Trump is Hiring Lobbyists and Top Ethics Official Says ‘There’s No Transparency’

The following article by Justin Elliott was posted on the ProPublica website April 15, 2017:

In one case, an official working on energy regulation recently lobbied for oil and coal companies — but the White House won’t say whether he received an ethics waiver.

President Trump has stocked his administration with a small army of former lobbyists and corporate consultants who are now in the vanguard of the effort to roll back government regulations at the agencies they once sought to influence, according to an analysis of government records by the New York Times in collaboration with ProPublica.

The Times adds new details to our previous reporting on Trump’s weakening of ethics rules and former lobbyists working on regulations they opposed on behalf of private clients just months ago.

The Times scrutinized financial disclosures of top White House staffers and found that the lobbyists and consultants in their ranks had more than 300 recent corporate clients and employers, including Apple and Anthem, the insurance company. Continue reading “Trump is Hiring Lobbyists and Top Ethics Official Says ‘There’s No Transparency’”