Welcome to Pay Dirt—exclusive reporting and research from The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay on corruption, campaign finance, and influence-peddling in the nation’s capital. For Beast Inside members only.
As Jack Burkman has tried and failed, often in ham-fisted fashion, to drum up false sexual-misconduct allegations against perceived political opponents, he’s maintained a robust federal lobbying practice. And though Burkman is better known than he’s ever been, few have heard of his partner in that business, whose firms have won millions of dollars in military security contracts.
According to lobbying-disclosure filings, Ralph Palmieri has been lobbying for J.M. Burkman & Associates since at least 2008, working on well over a hundred of the firm’s accounts in that time. He’s also helped out Burkman with some of his political endeavors, lending his name to an invitation to a 2016 Trump presidential campaign fundraiser at Burkman’s home.
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Burkman’s lobbying business appears to have thrived, even as he pursues a number of underhanded smear campaigns against high-profile political figures. Most recently, he and his co-conspirator, internet troll Jacob Wohl, attempted to recruit gay Republican men to falsely accuse Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg of sexually assaulting them. Last year, Burkman and Wohl tried—and failed—to orchestrate a similar campaign against Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
There’s no indication that Palmieri was involved in those or other Burkman-backed disinformation operations. But while his lobbying partner has carried those out, Palmieri has managed the Washington, D.C. office of a federal contractor that does business with a host of federal agencies.
Palmieri’s LinkedIn page lists him as the general manager of Washington operations for X-EETO, a position he’s held since 2008. In that time, the company has won nearly $30 million in federal IT and security contracts, with the latest award just last year, according to federal procurement database GovTribe.
According to its website, X-EETO’s clients have included numerous branches of the Pentagon, the Justice Department, Drug Enforcement Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Transportation.
Palmieri is also the vice president of global corporate development for Abila Security & Investigations, which also won a handful of federal contracts through 2010.
Attempts to reach Palmieri were not successful. Messages left with X-EETO and Abila were not returned.
By all accounts, he is a highly accomplished professional in his field. He was previously a vice president at Lockheed Martin and executive vice president and COO of the Sytex Group, an IT and technical support contractor acquired by Lockheed in 2005. Before joining the private sector, Palmieri served as an “electronic warfare officer” in the U.S. Army, according to his official bio.
It’s a professional record that Burkman makes sure to plug at every opportunity.
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