Jerome Paul Compton, the Trump administration's pick for general counsel at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, pulled in nearly $1.2 million between January 2016 and late March of this year from his work in the Birmingham office of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, according to his financial disclosure form.
Compton, whose confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee is set for July 18, listed the Bank of Ozarks and Lawrenceville, Georgia-based Brand Banking Co., along with Wells Fargo and BB&T Bank, as among his clients. Compton also represents the state of Alabama, a relationship that will pose some limitation on what work he can do.
Compton would serve a president and cabinet member whose presidential candidacies he did not support at least not financially. According to campaign finance disclosures, Compton contributed $500 in February 2016 to U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio's presidential bid. The previous year, he donated $2,700 to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's short-lived campaign for the GOP's presidential nomination.
Otherwise, campaign finance records show, Compton has regularly contributed to his firm's political action committee, which did not report any donations to the presidential candidacies of Donald J. Trump or his secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson. (The firm's political action committee contributed $5,000 in both 2013 and 2014 to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, then a Republican U.S. senator from Alabama, in the buildup to his 2014 re-election.)
Compton was not reached for comment Thursday.
Bradley Arant has touted Trump's selection of Compton for the HUD post, featuring news of the nomination prominently on the firm's website. When Trump nominated Compton in May, the firm's chairman and managing partner, Beau Grenier, said, "We are tremendously proud of Paul, whose knowledge and experience in the areas of affordable housing, community development, and banking and financial services have earned him an outstanding reputation among his peers and clients."
Compton has focused his law practice on commercial financial transactions, particularly those involving federal, state and various other forms of tax credits, according to his law firm biography. "Paul's practice largely involves the participation of depository institutions in these types of transactions and through this he has a deep understanding of the regulatory environment in which banks operate," the firm's website states.