A new book says Mike Donilon was paid a whopping $4 million to strategize for Joe Biden’s folded reelection bid, dwarfing the salary of campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon and generating resentment among other officials.
An Axios excerpt summary posted Tuesday of “Original Sin” by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson detailed the pay disparity that caused such bitterness.
The president ordered the campaign to “pay Mike what he wants,” the authors reported. “Senior campaign staff were outraged when they heard about this arrangement.”
Donilon’s pay was “orders of magnitude higher” than other advisers, including the $300,000 made by O’Malley Dillon, according to the book.
Axios noted from “Original Sin” that many Biden aides said the president’s top staff should have had the “courage” to warn him about the pitfalls of seeking a second term, and profited too much from a campaign that ultimately folded.
