Donald Trump’s latest campaign finance filing contains the names of dozens of companies that were paid for services, but one really stands out: Draper Sterling, a play on the name of the fictional ad agency from the cable TV series “Mad Men.”
The firm that collected $35,000 from Trump for “web advertising” in late April isn’t headquartered in Madison Avenue offices filled with mid-century modern furniture and stylish secretaries; it traces back to a private home in suburban New Hampshire that’s about a 15-minute drive from the home of ousted Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
Unraveling what it is and how it wound up getting a big chunk of Trump change is a bit like trying to figure out Don Draper’s true identity.
Draper Sterling was only incorporated in March, and the registered agent, according to New Hampshire public records, is a man named Jon Adkins — who separately was paid $3,000 in May for “field consulting” by the Trump campaign.
Another man using Adkins’ New Hampshire address, former Navy SEAL Paul Holzer, also pocketed $3,000 for field consulting on the same day, the filing shows.
Holzer and Adkins are listed as co-founders of a Boston-based medical non-profit startup called Xeno Therapeutics, and Holzer has other political connections, having worked on GOP gubernatorial campaigns in Massachusetts and Missouri.
As ThinkProgress reported, Holzer is the brother of Adam McLain, who runs the super-PAC Patriots for America. The super-PAC’s filing show it owes more than $56,000 to a firm called — you guessed it — Draper Sterling.
That Draper Sterling is located in Delaware, not New Hampshire, though. Delaware records don’t show who runs it, and it’s not clear if it’s the same entity.
Patriots for America’s filings list a phone number that answers with a message that says, “This is Grace’s Grantham Cafe” — a name of a cafe that was slated to open last weekend in Grantham, New Hampshire. Corporation records show the registered agent for the cafe is Adkins, but it was Holzer who made a presentation before the Grantham planning board about the business in February.
Efforts to reach Holzer, McLain and Adkins by phone and social media were unsuccessful. Holzer told Fortune that there was “nothing untoward” about Draper Sterling but would not talk about the Trump campaign.
“Part of the agreement with any client is that you sign a non-disclosure agreement, so I won’t discuss any specific work done for any specific client,” said Holzer, who also is a student at Dartmouth Medical School.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to questions about Draper Sterling and the work it did.
