Trump’s lobbyist ban complicates administration hiring

Lobbyists dominate his transition team. Someone who spent the past 30 years lobbying can just deregister this afternoon and they’re good to go.

The incoming president will also meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. He helped kill the presidential public financing system by becoming the first White House candidate to pay for his campaign with entirely private money.

Christie had signed the official document – a memorandum of understanding – with the Obama administration to run the Trump transition, meaning a new copy was needed with Pence’s signature.

Moreover, any former lobbyist who snags a plum Trump position will realize there’s no way on earth the ban will ever be enforced.

Initially, the team felt announcements about further personnel had to come quickly.

But actually keeping lobbyists out of government and avoiding people trading on their official government jobs down the road is another matter entirely.

“The president-elect will be announcing specific Cabinet recommendations as well as additional key staff members when those decisions have been made”, Miller said.

Trump and top aides and allies have said publicly that the process is going smoothly, considering the steep task of filling thousands of administration jobs when Trump takes office in January. Trump could support a Disclosure Act to end that practice. It wouldn’t even be the first time that a president tried it.

Christie had been chairman of the transition leading up to the election and had built out a robust team of staff dedicated to agency engagement, policy development and developing and vetting a cabinet. “And so, the bottom line is, we’re going to get the transition team where we need it to be”.

Trump said in an October 23 rally in Gettysburg, Pa., that instituting some of those ethics reforms would be a priority on his first day in office.

After facing a week of criticism, President-elect Donald Trump looks to be taking steps to fulfill an oft-repeated campaign promise to remove corporate influence from Washington, an anonymous source told the Wall Street Journal.

Miller and other lobbying advocates also agree registration should be more expansive.

“Sanders and Whitehouse said Trump should implement changes to lobbying laws that Trump proposed on the campaign trail”, writes the Washington Post, which included “a five-year ban on members of Congress and executive branch officials who want to become lobbyists after leaving government, and a lifetime ban on senior executive branch officials from lobbying for foreign governments”. “I mean, the whole place is one big lobbyist”, Trump said in a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday.

“That’s the only people you have down there”, when asked about the number of lobbyists on his transition. “Everybody’s a lobbyist down there”.

“I certify that I am not now registered and reporting as a federal lobbyist as defined by the Lobbying Disclosure Act, as amended or compensated lobbyist at the state level in any state”, Spicer read to reporters over the phone. In a tweet on Tuesday, he called the possible finalists “two of the smartest people I know”. Public Citizen, which has compiled a list of what it says are lobbyists and others with potential conflicts, noted that removing only lobbyists would not address situations such as a defense contractor working on defense interests.

Trump has also pledged to introduce ethics reforms that would expand the definition of lobbying to cut down on the revolving door in Washington, but it’s unclear whether that would apply to his transition.

Billionaire Wilbur Ross is under very serious consideration for Commerce secretary, with others in the mix, said the people, who requested anonymity because the selections haven’t been finalized.