Washington, D.C. — Northwest Iowan Sam Clovis, the former Morningside College economics professor who was co-chair of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, is leaving his post in the USDA. Friday is Clovis’ last day in the agency where he’d been serving as a policy advisor since Trump took office. Last month, Clovis was back in Iowa joking with a conservative group about his time in the nation’s capital.
Clovis’ wife did not move to D.C. and stayed in the couple’s home in Hinton. Clovis, who ran in the GOP’s 2014 U.S. Senate primary and was the Republican Party’s nominee for treasurer that fall, joined Trump’s presidential campaign in August 2015.
On April 11th, Clovis told the Westside Conservative Club in Urbandale that he was “tired of being dragged through the knothole” by the national media. President Trump had nominated Clovis to serve as the USDA’s chief science officer, but Clovis withdrew his nomination last fall after his views on climate change were challenged by some Democrats in the Senate. Some also link Clovis’s decision to withdraw his nomination to a claim that Clovis, in his capacity as Trump campaign national co-chair, allegedly authorized campaign aide George Papadopoulos to visit Moscow for an “off the record” meeting with Russian officials — and the fact that Papadopoulos resigned shortly thereafter. Clovis remained a policy advisor for the Trump administration, however, as that post didn’t need confirmation.
When Clovis spoke in Iowa last month, he reminisced about being around Trump. Trump is “an easy man to read, once you get to know him,” according to Clovis.
Clovis had an office in Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign. His title was national co-chair and chief policy advisor. Clovis says it’s been a “remarkable, life-changing experience.”
A spokesman for the USDA wished Clovis well on his “endeavors back home in Iowa” and called Clovis “a good man…who has served his country admirably.”
