CHARLOTTE — Former Charlotte Hornets President Fred Whitfield is going back to work. Not in pro sports, though. Instead, he’s joined forces with a man described this week by the Wall Street Journal as the ringleader of the “MAGA lobbyists upending Washington.”
Whitfield has joined Winston-Salem-based Checkmate Government Relations, a lobbying firm founded in December 2023 by Ches McDowell, the firm’s 35-year-old managing partner. Whitfield’s title is senior strategic advisor.
McDowell and Whitfield, in a joint interview with CBJ on May 1, said Whitfield will continue to live in Charlotte and consult with clients here while also leading business development, primarily for the firm’s first office in Washington, D.C., newly opened on Pennsylvania Avenue, not far from the White House.
The Wall Street Journal attributed McDowell’s rise to lobbying prominence in Washington to an unorthodox approach that included a falconry outing with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last fall — months before Kennedy became a Cabinet member in the second Trump administration. The main photo accompanying the story shows McDowell in khakis and a blazer standing next to a taxidermied bear.
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