North Carolinian mercenaries hired recent advisor to Trump's UN ambassador while pressing for Board of Peace role

Micah T. Ketchel, an advisor to UN Ambassador Michael Waltz until November, registered as lobbyist for the mercenary firm UG Solutions in the first months of this year.

The Tallahassee-based lobbying firm Ballard Partners on November 19, 2025 announced Micah Thomas Ketchel, the recently departed senior advisor to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Michael Waltz, as a partner in its Washington, D.C. office. President Trump’s current chief of staff, Susan Wiles, had joined Ballard Partners in 2011 and helped open the D.C. office after Trump’s first election.

A previously unreported disclosure from a Tallahassee-based lobbying firm closely affiliated with the Trump administration reveals that the North Carolina-based mercenary firm UG Solutions LLC leveraged a recent senior advisor to current U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Michael Waltz as a lobbyist during the first three months of this year.

The international news agency Reuters exclusively reported on February 11 — in the center of the lobbying period in question — that UG Solutions was “in talks with the Trump administration’s Board of Peace about its next role in the [Gaza] enclave.” UG Solutions was widely criticized last year for the activities of its armed employees at the aid distribution sites run by the now-defunct Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, as intermediated by the logistics firm Safe Reach Solutions run by former CIA covert action chief Philip F. Reilly.

Micah T. Ketchel’s transition from a senior advisor to Ambassador Waltz into a partner in the D.C. office of Ballard Partners was announced on November 19, two days after UN Security Council Resolution 2803 codified the existence of the Board of Peace. (The D.C. office was opened in 2017 by Susan Wiles, President Trump’s current chief of staff.)

Ambassador Waltz provided testimony to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month that, “In November, under American leadership, the Council resoundingly endorsed that framework, welcomed the Board of Peace, and established the basis for an International Stabilization Force, a Palestinian governing body, and a World Bank-managed reconstruction fund financed largely by regional partners.”

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, the founder of The Atlantic Council’s Realign for Palestine project, stated to an Israel-affiliated investment group during a private webinar late last year that, “Who is going to reengage Hamas? Let’s be honest, at this point, it’s either going to be the Israelis, or it’s going to be a mercenary force.” “People don’t like to use that word, fine, a private military contract army that is the spearhead of the International Stabilization Force,” continued Alkhatib.

Alkhatib’s remarks have not previously been reported.

Waltz was reassigned into his current role as Ambassador to the United Nations after being ousted from his role as President Trump’s national security advisor after causing one of the first major scandals in the administration by adding Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg into a sensitive group chat with other members of the administration on the encrypted messaging platform Signal.

Ketchel had served as chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Waltz (R-FL) for six years prior to the start of the second Trump administration but was only two months into his new role as a senior advisor to cabinet member Waltz when the scandal broke.

Ketchel is now helping to broker a mercenary force to serve as the muscle behind Waltz’s ongoing diplomatic work.