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.
Paul Ryan spent the last two years of his speakership insisting that he remained a man devoted to conservatrive principles even as he became more and more immersed in the stench of Trumpism. Few believed him. But now that he’s out of office and back home in Wisconsin, he’s looking for ways to elevate ideas considered central to the GOP brand before President Trump’s takeover.
Spurned by virtually everyone in Washington, Ryan is creating a forum for his own thoroughly pre-Trump brand of conservatism through the establishment of a nonprofit financed by millions of dollars left over from Ryan’s formidable political apparatus.