Public Citizen Statement on Trump’s Lobby Ban Revocation
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In one of his last acts as president, President Donald Trump today revoked his own executive order requiring federal government appointees to sign a pledge to not lobby the agencies in which they worked for five years after leaving the administration. Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, and Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president, released the following statements in response:
“The revocation of the 5-year lobbying ban for presidential appointees is the perfect coda for the most corrupt administration in American history. Yet another of Donald Trump’s Big Lies was that he was the candidate, and then the president, to ‘drain the swamp.’
“The five-year lobbying ban was the signature evidence to buttress his preposterous claim that he actually cared about corruption and cronyism. Now, as he exits the White House, Trump is revealing that even that signature policy was nothing more than a prop in his demagogic play-acting before the American people.
“The good news is, today is a new era. President Joe Biden will today issue a far-reaching ethics order governing presidential appointees that will close the revolving door – and, hopefully, re-establish forever the norm that public service is in fact about serving the public, not grabbing what you can.”
– Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen
“If fully enforced, the new Biden ethics executive order goes further than President Barack Obama’s version. It works to eliminate shadow lobbying, add longer restrictions on lobbying the administration to deal with the revolving door, and eliminates golden parachutes incentivizing corporate government service.”
– Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of Public Citizen