Johnson taps former Fox executive to run House GOP messaging

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced a slate of new hires for the Speakership office Wednesday, including tapping former Fox executive Raj Shah to run the House GOP’s messaging.

Johnson’s announcement said that Shah will be the deputy chief of staff for communications in his office — a new role for the former senior vice president at Fox Corp. after he split ties with the company in May. 

He was one of the many executives and hosts whose internal messages were made public in Dominion Voting Systems’s lawsuit brought against Fox Corp. earlier this year, which resulted in a massive $787 million settlement. Before joining Fox Corp., Shah also served in the Trump administration as a deputy press secretary and deputy assistant to the president from 2017 to 2019.

Johnson’s announcement also notes that Shah previously served as a research director and deputy communications director for the Republican National Committee.

Other key hires for his office include moving his chief of staff Hayden Haynes to the leadership office to stay on in his role, which he has held since 2017. Other former staffers of Johnson that are joining him in the Speakership office include Garrett Fultz as his deputy chief of staff, Hannah Fraher as the director of House operations and Dan Ziegler as his director of policy.

Ziegler served as the executive director of the Republican Study Committee when Johnson was the chairman of the 116th Congress. He then moved to work at Williams & Jensen, a law and lobbying firm in D.C., in 2022.