Partners, which does not publish a press email, could not be reached.

Photo: A K Street NW street sign at Farragut Square. Ben Schumin / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.