Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Trump waves off conflicts with ethics waivers
Analysis: Dozens issued to skirt vow to ban lobbyists
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and his appointees have stocked federal agencies with exlobbyists and corporate lawyers who now help regulate the very industries from which they previously collected paychecks, despite Trump’s promises as a candidate to drain the swamp in Washington.
A week after his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order that bars former lobbyists, lawyers and others from participating in any matter they worked on for private clients within two years of going to work for the government.
But records reviewed by The Associated Press show Trump’s top lawyer, White House counsel Don McGahn, has issued at least 37 ethics waivers to key administration officials at the White House and executive branch agencies.
One allows FBI Director Chris Wray “to participate in matters involving a confidential former client.” The three-sentence waiver gives no indication about what Wray’s conflict of interest might be. The FBI declined to comment Thursday.
Trump’s executive order on ethics supplanted a more stringent set of rules put in place by President Barack Obama in 2009 to avoid conflicts of interests. Nearly 70 waivers were issued to executive branch officials during Obama’s eight years, though those were generally more narrowly focused and offered a fuller legal explanation for why the waiver was granted.
Craig Holman, who lobbies in Washington for stricter government ethics and lobbying rules on behalf of the advocacy group Public Citizen, said just five of the waivers under Obama went to former lobbyists, most of whom had worked for nonprofit groups.
Although he was initially optimistic when Trump issued his executive order, Holman recently said, “It is now quite evident that the pledge was little more than campaign rhetoric. Not only are key provisions simply ignored and not enforced, when in cases where obvious conflicts of interest are brought into the limelight, the administration readily issues waivers from the ethics rules.”
Asked about the waivers, Lindsay Walters, a White House spokeswoman, said, “In the interests of full transparency and good governance, the posted waivers set forth the policy reasons for granting an exception to the pledge.”
An analysis by the AP shows that nearly half of the political appointees hired at the Environmental Protection Agency under Trump have strong industry ties. Of 59 EPA hires tracked by the AP over the last year, about a third worked as registered lobbyists or lawyers for chemical manufacturers, fossil fuel producers or other corporate clients.
Most of those officials have signed ethics agreements saying they would not participate in actions involving their former clients while working at the EPA. At least three have gotten waivers allowing them to do just that.
Erik Baptist, a top EPA lawyer, worked until 2016 as senior lawyer and registered federal lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, the national trade group for the oil and gas industry.
Baptist signed an ethics agreement pledging to recuse himself from any issues involving his former employer. But in August, McGahn granted him approval to advise EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on issues surrounding the renewable fuel law.
McGahn wrote that he was exempting Baptist from the ethics pledge because “his deep understanding of the RFS program and the regulated industry, make him the ideal person to assist the administrator and his senior leadership team to make EPA and its renewable fuel programs more efficient and effective.”
At the White House, another former lobbyist with ties to the oil and gas industry is advising Trump.
Michael Catanzaro, special assistant to the president, was given a waiver to participate in policy matters relating to methane regulations and environmental programs including the Clean Power Plan, the Renewable Fuel Standard and the National Air Quality Standard.
The Treasury Department asked McGahn for three waivers. Anthony Sayegh, appointed as the assistant secretary for public affairs, previously worked as a Fox News contributor. His waiver allows him to “participate in matters involving his former client.”
Brian Callahan, the top lawyer at Treasury, was granted a waiver concerning issues involving his former position as general counsel at Cooper and Kirk PLLC.
The law firm represents Fairholme Funds, which recently filed a lawsuit against the Treasury Department and the Fair Housing Finance Agency.
McGahn’s waiver allows Callahan to participate in discussions about policy decisions pertaining to housing finance reform, even though “some of these discussions could at some point touch upon issues that might impact the litigation.”
The State Department got five waivers.
One allows communications director Heather Nauert to work with employees of Fox News even though she used to work as a broadcast journalist for the network. Nauert is identified in the waiver, which was heavily redacted before release, by her legal name, Heather Norby.
At the Pentagon, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Randall Schriver got a waiver allowing him to “participate in any particular matter involving specific parties,” including his former client: the Japanese government.
Health and Human Services asked for waivers for senior counselor to the secretary Keagan Lenihan, a registered lobbyist who recently worked for a pharmaceutical and health services company, and for HHS chief of staff Lance Leggitt, who recently lobbied on behalf of his law firm’s health law practice group.
Agriculture Department policy adviser Kailee Tzacz is allowed to “participate personally and substantially in matters regarding the Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” a guide that offers nutritional information and recommendations.
McGahn’s waiver didn’t offer much detail into the potential conflict Tzacz’s appointment would pose. But other records show she most recently served as food policy director for the Corn Refiners Association, a trade organization representing producers of corn starch, corn oil and high fructose corn syrup.
Before that, she lobbied on behalf of SNAC International, a trade association for snack food manufacturers.