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View Full Version : Trump outpaces Obama, Bush in naming ex-lobbyists to Cabinet




TheCount
09-29-2019, 12:26 AM
In less than three years, President Donald Trump has named more former lobbyists to Cabinet-level posts than his most recent predecessors did in eight, putting a substantial amount of oversight in the hands of people with ties to the industries they’re regulating.

The Cabinet choices are another sign that Trump’s populist pledge to “drain the swamp” is a catchy campaign slogan but not a serious attempt to change the way Washington works. Instead of staring down “the unholy alliance of lobbyists and donors and special interests” as Trump recently declared, the influence industry has flourished during his administration.

The amount spent in 2019 on lobbying the U.S. government is on pace to match or exceed last year’s total of $3.4 billion, the most since 2010, according to the political money website Open Secrets. Trump also has pulled in hefty contributions from industries with business before his administration, and his hotel near the White House has been a magnet for lobbyists and foreign interests since he was elected.

“An administration staffed by former industry lobbyists will almost certainly favor industry over the general public, because that’s the outlook they’re bringing to the job,” said Lee Drutman, a senior fellow in the political reform program at the think tank New America and author of the book “The Business of America is Lobbying.”

Former lobbyists run the Defense and Interior departments, Environmental Protection Agency and office of the U.S. Trade Representative. The acting Labor secretary, Pat Pizzella, is a former lobbyist and Trump’s pick to run the department, Eugene Scalia, also is an ex-lobbyist. Scalia’s confirmation hearing before a GOP-controlled Senate committee is scheduled for Thursday and Democrats are expected to grill him on his long record of opposing federal regulations (https://www.apnews.com/f1190939717c4858ad593e798989bc5a) .

A seventh ex-lobbyist, Dan Coats, resigned as Trump’s intelligence chief in August.

https://www.apnews.com/08dce0f5f9c24a6aa355cd0aab3747d9

Swordsmyth
09-29-2019, 12:29 AM
Zippy beat you to this:

President Trump’s Cabinet has had more ex-lobbyists than Bush or Obama (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?539343-President-Trump’s-Cabinet-has-had-more-ex-lobbyists-than-Bush-or-Obama)

Swordsmyth
09-29-2019, 12:30 AM
...
You mean Trump hired people who actually understood the industries?

OH HORROR!


He should have hired a bunch of politicians and lawyers who never held a real job in their life.

Zippyjuan
09-29-2019, 11:36 AM
Wasn't Trump going to ban lobbyists to drain the swamp? The flow is going the other way too- they aren't supposed to be allowed to become lobbyists for five years after leaving the Trump administration- he signed an executive order banning it. His word isn't worth much.

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-lobbying-swamp-is-flourishing-in-trumps-washington


It’s been more than two years since President Donald Trump, who rallied campaign supporters with calls to “drain the swamp” of lobbyists and their ilk, took office. But despite that campaign promise, Washington influence peddlers continue to move into and out of jobs in the federal government.

In his first 10 days in office, Trump signed an executive order that required all his political hires to sign a pledge. On its face, it’s straightforward and ironclad: When Trump officials leave government employment, they agree not to lobby the agencies they worked in for five years. They also can’t lobby anyone in the White House or political appointees across federal agencies for the duration of the Trump administration. And they can’t perform “lobbying activities,” or things that would help other lobbyists, including setting up meetings or providing background research. Violating the pledge exposes former officials to fines and extended or even permanent bans on lobbying.

But loopholes, some of them sizable, abound. At least 33 former Trump officials have found ways around the pledge. The most prominent is former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who resigned in December after a series of ethics investigations. He announced Wednesday that he is joining a lobbying firm, Turnberry Solutions, which was started in 2017 by several former Trump campaign aides. Asked whether Zinke will register as a lobbyist, Turnberry partner Jason Osborne said, “He will if he has a client that he wants to lobby for.”

Among the 33 former officials, at least 18 have recently registered as lobbyists. The rest work at firms in jobs that closely resemble federal lobbying. Almost all work on issues they oversaw or helped shape when they were in government. (Nearly 2,600 Trump officials signed the ethics pledge in 2017, according to the Office of Government Ethics. Twenty-five appointees did not sign the pledge. We used staffing lists compiled for ProPublica’s Trump Town, our exhaustive database of current political appointees, and found at least 350 people who have left the Trump administration. There are other former Trump officials who lobby at the state or local level.)