A startling new exposé is raising eyebrows across the political landscape, revealing that President Joe Biden’s longtime aide, Mike Donilon, was paid an eye-popping $4 million to serve on Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign — a campaign now widely viewed as one of the most mismanaged in modern political history.
The bombshell comes from the new book Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, co-authored by CNN analyst Jake Tapper and Axios political reporter Alex Thompson. The book sheds light on the internal chaos, secrecy, and decline that reportedly plagued the Biden camp throughout the 2024 election season.
Donilon, who has advised Biden since the early 1980s, was brought into the campaign in early 2024 despite internal objections from senior staff over his steep price tag. Sources say President Biden personally insisted on hiring Donilon, instructing his campaign team to “pay Mike what he wants.”
Between February and November 2024, Donilon reportedly received $4 million — a staggering sum that dwarfs the compensation of any other campaign staffer. The next highest-paid official was General Mattie Dillon, who earned just over $300,000 plus a bonus.
While the campaign hemorrhaged money and struggled to energize voters, Donilon’s massive payday has triggered outrage both inside and outside the Democratic Party. “This is a man who was paid millions to steer a campaign that failed spectacularly,” one Democratic strategist said. “That’s not just bad optics — it’s a breach of trust.”
Among the most damning revelations in Original Sin is the staging of a fake town hall event in Delaware, designed solely to produce campaign ads showing Biden interacting with voters. The event was closed to the press and featured pre-selected supporters. Yet, according to campaign insiders, Biden’s performance was so poor that none of the footage was usable. Some blamed incoherence; others, bizarrely, pointed to poor lighting.
Despite repeated signs that Biden was struggling to effectively campaign — and growing public concerns over his age and cognitive ability — the campaign continued to push a message that he was fit to lead. The book alleges that even top cabinet members had limited access to the president, and that aides often questioned whether Biden could handle a national emergency.
As details of Donilon’s compensation and the campaign’s internal dysfunction come to light, critics are calling for accountability. “Millions were spent not just on a failing campaign,” one political commentator noted, “but on hiding the reality that the president was not up to the job — and the people around him knew it.”
With the Democratic Party now grappling with the fallout, Original Sin has sparked urgent questions about leadership, loyalty, and the ethical responsibilities of those closest to power.