‘Is she even allowed to be doing this?’: Inside a federal judge’s side gig running a PR firm
A Trump-appointed federal appeals judge spent months running a Washington public affairs firm after being appointed to the bench last year, an arrangement that contributed to an exodus among the firm's staff and clients and only ended when the firm went out of business at the end of June.
Jennifer Mascott, a former conservative law professor who sits on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, was deeply involved in daily operations at the firm, Adfero, for at least six months after she was confirmed as a judge in October 2025, according to 14 former employees and clients granted anonymity to discuss internal details of the firm's final months.
Nine of the former employees said Mascott, who inherited her ownership stake in the firm from her late husband in 2023, worked at least once a week out of Adfero's office in Washington and oversaw the firm's staffing, business development efforts and client relations in between her full-time judicial duties in Wilmington and Philadelphia.
The firm was historically a nonpartisan business that did public relations and marketing work for companies and trade associations such as PhRMA and the National Retail Federation. In the final months of the business, Mascott brought on consultants with strong MAGA credentials, according to eight of the former employees and clients. Her leadership of the firm involved operational and strategic decisions: She required her signoff on marketing materials and suggested staff pitch the firm's services to health insurers after the loss of crucial clients like PhRMA.
The details of Mascott's involvement with the firm, which have not been previously reported, come amid a yearslong push by members of Congress and others in the legal community for stricter ethical requirements for judges. While judges are barred from engaging in business activities that could call their impartiality into question, they may maintain ownership of family businesses as long as they are not using the prestige of their judgeship to further the business or taking significant time away from their judicial duties.
Mascott said she adhered to legal and ethical requirements and ensured she was fully transparent with relevant authorities during her stewardship of Adfero. But her former employees and some of the firm's clients said the arrangement made them uncomfortable. And ultimately, the resulting loss of staff and clients led to the demise of the company after two decades in operation.
Mascott said she ran the firm as managing trustee, as requested by her late husband Jeff Mascott. Adfero was a third act for Jeff Mascott, who got his start working in House Republican offices and co-founded a constituent relationship management platform that was later acquired by FiscalNote. He founded Adfero 20 years ago and served as its CEO until a pancreatic cancer diagnosis in late 2022; he passed away in 2023.
Jennifer Mascott first took an active role in the management of Adfero at the beginning of 2025, when the second Trump administration began, according to seven former employees.
"Consistent with those fiduciary and legal and ethical duties, I endeavored to keep the company going while that was viable and also routinely consulted with long-time firm HR lawyers and other advisors and legal and ethical experts about how to comply with all requirements and how to evaluate whether the company should be wound down, sold, or otherwise entrusted to other firm leadership," she said in a statement to POLITICO.
Judicial ethics experts said Mascott's operation of the firm falls in a gray area, given its nature as a family business. The U.S. court system's code of conduct for judges generally allows continued participation in "a closely held family business," but warns such participation "may be prohibited if it takes too much time or involves misuse of judicial prestige or if the business is likely to come before the court on which the judge serves."
"If she is logging time there and it has the potential to interfere with her judicial duties, that is a no-go," said Charles Geyh, a law professor at the Indiana University Mauer School of Law who studies judicial ethics.
The nature of Adfero's work — the firm's website boasts examples of its marketing campaigns designed to "influence elected officials" — makes Mascott's situation unique, said retired federal judge Nancy Gertner, an appointee of President Bill Clinton who has called for Supreme Court justices to adopt the same code of ethics that binds lower court judges like Mascott.
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"It's not like she's making widgets," she said. "A company that she controls is sending out a message that she could never send out directly."
Mascott told staffers who questioned the arrangement that her management posed no problem as long as she recused herself from matters involving the firm, its clients or potential clients, according to three of the former employees. The explanation did little to assuage their concerns.
"On one hand, maybe the owner of the company should be involved, but on the other hand she's a judge," said one former employee. "People asked me 'Is this legal?' I don't know. 'Is this ethical?' Certainly not."
One former client pointed to Mascott's unusual arrangement as one reason they sought services elsewhere.
"She came in and was running the organization while being a federal judge, and it got very weird," said the former client. "All of a sudden, staff started leaving, and we saw that as an inflection point that it was time to move on."
Mascott had been a well-known figure in Washington's conservative legal circles long before Trump nominated her to the appeals court. A former clerk for then-D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Mascott later worked in the Justice Department during Trump's first term and the White House counsel's office during his second. Since her confirmation, she's heard appeals spanning immigration, criminal law, civil rights, employment and commercial disputes alongside Trump ally Emil Bove on the 3rd Circuit — all while attempting to keep Adfero afloat.
Throughout her vetting and confirmation process, she remained active on social media and made public appearances, including one with Thomas — unusual practices for judicial nominees, who typically refrain from public statements while they are being evaluated by the Senate. Delaware Democratic Sens. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Chris Coons panned her lack of relevant experience when Trump tapped her for the Delaware-based seat.
"She has never been a judge of any kind, yet she is nominated to one of the highest judicial posts in the country," Rochester and Coons said of Mascott in a July 2025 statement. "As far as we know, her relationship to Delaware is confined to a vacation beach house she sometimes visits in our state."
Mascott defended her legal experience during her September 2025 confirmation hearing, noting that she had filed dozens of appellate briefs around the country, including in the 3rd Circuit, and pledged to base her chambers in Wilmington, if confirmed.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) introduced Mascott at her confirmation hearing where he praised her legal scholarship, calling her "the perfect candidate for federal judge." Mascott — a member of the Federalist Society since 2006 — has testified against legislation to strengthen ethics guardrails for Supreme Court justices and publicly defended the court's rulings on presidential immunity and abortion.
Mascott disclosed her ownership of Adfero during the confirmation process, writing in documents submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee that her "late husband's estate contains a public affairs firm" and pledging to recuse herself from any matter involving Adfero or its clients.
Although employees felt sympathy for the widow of their beloved former boss, they swiftly began to chafe at Mascott's leadership.
"It was never fully addressed out in the open, but people definitely brought it up in their one-on-ones with their managers," said a second former employee. "There were whispers of, 'Is she even allowed to be doing this?'"
In February 2025, an Adfero account executive published an op-ed in PR Week on the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion in public relations. Adfero promoted the op-ed on its social media accounts until Mascott had the posts removed, according to four former employees. Mascott sent the staffer flowers congratulating her on the op-ed, but afterwards started requiring her approval on the firm's marketing materials.
After she was confirmed as a judge, one of Mascott's first actions at Adfero was removing Darren Scher, who led the firm immediately after Jeff Mascott's death, and Lauren Tyler, the firm's chief of staff. "That was a very shocking thing," said the first former employee regarding the October 2025 announcement during a staff meeting. "I didn't think it was real at first."
Eight former employees described Scher and Tyler's abrupt departure as a turning point for the firm, with several saying resignations began to pile up in the ensuing months. Scher and Tyler did not respond to requests for comment.
The shift within the firm was a stark contrast for its longtime employees. Under the late Jeff Mascott, the firm had racked up accolades that still appear on Adfero's website: a "Top Place to Work in PR" mention by PR Week and finalist for "Boutique PR Firm of the Year." Jeff Mascott was also included in PR Week's "40 Under 40" list in 2008.
"Toward the beginning of spring, I just remember coming back from weekends and finding stacks of goodbye cards from coworkers that had already left — and these are people I'd work with on Friday," said a third former staffer. "Departures just became really frequent and happened really quietly and quickly."
Remaining staff at the firm were stretched thin as departures picked up. In January, Adfero's CEO Steve Lombardo submitted his resignation, less than a year after joining the firm. He declined to comment.
"At one point, about a year ago, we were getting one resignation a month," said the second former employee. "But then it quickly turned into one person a week, around January, and then it quickly turned into one person a day."
Clients began taking note. One by one, several high-profile clients who had been with the firm for years jumped ship. The loss of one of those clients, PhRMA, hurt particularly hard.
The pharmaceutical industry trade group told Adfero in January this year that it would not renew its seven-figure contract with the firm, six former employees said. But Jennifer Mascott was undeterred, according to four of the former employees, describing the loss of the anchor client as an opportunity to pursue new business among health insurers, whose policy goals are generally opposed to the pharmaceutical industry lobby. PhRMA declined to comment.
Two former clients told POLITICO they decided to end their work with Adfero because nearly their entire account teams had left the firm. On multiple occasions, firm clients saw their entire account teams resign but were not told until the last minute due to a directive from Mascott that firm departures not be announced until just before a staffer's final day, four former employees and one client said.
As staff left, Mascott brought on consultants with deep ties to the GOP to help fill the gaps: Luke Ball — a former Trump campaign operative and frequent guest on Fox News who worked for then-Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) — and Ben Stout, a former deputy chief of staff for Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.). At least two clients declined to renew their contracts with Adfero in part because they felt Mascott was taking the firm in a more partisan direction, according to two former clients.
"We've always been bipartisan or nonpartisan, and that was sincerely very, very true," said the second former employee. "And then there was a shift with the consultants that she hired. The politics-leaning was just very blatant, and that was a departure from what people were used to."
Ball declined to comment, and Stout did not respond to a request for comment.
By April, the firm was down to a skeleton crew and its list of clients had shrunk to the low single digits, according to two of the former employees. Adfero shut its doors on June 30. The company's remaining assets will be donated to the memorial fund set up to honor Jeff Mascott after his death, Jennifer Mascott said in a LinkedIn post last month.
"I feel confident speaking on behalf of my former coworkers on this: We all loved working there when it was in its prime," a fourth former employee said. "It was just tough to see it all play out the way it ended up playing out."
