An attempt to force the ouster of Boris Epshteyn, a top adviser to Donald Trump, over accusations that he asked potential administration nominees to pay monthly consulting fees in exchange for lobbying for them appeared to have failed as the president-elect came to his defense.

Trump told aides at the Mar-a-Lago club, from where he is running the presidential transition, that he was irritated by what he viewed as an attempt to undercut “my people”, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The remarks underscored Epshteyn’s staying power and the trust he has engendered from Trump after he guided him and his legal team through repeated legal peril from his federal criminal cases during the 2024 campaign.

It also showed how trying to kneecap advisers with negative press coverage no longer persuades Trump as reliably it once did and may even have the opposite effect. The president-elect has increasingly taken issue with what he perceives to be a media pile-on, comparing it to how he felt hounded by prosecutors.

Epshteyn was the target of a disputed internal review conducted by the Trump 2024 campaign’s general counsel, David Warrington, that alleged Epshteyn had sought financial retainers from potential nominees, including Scott Bessent, Trump’s pick for treasury secretary, according to a person familiar with the findings.

The review relied on statements from other potential nominees, including the former Missouri governor Eric Greitens, who alleged that his interactions with Epshteyn gave him the impression that he had to engage in business dealings before he would advocate on his behalf.

Epshteyn denied the accusations and spent Tuesday evening with Trump, who was still riding high on the news that prosecutors had dismissed the two federal criminal cases against him – a victory he credited to Epshteyn – and annoyed with the ouster attempt, several of his allies said.

The reset happened as Epshteyn’s allies continued to portray the internal review as an attempt by Warrington to remove Epshteyn after he successfully pushed for Bill McGinley to be the White House counsel, rather than Warrington, who had also been in contention for the role.

His allies also took aim at Tim Parlatore, the attorney for Greitens who was once also on the Trump legal team until he fell out with Epshteyn, over his suggestion that the alleged pay-to-play scheme violated federal law.

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“A personal lawyer for any powerful person, who is then getting consulting fees on the side to influence their own client, I think that is illegal,” Parlatore said on the Highly Conflicted podcast.

“It certainly is a violation of the ethical rules. I think there is an honest services fraud argument to be made here,” Parlatore said, referring to the federal criminal statute that prohibits the non-disclosure of conflicts of interest that could defraud the wider public.

The likelihood of a prosecution is highly doubtful. Last year, the US supreme court, in a rare move, unanimously overturned the conviction of an aide to the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo for an alleged kickback scheme and narrowed the use of the statute against private individuals.