Trump to bar officials from lobbying for 5 years

President-elect Donald Trump promised to shake up Washington. Literally everything he does as president could have some effect on his personal wealth.

You can read Warren’s letter in its entirety here. “I am the only one who knows who the finalists are!”

“The campaign is over and now actions matter more than words”.

Any ban on lobbying, however, depends on how it is written and enforced. Lobbyists have expertise that is attractive to any incoming administration, and people who take government jobs tend to make less money in doing them but may take them knowing that a bigger payday awaits in the private sector. All appointees will be required to sign a form agreeing to abide by the ban before starting work. In recent days, Trump put Vice President-elect Mike Pence in charge of transition, and he is changing some of the people who are involved.

As of now, Trump’s barebones “plan for ethics reform” mentions nothing along these lines.

Trump and Pence’s offices did not respond to questions about the ban.

First, there’s no ban on present-day lobbyists. “Is there a cost to someone who goes into government service?” They include Michael Catanzaro, a lobbyist for Koch Industries and the Walt Disney Company; Eric Ueland, who lobbied for Goldman Sachs; and William Palatucci, whose law firm lobbies for Aetna and Verizon.

While Trump prepares to announce his selections, the transition team is assembling what aides describe as “landing teams” that will visit and interact with federal agencies during the transition period. Trump could support a Disclosure Act to end that practice. I will champion the millions of Americans you will fail to protect.

And everyone in Washington is free to make this determination on their own. 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. “It’s preposterous to say you can’t build a better mousetrap without lobbyists”.

Agency officials have reported that Trump’s transition staff has not yet made contact with them, a full week after his election and only about two months before his inauguration.

This did not necessarily lead to less lobbying, but it did lead to over 5,000 lobbyists de-registering in 2008 and 2009. In fact, the number of registered lobbyists in Washington has dropped to fewer than 10,000 from 15,000 a decade ago. He met first with House Republicans and Speaker Paul Ryan, to be followed by meetings with top Democrats. But everybody that works for government, they then leave government and they become a lobbyist, essentially. He also said he would enact a lifetime ban on senior executive branch officials from becoming lobbyists for foreign countries, and close a loophole in federal lobbying laws that now allows people who spend less than 20 percent of their time lobbying for a single client to avoid registering as a lobbyist. But he’s provided no specifics about what this means.

In the final three weeks of the 2016 campaign, Trump unveiled five ethics proposals aimed at curbing lobbyist influence and “draining the swamp”. “I share that goal, and I would like to think Mr. Trump’s supporters share that sentiment”, Reed continued. Numerous same news sources which said Trump would never win are now exaggerating the few hours’ delay of a transition memo, or the switch from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to Vice President-elect Mike Pence to lead the transition team, as signaling a process in disarray.

Trump’s ban doesn’t stop lobbyists from entering his administration.