President Donald Trump pledged during the campaign to ban his staffers from becoming lobbyists, but reports indicate that Trump has not followed through on his promise.
While Trump implemented a six-month lobbying ban for members of his transition team, those members have found a loophole in the ban – they only are banned from lobbying on issues for which they “had direct and substantial responsibility.”
“That means a staffer working on tax policy, for instance, might not be banned from lobbying on all tax issues — only the specific areas of tax policy for which the staffer was responsible,” reports Politico. “Those details mean it’s difficult to track whether former staffers are following the rules.”
In fact, Politico talked to three former transition team members who claimed they never signed a pledge. In total, Politico found “at least nine people who worked on his transition have registered as lobbyists,” with some examples being:
Lauren Maddox, the DeVos sherpa, reregistered as a lobbyist for the Podesta Group days after Trump was sworn into office. On Feb. 6, she signed as a client the Charlotte School of Law, a troubled for-profit law school that has been fighting for survival since the Obama administration cut off its access to federal student loans in December. The school hired Maddox and two other Podesta Group lobbyists to persuade DeVos’ Education Department to restore its access to loans.
They appear to be having some success. The school reapplied for access to federal student aid in March “at the direct suggestion” of a top Education Department official, according to a letter from the school that was obtained by POLITICO.
Maddox did not respond to requests for comment. She is also registered to lobby the Education Department on behalf of two other education-related clients, according to disclosure filings.
Other lobbyists who re-registered after exiting the transition include Jim Carter, who led the transition’s tax policy team before re-registering to lobby on tax reform; Nova Daly, who worked for the transition’s team at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative before he re-registered as part of a team of people who have lobbied the agency, the White House and Congress on behalf of the steelmaker Nucor; and Tara Bradshaw, an Ernst & Young lobbyist who worked during the transition with Steven Mnuchin, now Trump’s Treasury secretary. Bradshaw is now registered to lobby Congress and the Treasury Department on tax reform and health care for MetLife, according to disclosure filings. She’s also lobbying Congress for other clients on an array of other tax and financial matters.
The report also notes that the five-year lobbying ban on Trump administration staffers also hasn’t been really enforced, as two former staffers – former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and former State Department official Robert Wasinger – have claimed that they never signed any pledges against lobbying for five years after leaving the administration.
Additionally, a USA Today report found that “former campaign aides, fundraisers and others with ties to President Trump and Vice President Pence have attracted dozens of new lobbying clients in Washington, raking in more than $2.2 million in lobbying fees in the first months of the administration,” meaning that not only are former staff members taking part in lobbying, but people with prior connections to Trump and Pence are benefiting from the lobbying scene as well.
“Former campaign aides, fundraisers and others with ties to President Trump and Vice President Pence have attracted dozens of new lobbying clients in Washington.”
USA Today
The swamp has yet to be drained in Washington, D.C.