Less than a week after news broke of his involvement in a bizarre motel room incident in Spartanburg county, South Carolina, former lieutenant governor Mike Daniel has lost the services of one of his top lobbying partners.
Amanda Wuenscher Mitchell – who had been with Daniel for more than a decade – left his firm and hung out her own shingle last week.
On August 30, Mitchell announced the formation of AWM Consulting Group, “a boutique governmental affairs firm” based in Columbia, S.C.
Describing herself as “an attorney and seasoned lobbyist,” Mitchell said her firm would provide its clients with “strategic planning, legislative drafting, monitoring, coalition development, grassroots mobilization, legislative event planning and ethics compliance and reporting all under one roof.”
(Click to view)
(Via: Mike Daniel and Associates)
Mitchell’s announcement referenced her “fifteen years of experience in the governmental affairs arena” – but made no mention of Daniel.
Interesting timing, huh?
To be clear: We have no information to suggest Mitchell’s move was in response to Daniel’s latest drama, and far be it from us to engage in unfounded post hoc ergo propter hoc speculation.
Whatever precipitated the move, though, it certainly could not have come at a worse time for Daniel – a 79-year-old native of Gaffney, S.C. who has spent several decades lobbying at the S.C. State House following his career in politics. After a decade in the state legislature, Daniel spent four years as lieutenant governor from 1983-1987. He was the Democratic party’s gubernatorial nominee in 1986, a race he lost to the late Carroll Campbell Jr.
Last week, reporter Adam Orr of The (Spartanburg, S.C.) Herald Journal filed the first mainstream media report on the bizarre incident involving Daniel – which was exclusively broken by our site back on August 24. His story recapped much of the information we had previously provided our readers, however it added several new details including an allegation about the man who assaulted Daniel – 72-year-old Donald Brock Sr. of Gaffney.
According to Orr’s report, in addition to beating Daniel with a baton over an alleged affair the latter was having with Brock’s wife, Brock “pulled a gun from his pocket and told Daniel and (Brock’s wife) they were going to die.”
According to the latest lobbying disclosure forms filed with the S.C. State Ethics Commission (SCSEC), Daniel and Mitchell share six clients in common – wireless provider T-Mobile, Anheuser-Busch, the S.C. Association for Justice, the S.C. Cemetery Association, Shelton Fireworks and the S.C. Physical Therapy Association. Additionally, she and another lobbyist working for Daniel have several other clients in common.
No word on how those accounts will shake out in 2020 …
Of interest? Mitchell is married to Cody Mitchell – a lawyer from Hartsville, S.C. Cody Mitchell is an attorney in the law firm of S.C. speaker of the House Jay Lucas.
-FITSNews
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