The White House’s Push To Pause the Hemp Ban Smells Like Cronyism

Senate Republicans’ plan to pass a stopgap funding bill has hit a snafu: hemp. 

A provision in the chamber’s continuing resolution would pause the upcoming ban on the sale of any “hemp-derived cannabinoid product” with over 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container until December 11.

Its inclusion has led to a “deadlock” amongst Senate Republicans, with no path to reconciliation on the issue, according to The New York Times. Set to take effect in November, the ban is the brainchild of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.), who was an early champion of hemp but later became a fierce critic of its psychoactive derivatives, which he described as “more potent than marijuana.” 

Now the White House is placing its thumb on the scale to get the provision added. 

Pleading his case during a phone call with senators on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said his administration is “working on a broader framework” for “THC products for medicinal uses” and that he didn’t want its work complicated by a ban, according to Axios. The president’s call came after White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles visited Capitol Hill to sell lawmakers on Trump’s hemp agenda, reports the Times. 

In a less colorful administration, the president and his staff cajoling Congress on legislative language wouldn’t be as newsworthy. But in this case, efforts to pause the hemp ban might directly benefit Wiles’ son-in-law, Bret Worley, CEO of several companies that “distribute and sell intoxicating-hemp-derived gummies and vapes.” Lawmakers also got help from Howard Kessler—an advocate for CBD and billionaire with ties to Trump— whose allies “worked with the White House on the language sent to Congress,” according to the Times.

The White House has denied any potential conflict of interest, according to the Times, but there’s little reason to give the Trump administration the benefit of the doubt when it comes to cronyism. 

In the year and a half since returning to office, business has been good for the president, his family, his advisers, and those connected to them. 

At least 15 companies tied to Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have repeatedly won government contracts, totaling at least $3.2 billion “in direct government business” and “an additional $3.1 billion in future contract options,” according to The Washington Post. These include a $620 million Pentagon loan to Vulcan Elements three months after  Trump Jr.’s investment company took an equity stake in Vulcan—and a $24 million contract between the Pentagon and a robotics company, Foundation Future Industries, backed by Eric Trump.

Meanwhile, Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial firm led by Kyle and Brandon Lutnick—the sons of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick—reportedly received millions for acting as a middleman in a $1.6 billion deal between the government and mineral mining company USA Rare Earth.

Worley is already using the incident as an example of his cachet with decision makers, telling prospective buyers that the hemp industry was inside the “machinery” and now had a “seat at the table,” according to the Times.

But the White House backing the pause hasn’t gotten every Republican senator in line.

In a speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Ted Budd (R–N.C.) accused the “intoxicating hemp industry” of being behind efforts to delay the ban. He blamed efforts to pause the ban on the industry’s “well-oiled, slick lobbying machine,” accusing them of waging a “surreptitious war” to prevent lawmakers from protecting “American children.” Budd has since introduced an amendment to strip the provision, a move that has received support from over a dozen senators, including Sen. Pete Ricketts (R–Neb.), who gave his own speech denouncing “look-alike” hemp products with “intoxicating levels of THC.”

For its part, the White House has maintained that any efforts to pause the ban are solely because the administration has plans of its own for THC. In an interview with Politico, Trump ally Sen. Rick Scott (R–Fla.) said the administration had committed to “regulate the industry.”

At the very least, the administration’s meddling might lead to a temporary pause on an ill-conceived ban projected to wipe out 95 percent of the hemp industry. Unfortunately, it may also be yet another example of the Trump White House making policy decisions that enrich those in its orbit.