White House Details Ethics Waivers for Ex-Lobbyists and Corporate Lawyers
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[QUOTE]WASHINGTON — President Trump has given at least 16 White House staff members dispensation to work on policy matters they handled while employed as lobbyists or to interact with their former colleagues in private-sector jobs, [URL="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/disclosures/ethics-pledge-waivers"]according to records released late Wednesday[/URL].
The details on these so-called ethics waivers — [B]more than five times the number granted in the first four months of the Obama administration[/B] — [B]were made public after an intense dispute between the White House and the Office of Government Ethics, which had been pushing the Trump administration to stop granting such waivers in secret.[/B]
The list of waivers includes high-profile names such as [URL="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/Priebus_0.pdf"]Reince Priebus[/URL], Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, and [URL="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/KELLYANNE CONWAY.PDF"]Kellyanne Conway[/URL], a senior White House adviser. They had to be granted waivers because of their prior work with organizations such as the Republican National Committee, which Mr. Priebus once ran, and because they continue to have contact with those organizations as part of their White House work.
[B]But the waivers granted by the White House are also going to former lobbyists, despite Mr. Trump’s campaign vow to try to reduce the influence of lobbyists in Washington.[/B]
[URL="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/ANDREW OLMEM.PDF"]Andrew Olmem,[/URL] who until recently was a Washington-based partner at the law firm Venable L.L.P., is a special assistant to the president for financial policy after he lobbied the federal government on behalf of a number of financial firms, including American Express, MetLife and S&P Global. Mr. Olmem’s waiver allows for him to participate in communications and meetings with former clients involving Puerto Rico’s financial issues, as well as amendments to the Flood Disaster Protection Act and reforming the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s treatment of insurers, the White House said.
[B]A [URL="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/MICHAEL CATANZARO.PDF"]second waiver was given to Michael Catanzaro[/URL], who until January was registered as a lobbyist for companies including [URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/business/energy-environment/devon-energy.html?mcubz=0"]Devon Energy[/URL], an oil and gas company, and [URL="https://soprweb.senate.gov/index.cfm?event=getFilingDetails&filingID=6E881FF9-B6B6-4B15-9252-B47300B5A0DF&filingTypeID=78"]Talen Energy[/URL], a coal-burning electric utility. Mr. Catanzaro moved from lobbying against Obama-era environmental rules to overseeing the White House office in charge of rolling back the same rules, an activity permitted by his waiver.[/B]
[B]Also receiving a waiver was [URL="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/SHAHIRA KNIGHT.PDF"]Shahira Knight[/URL], who had been [URL="https://soprweb.senate.gov/index.cfm?event=getFilingDetails&filingID=52B56533-D7B5-41C4-96E9-AF136798BCA8&filingTypeID=78"]a lobbyist for Fidelity Investments[/URL] and now serves as a special assistant to the president for tax and retirement policy — the same topic she had lobbied on while working for Fidelity, one of the largest retirement-investment companies in the United States.[/B]
Five former lawyers and another former employee from Jones Day — the law firm that handled compliance matters and other legal issues for the Trump campaign — [URL="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/JONES DAY WAIVER SIGNED_0.PDF"]also have been given waivers[/URL] to communicate with the firm. Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, is one of the former Jones Day lawyers covered by that waiver.
[B]The waivers made public Wednesday also appear to retroactively eliminate an apparent [URL="https://www.citizensforethics.org/press-release/crew-bannon-ethics-pledge-investigation-needed-breitbart-contacts/"]ethics problem[/URL] for Stephen K. Bannon[/B], the president’s chief strategist, who was an executive at Breitbart News. The ethics policy prohibited him from contacting employees at Breitbart for two years on matters he had handled while an executive there, [B]but Mr. Bannon repeatedly engaged in conversations with Breitbart editors, according [URL="https://s3.amazonaws.com/storage.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/30134644/McGahn-Bannon.pdf"]to a complaint filed[/URL] by the liberal Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.[/B]
The [URL="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/ALL EOP.PDF"]waiver[/URL], retroactive to Jan. 20, allows White House aides to “participate in communications and meetings with news organizations on matters of broad policy” even if they involve “a former employer or former client.”[URL="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/COMMISSIONED OFFICERS.PDF"] A separate waiver[/URL], which applies to senior White House employees, allows them to communicate with a range of political organizations — even if they previously worked for them — including [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/donald-trump?inline=nyt-per"]Donald J. Trump[/URL] for President and the Republican Attorneys General Association.
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[url]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/us/politics/lobbyist-ethics-waivers-trump-administration.html[/url]
Nothing surprises me anymore about the Trump admin. They're just morons.
"Drain the swamp, fill it with diarrhea"
Lobbying shouldn't even be legal, all it ever does is cause suffering. Line corporate pockets at the expense of everyday people who generally can't afford the kind of corners being cut for them to occur in the first place. It seems like for every bright eyed optimistic piece of legislation to make things better for people that need it, there is a lobbyist who would rather see it burn so they can add another million to their pile.
Also, "ethics" and "waiver" are not two words that should appear in the same phrase. I understand they can, in very specific usages be helpful, but there have to be better ways to aid in those rather specific instances without opening up the gaping loophole for conflicts of interest that ethics waivers do.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52305925]"Drain the swamp, fill it with diarrhea"[/QUOTE]
More like Decaying flesh...picked at from the roadkill. Let to set in a bowl of warm water for weeks on end. Mashed it together, mix it with piss n shit. Thats what i would consider Trump is filling the empty swamp with.
[QUOTE=Xion21;52305951]Also, "ethics" and "waiver" are not two words that should appear in the same phrase. I understand they can, in very specific usages be helpful, but there have to be better ways to aid in those rather specific instances without opening up the gaping loophole for conflicts of interest that ethics waivers do.[/QUOTE]
I'm more concerned with the fact that the article implies that these are usually made public to attenuate some of the concerns that comes with them but that Trump is giving them out in secret.
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