Three senior staffers who worked directly for Vice President JD Vance have left his office and taken positions at Washington lobbying firms, a move that Politico reported Monday and that is already feeding speculation about whether Vance is quietly laying groundwork for a 2028 presidential campaign. The Daily Caller noted that the departures place experienced Vance allies across K Street at a moment when the vice president's political future is the subject of intense interest inside Republican circles.
Sean Cooksey, Vance's former chief legal and policy adviser and a one-time chair of the Federal Election Commission, left for BGR Group. Jim Durrett, who served as deputy chief of staff for operations, moved to Invariant. And Wesam Hassanein, a special adviser on the Middle East who participated in U.S.-led negotiations with Iran under Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, joined Continental Strategy.
None of the three had been in Vance's office for very long. Cooksey started in January 2025. Durrett and Hassanein both arrived in May 2025. Yet each brought serious credentials, and each now sits in a position to build the kind of donor and policy relationships that any future presidential contender would need.
Michael LaRosa, a former assistant to President Joe Biden who is now a partner at Ballard Partners, told Politico that Vance is still assembling the kind of institutional support system that seasoned politicians take for granted. LaRosa drew a comparison to Biden, who benefited from decades of staffers cycling between government service and the private sector.
"Vice President Vance has been in politics for several years, but is very new to Washington and has a very young staff. His connective tissue and relationships are still being nurtured and cultivated."
LaRosa added a line that captured the broader dynamic well, saying, "The plane is still being built in-flight, which is not dissimilar to the path his boss charted when he first ran." The comparison to President Trump's unconventional rise is telling. Trump built his political operation outside the traditional party apparatus. Vance, by contrast, now has allies embedding themselves inside Washington's influence industry, a more conventional approach to accumulating political capital.
That distinction matters. A Politico source noted that the departing staffers are staying close to the White House and want the Trump administration to succeed. The implication is that these moves are not a sign of internal friction but of strategic positioning, people who want to remain useful to Vance while building the kind of Rolodex that wins primaries.
Politico's reporting drew a pointed contrast between the Vance staff departures and the exodus that plagued Vice President Kamala Harris during her term. Aides left Harris in the middle of her tenure, and the departures were widely read at the time as a sign of dysfunction. The Vance situation looks different. His former staffers appear to be moving outward by design, not fleeing a sinking ship.
Vance has been a visible policy actor in the Trump administration, not a sidelined figurehead. His office has been involved in everything from Middle East diplomacy to domestic regulatory fights. Hassanein's role in the Iran negotiations alongside Witkoff, for instance, gave the vice president's team direct exposure to one of the administration's highest-profile foreign policy efforts.
That kind of portfolio builds the résumé a future candidate needs. And placing alumni at firms like BGR Group, Invariant, and Continental Strategy ensures that Vance's orbit extends into the lobbying world where campaign fundraising relationships are forged and policy priorities are shaped long before any formal announcement.
It is worth being precise about what is known and what is not. No one in Vance's office has confirmed any plans for a 2028 presidential run. The Daily Caller's reporting frames the staff moves as fuel for speculation, not as evidence of a declared campaign. There is no filing, no exploratory committee, no public statement from Vance himself.
But in Washington, the absence of a denial is its own kind of signal. And the mechanics of what is happening, experienced aides fanning out across the influence industry while maintaining ties to the vice president, follow a pattern that political operatives recognize. It is exactly how you build infrastructure without announcing anything.
Vance's international profile has also been rising. As recently as April 12, he was in Islamabad for a news conference after meeting with representatives from Pakistan and Iran. His high-profile appearances abroad have kept him in the headlines and given him the kind of foreign-policy credentials that Republican primary voters increasingly value.
Cooksey's background is particularly notable. President Trump appointed him to the FEC commissioner role in 2020, and he later rose to chair the commission. A former FEC chair now working at a major lobbying firm while maintaining close ties to the vice president is the sort of arrangement that makes campaign-finance lawyers sit up and pay attention.
Durrett's path is similarly instructive. Before managing Vance's agenda as deputy chief of staff for operations, he worked as a deputy assistant to President Trump. He has relationships inside both the Trump and Vance operations, the kind of dual loyalty that would be invaluable in a 2028 primary where the Trump coalition's future direction is the central question.
Conservatives have long criticized the revolving door between government and K Street. And that criticism is fair when former officials use their access to enrich themselves at the public's expense. But the revolving door also serves a legitimate function: it keeps experienced people engaged in the policy process and gives elected officials allies who understand both government and the private sector.
LaRosa's point about Biden is instructive even for Republicans who have no affection for the former president. Biden's decades-long network of former staffers scattered across Washington gave him an enormous institutional advantage when he finally ran for president. Vance, who has been a combative and headline-making figure in the administration, does not yet have that depth of network. These three hires suggest he is working to change that.
The open questions are significant. Did Vance encourage these moves? Are there more departures coming? Is there a coordinated strategy, or are these simply talented people cashing in on their government experience? The reporting does not answer those questions. But the pattern is clear enough to read.
Vance has also shown a willingness to engage directly with media narratives and push back against hostile coverage, a skill that any 2028 contender will need in abundance. His combativeness, combined with his policy involvement and now this quiet network-building, paints a picture of a vice president who is not content to wait and see what happens.
The 2028 Republican primary will be shaped by one overriding question: who carries the Trump movement forward? Vance, as the sitting vice president and Trump's chosen running mate, starts with an obvious claim to that mantle. But claims are not coronations, and the early positioning game matters.
Placing loyal, experienced staffers at lobbying firms where they can cultivate donors, shape policy conversations, and maintain relationships with the broader conservative ecosystem is not glamorous work. It does not generate rally crowds or viral clips. But it is the kind of work that wins nominations.
The Trump administration's broader agenda still has two years to run, and Vance's fortunes are tied to its success. If the administration delivers, Vance enters 2028 as the natural heir. If it stumbles, or if Democrats retake Congress and pursue investigations, the calculus changes entirely.
For now, three former Vance aides have new business cards at three Washington lobbying shops. That is a fact. Everything else is inference. But in this town, inference is how the game gets played, and Vance appears to be playing it.