Well here's your chance to agree with Donald trump: he made everyone sign an ethics pledge that they would not lobby within 5 years of their tenure in government. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/28/execu... getting Congress to pass a law that puts some teeth behind the promise is another question.
He did! He also weakened the language for what defines the areas in which one is allowed to lobby. Specifically, Trump's lobbying ban only prevents officials from lobbying their former agency - it doesn't prevent them from becoming registered lobbyists. For example, an SEC official couldn't lobby for changes to the SEC, but they could lobby the other 4 financial regulatory agencies. There's also an ongoing legal debate about whether the language used in Trump's lobbying ban includes a loophole that would allow officials to continue to try to engage in certain kinds of lobbying - involving "agency proceedings" rather than legislation.
The previous administration had stronger language (no lobbying whatsoever) and a 1 year ban. So Trump extended the timespan, and poked the ban full of loopholes.
Worse, Trump has issued at least 16 ethics "waivers" to at for staffers who would be banned from serving on his staff over his ethics rules. Once you make more than a dozen or so exceptions for who you're putting on your team, it's not really a rule at all.
Bullshit. Trump is bringing cronyism and opaqueness to heights unprecedented in recent administrations. His lobbying EO actually weakened some of Obama's lobbying restrictions. And while Trump strengthened some rules, he then promptly started handing out secret waivers to so his favorite lobbyists and and industry executives can come work for him. Go read about what the federal government's top ethics officer Walter M. Shaub Jr. had to say about this before he resigned.
Honestly, this isn't hard to see. Just look at EPA, DOE, FERC... Trump is stacking our agencies with industry executives and lobbyists hostile to these agencies' charters, and in some cases their very existence.
Good question. The administration admitted to the existence of these waivers in May, but refused to disclose their contents to the OGE, which is unprecedented among recent administrations. This secrecy was roundly condemned throughout the federal government, and notably and publicly by George W Bush's former chief ethics lawyer [0].
Trump was eventually forced to back down and the waivers were released, revealing such swampy critters as Michael Catanzaro and Shahira Knight [1].
EDIT: So, "secret" in a more colloquial sense than the technical "classified" definition.
Yeah, I read an article that another user posted. I think I prefer the term 'undisclosed.' At least in my head, secret means someone is in trouble for leaking it. There was a paper trail, for example.
I guess the use is valid, but I'm not sure it's objective. I don't prefer Trump, but I do try to remain objective. Try being the operative word.
The norms of what administrations do changes over time in part because what administrations need to do change over time. It's obviously not helpful to contrast George Washington's executive behavior with George Bush's.
In particular, it's useful to draw a line pre- and post-USSR, as that was a sea change in executive policy. That means Bush 1 / Clinton onward. Other common markers are pre/post Great Society, pre/post WW2, pre/post New Deal, etc.
I may have a different definition than they appear to be using. If I'm understanding your link correctly, I'd say they were undisclosed. There would have been a paper trail and the data wasn't classified, correct?
If he were to resign and leak secret information, he'd be in legal trouble, yes?
Note: This is not meant to be read as approval, just a bit of contention at the language used.
I'd say the salient point about secrecy being this:
> But Mr. Trump has chosen to keep the waivers secret. He dropped a practice, in place during the Obama administration, that any waiver would be shared with the Office of Government Ethics and posted on the White House website or the ethics office’s website, or on both.
It certainly wasn't "top secret" in the classified sense but it was done with secrecy as if he had something to hide regarding the practice or, perhaps a more charitable reading was that he was ignorant of the precedent. From hiding the wh visitor logs to the ethics waivers to stopping the recording inside the wh press briefing room in my view they are actively trying to be less transparent in their dealings.
Maybe it is just my perspective but that reads very slanted to me. I was a freelance journalist that covered the political best and hard copy. This was back in my university days, but I'm not sure my editor would have put that through without changing it to something like the mentioned 'undisclosed.'
Secret, as a word, implies intent - at least to me. It may also imply legality. While certainly worthy of raising an eyebrow, I'm not sure we can make accurate claims of intent?
Ah well, it's largely immaterial. I do thank you for taking the time to explain.
> here's your chance to agree with Donald trump: he made everyone sign an ethics pledge that they would not lobby
This seems like a case of "Do as I say, not as I do." Ignoring the question of what percentage of senior people have left due to being fired, the potential for legal cases against them, inability to personally pay for anticipated legal expenses, or some combination thereof, there's also the fact that it's still early in the Trump administration.
The bigger factor is likely the massive number of (former?) lobbyists being hired into positions of influence. In fact, it seems that the lobbying ban you pointed to also removed a lot of restrictions that had been in place [1], and that there's been both noticeable granting of waivers and significant resistance to releasing information on those waivers [2].
> Well here's your chance to agree with Donald trump: he made everyone sign an ethics pledge that they would not lobby within 5 years of their tenure in government. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/28/execu.... getting Congress to pass a law that puts some teeth behind the promise is another question.
You are mistaken if you believe that is a campaign promise he actually kept.
> But he immediately began to staff the administration with people whose work seemed, on its face, to clearly violate the terms of the order. Rather than publicly grant waivers of ethics rules with a clearly stated rationale, the White House was simply routinely waiving ethics rules in secret so nobody knew how many waivers were issued or for what purpose.
> Trump has finally provided documentation, and it shows that the ethics rules are plainly meaningless. He’s granted five times as many waivers in his first four months in office as Obama did, which cover key figures in the administration like Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, chief strategist Steve Bannon, and counselor Kellyanne Conway. All told, 17 waivers were granted to members of the White House staff, and we still have no idea how many waivers have been granted for other executive branch agencies or whether anyone is even keeping track.
> Trump's ethics pledge, issued as an executive order on Saturday, includes a five-year "lobbying ban" that falls short of its name, preventing officials from lobbying the agency they worked in for five years after they leave, but allowing them to lobby other parts of the government.
From what I have read he is stacking agencies with lobbyists from industries they are supposed to regulate. So no, there is no reason to agree with him.
