“Draining the swamp” was a major theme of Donald Trump’s
presidential campaign last year. The phrase became a rallying cry for ethics
reform and for stopping the “revolving door” that allowed government officials
to go to work as lobbyists and vice versa. To much fanfare, Trump signed an Executive
Order that modified the Obama Administration policy on lobbying by former
government officials as one of his first acts.
Now it seems that the Trump ethics policy is not as
stringent as it first seemed. On Wednesday, the White House finally issued a list
of “ethics pledge waivers” for the White House staff. The White House had
fought the Office of Government Ethics on whether to make the waivers public
after initially granting them in secret.
The list, which includes only members of the presidential
and vice-presidential staffs, includes a number of former lobbyists and members
of the media. The New
York Times notes that the 16 known waivers issued by the Trump
Administration is “more than five times the number granted in the first four
months of the Obama administration.”
Some of the waivers were granted because the White House
employees had to have contact with their former employers to do their current
jobs. For example, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus had to be able to communicate
with the Republican National Committee, the organization that he once ran. Likewise,
Kellyanne Conway, a senior advisor to President Trump and a former Republican
pollster, “may participate in communications and meetings involving former
clients which are political, advocacy, trade, or non-profit organizations” per
her waiver.
Other waivers are more problematic for Mr. Trump’s “drain
the swamp” pledge. Politico points out that Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, who
previously headed the right-wing website, Breitbart.com, is covered under a
waiver that allows White House aides to interact with news outlets in spite of
previous ties to those organizations. According to Politico, Bannon can legally
engage with Breitbart even when other organizations are excluded. Before the
waiver was made public, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington had filed a complaint
against Bannon for repeated contacts with Breitbart employees in apparent
violation of the ethics pledge.
It is uncertain how many lobbyists have been granted
approval to work in other departments within the Trump Administration, but at
least four former lobbyists are known to have been granted waivers to work
within the Trump White House on policy areas that could present a conflict of interests:
- · Michael Catanzaro, a former oil and gas lobbyist, was granted approval to work on energy policy.
- · Shahira Knight, a former Fidelity executive who had lobbied on tax, retirement and financial issues, was approved to work on those policy areas.
- · Andrew Olmem, a bank and insurance lobbyist, is allowed to work with former clients on financial policy.
- · Joshua Pitcock, a former lobbyist for the State of Indiana, is allowed to work with Indiana officials on issues on which he previously lobbied.
Additionally, six former attorneys for the Jones Day law
firm were granted a waiver to “participate in communications and meetings where
Jones Day represents the President, his campaign, the transition, or political
entities supporting the President.” Donald Trump
was a client of Jones Day before he became president and White Counsel Don
McGahn, along with 11 other Trump Administration lawyers, are alumni of the
firm. Jones Day, which is not a lobbying firm, ran
ads touting its “insights on the new Administration” in April.
Watchdog groups were critical of the extent of the waivers. “The
ethics waivers the White House finally released reveal what we already
suspected: that this administration is chock full of senior officials working
on issues on which they lobbied, meeting with companies in which they have a
financial interest, or working closely with former employers,” said a spokesman
for the nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
The Obama Administration issued about 16 waivers in eight
years. The Trump Administration has issued 16 waivers after four months. At
this point in the Obama Administration, three waivers had been issued per the
Times.
A White House spokesman told the New
York Times that the Trump Administration tried to avoid conflicts of
interest when possible. The administration also asked its employees not to work
on policy areas in which they had worked in the private sector.
Originally published
on The Resurgent
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