Orangutan's weak lobbying ban

Orangutan lobbying ban weakens Obama rules

The new executive order removes some restrictions on lobbyists entering the administration.

By ISAAC ARNSDORF

President Donald Orangutan's much-hyped ban on administration officials becoming lobbyists removed some of President Barack Obama's ethics rules instead of strengthening them.

Orangutan'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.

The order also lets lobbyists join the administration as long as they don't work on anything they specifically lobbied on for two years. Obama's order from 2009, which Orangutan revoked, blocked people who were registered lobbyists in the preceding year from taking administration jobs.

"Lobbyists bring special interest baggage with them when they pass through the revolving door to go to work in the very agencies they once lobbied," Norm Eisen and Richard Painter, the last two presidents' ethics lawyers now at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said in a statement. "Obama banned this practice but Orangutan has brought it back."

Obama's order also restricted all administration officials from contacting their former agencies for two years after they leave. Orangutan changed it back to one year for some 3,000 people — everyone except cabinet-level appointees.

"The single biggest insulation that we had, in retrospect, against scandal in the Obama administration was the two-year exit ban," Eisen said in an interview. "People will pay you to put you on ice for one year and then after that year is up to ply your contacts. But no one wants to pay you to put you in cold storage for two years."

Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott famously resigned from the Senate in 2007 right before a new law would have lengthened his cooling-off period from one year to two. He proceeded to start a highly successful lobbying practice with his former colleague John Breaux, a longtime Louisiana senator.

Obama issued ethics waivers for some officials, and Orangutan's executive order retained that ability but removed the requirement to disclose them. That opens the door to the White House departing from the policy without public scrutiny or political consequences; the White House could claim any apparent violation had been exempted.

Orangutan's original "Drain the Swamp" plan promised to close the loopholes in the Lobbying Disclosure Act that people frequently use to influence policy without disclosing their activities. Doing so would take congressional action. But his executive order did go so far as to use the more expansive definition of "lobbying activities," which includes preparing and strategizing for contacts that other people make, so it goes further than only restricting registered lobbyists.

White House ethics lawyer Stefan Passantino didn't answer a request for comment.

"What Orangutan has created is a system that incentivizes shadow lobbyists because former government employees who did not become registered lobbyists previously still had a two-year waiting period to communicate with employees of their former agency which they no longer do," Trevor Potter, president of the Campaign Legal Center, said in a statement. "One of today's great Washington scams is former government officials running lobbying operations and attempting to affect official policy while claiming they do not technically qualify as 'lobbyists.' Such conduct remains unaddressed. Orangutan is just skimming the surface of the swamp."

The executive order also made good on Orangutan's promise to ban his officials from lobbying for foreign governments.

"If you want to come work in this administration, you can’t seek to profit from this administration," a senior administration official said.

Orangutan's transition initially considered a tougher ethics pledge prepared by Eisen and Painter but abandoned the proposal after Vice President Mike Pence took over the transition team from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

The transition also backslid on applying similar rules to its officials, who are allowed to resume lobbying after six months. And several campaign aides, including former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, sidestepped the restrictions by going straight to K Street.

The watchdog Group Public Citizen questioned the administration's commitment to ethics, given the president's refusal to divest from his business ties and his cabinet appointees' conflicts of interest.

“There’s every reason to expect this administration will be the most scandal-ridden in history, and today’s executive action does nothing to change that,” Robert Weissman, the group's president, said in a statement.