“I think their business is foreign governments,” one person who’d been briefed on Lewandowski and Bennett’s plans told me last month. They were “intending for the international work to pay for things and the domestic, political work they do will be for window dressing.”

But regardless of the clients they sought, Avenue Strategies apparently struggled to keep promises or achieve results. “Here’s the thing about lobbying. Your clients expect results, not double talk, not happy horseshit, not show and tell,” Roger Stone told me, predicting that Lewandowski would fail. “It’s not enough to impress them on TV. It’s about getting something done.”

After their meeting in December, at the Ritz-Carlton, Avenue Strategies was retained by Flow Health. According to sources familiar with the arrangement, Flow Health proposed an incentives-heavy contract: If the VA reversed its decision by February 17, the company would pay Avenue $250,000; if the VA reversed by February 24, Flow Health would pay Avenue $100,000. When Bennett informed the startup that such a “success fee-based” agreement would technically run afoul of lobbying regulations, a new contract was drawn up in which the same deadlines would remain, but Flow Health would pay Avenue a series of severance fees rather than incentives.

In the end, none of that mattered. The deadlines came and went. And the assurances from Bennett and Lewandowski about how they’d have a say in selecting the new VA secretary proved to be bluster. Trump’s pick for the job turned out to be David Shulkin, the Obama administration holdover who’d co-authored the very letter nixing Flow Health’s VA partnership in the first place. But Flow Health was still made to believe that Avenue could solve its problem. According to sources familiar with the matter, Bennett promised that he’d arrange a meeting between Flow Health’s CEO, Meshkin, and the new secretary, Shulkin, which he and Lewandowski would attend. Their presence, Bennett said, would send a message to Shulkin that “he can do it willingly, or he can do it the hard way and have Mr. Trump tell him what to do.” (Bennett denies ever offering, or attempting, to set up a meeting between representatives from Flow Health and Shulkin.)