Calley Means, a former senior adviser to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is accusing Susie Wiles, the recently departed White House chief of staff, of shaping the administration’s hemp policy to benefit her family, Politico reports.
Means told Politico that Wiles “put her finger on the hemp policy scale because of her family,” and said senior administration staff widely discuss it. In his account, her influence led to a delay in a pending ban on intoxicating hemp products. He has also accused Wiles of doing the bidding of ultraprocessed food, e-cigarette and pesticide makers, claims he has made on Joe Rogan’s podcast and CBS.
Politico notes that Wiles’s son-in-law, Bret Worley, is CEO of MC Global Holdings, which owns businesses that sell products threatened by the ban, according to an August New York Times report. Congress passed the ban with bipartisan support last year and has until Dec. 11 to reach a compromise or postpone it again. Politico says the hemp industry is lobbying hard, and that CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz urged senators over the summer to delay the ban, citing seniors’ Medicare access.
Means called it “an insult to our intelligence” that Wiles previously said she doesn’t discuss business with her family. He said he believes Trump and Stephen Miller understand the need to rid Washington of her approach to politics.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, now governor-elect, said in January that MC Global violated a 2025 settlement over alleged deceptive marketing of some cannabis products. The company didn’t respond to Politico.
Wiles pointed Politico to an earlier statement about Means but didn’t provide it. White House spokesperson Allison Schuster said the administration won’t allow outside groups to influence policy decisions.