Joe Biden Paid Campaign Adviser So Much, It Outraged Other Staffers: Book

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.

Biden dropped out of the race in July amid growing concerns about his mental and physical sharpness.

Donilon asserted in February that Democrats “melted down” after Biden’s fateful debate against Donald Trump, and that the impression of Biden being impaired was perpetuated by the media.

“Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again” chronicles the behind-the-scenes drama generated by his health woes.

Donilon was a top senior adviser in the White House and known to be in Biden’s small inner-circle when his move to chief campaign strategist was announced in January 2024. O’Malley Dillon, who also was among Biden’s closer associates and was already a deputy chief of staff, joined the campaign as well. (Both helped engineer Biden’s victorious run in 2020.)

O’Malley moved on to chair Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid, which ended in defeat to Donald Trump.

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