The hiring of three former lobbyists to work in the White House raises questions about the president’s executive order on ethics.
Justin Elliott
The Pacific Standard
Originally published on March 7, 2017
The Trump administration appears to be either ignoring or exempting top staffers from its own watered-down ethics rules.
As we have detailed, President Donald Trump in January issued an order weakening Obama-era ethics policies, allowing lobbyists to work at agencies they had sought to influence. The Trump order did limit what lobbyists could do once they entered government, banning them from directly handling issues on which they had lobbied.
But the administration may not be even following that.
We’ve found three hires announced this week who, in fact, are working on the same issues on which they were registered lobbyists while in the private sector.
The article is here.