Day 780: Drain the swamp? Quite the opposite: report

Donald Trump didn’t run on many campaign promises, but did vow to “drain the swamp” over and over and over again in the run-up to the election.

But, according to a report by The Washington Post, from data provided by American Bridge 21st Century, the swamp is filling up faster than ever.

Data provided to The Post by the liberal organization American Bridge 21st Century identifies over 350 individuals who’ve worked as lobbyists who currently work in the administration, have worked in it or have been nominated to serve in Trump’s administration. Cumulatively, they’ve represented more than 2,800 companies at one point or another, according to lobbying registration documents. Nearly 200 of them now served or have been nominated to serve in divisions of government that they once lobbied.

Lobbyists are flocking to the White House at an alarming rate and in positions to affect change on things they have lobbied for years. The jobs that many of the former lobbyists enjoy aren’t minor positions either, but rather crucial Cabinet roles.

And what’s more, those that leave Trump’s orbit are quick to look for a lobbying gig.

Trump forced political hires to sign a pledge to prevent them from lobbying agencies they worked for five years and for performing lobbying activities. They’re also precluded for lobbying anyone in the White House as long as Trump is there. In theory, there are stiff penalties for violating the pledge.

Only it’s not being enforced, as Pro Publica reported.

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.)

As we’ve reported before, some former officials are tiptoeing around the rules by engaging in “shadow lobbying,” which typically entails functions such as “strategic consulting” that don’t require registering as a lobbyist. Others obtained special waivers allowing them to go back to lobbying. In a few cases, they avoided signing the pledge altogether.

No one is being punished for these corrupt actions, and Trump doesn’t seem to care in the least.

“Drain the swamp” was clearly a rallying cry and nothing else. In Washington, the swamp is only filling, filling, filling.

780 days in, 682 to go

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