Buried in Donald Trump’s rescission of dozens of Biden administration executive orders, the president has reversed a rule that thwarted the power of lobbyists in Washington.
Biden’s Executive Order 13989, titled “Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel,” required members of the executive branch to sign an ethics pledge stating they would not receive gifts from lobbyists or lobbying organizations.
The Biden-era pledge also included several clauses related to a “revolving door ban,” which prohibited all employees entering the government from working with regulations and contracts related to their former employer or former clients for a period of two years from their appointment.
The revolving door ban also prohibits lobbyists joining the government from working on matters that they had personally lobbied for or engaged in, participating in the “specific issue area in which that particular matter falls,” or seeking employment with an agency they had lobbied within two years of their appointment.
The pledge included a “golden parachute” agreement, where employees had to agree not to accept payment from their former employer to join the administration.
The ethics commitment was part of Biden’s efforts to crack down on shadow lobbying, by which former government officials are able to influence policy without registering as lobbyists.
Clearly, Trump doesn’t have the same concerns. At the start of his first administration, Trump imposed a similar, even harsher rule against lobbying that prevented his former employees from lobbying for five years. He repealed that order in 2021. Dozens of Trump’s aides were able to get round that rule anyway because it was only ever weakly enforced, according to Open Secrets.
Trump has rescinded the Biden version of that executive order as part of one of his own first executive orders that repealed more than 75 of Biden’s executive orders.
Under Trump, it will be legal to bribe politicians again, the revolving door of Washington will continue to swing, and calls to “drain the swamp” will fade into nothing more than a dull murmur.