Checking in on That Allegedly Drained Swamp
As we’ve said before, the phrase, "all the best people,” will never not be funny as long as this president* is the president. (“Infrastructure week” is its only real competition as a natural punchline.) Now, however, the good people at ProPublica have supplied a handy guide to exactly how funny the joke is. They have created a database of all the Top People who have been put in place by Camp Runamuck, a startling number of whom drew paychecks from industries they now are supposed to regulate, lobbied against the real mission of the agencies they currently head, and have as their only public-policy experience their presence at the conservative shape-up halls in and out of government.
By way of explanation, ProPublica describes precisely how, instead of draining the swamp, this administration* simply loaded it up with different phyla of swamp critters.
Here’s what we found: At least 187 Trump political appointees have been federal lobbyists, and despite President Trump’s campaign pledge to “drain the swamp,” many are now overseeing the industries they once lobbied on behalf of. We’ve also discovered ethics waivers that allow Trump staffers to work on subjects in which they have financial conflicts of interest. In addition, at least 254 appointees affiliated with Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and at least 125 staffers from prominent conservative think tanks are now working in the federal government, many of whom are on teams to repeal Obama-era regulations.
Drilling down even further, at least 35 Trump political appointees worked for or consulted with groups affiliated with the the billionaire libertarian brothers Charles and David Koch, who also have a network of advocacy groups, nonprofits, private companies and political action committees. At least 25 Trump appointees came from the influential Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank founded in 1973, and at least two came from Heritage Action, its related political nonprofit. Heritage says the Trump administration, in just its first year, has enacted nearly two-thirds of its 334 policy recommendations. We also found - for the first time - dozens of special-government employees, or SGEs, who work as paid consultants or experts for federal agencies while keeping their day jobs in the private sector.
The Washington revolving door is spinning so fast these days that it may break loose from the ground entirely and go revolving off toward Greenland. For example:
The pipelines between conservative policy think tanks - namely the Heritage Foundation and the Koch Brothers’ Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce - and the Trump administration are clear, as is their effect on federal policy. Just before Trump took office last January, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, one of the main conservative advocacy groups funded by the Koch Brothers, unveiled a deregulatory wish list. The action plan highlighted 19 Obama-era policies affecting the environment, labor and technology that Freedom Partners wanted gone. “This strategy can help to unravel eight years of regulatory overreach starting immediately,” the organization’s vice president, Andy Koenig, wrote in an accompanying press release.
A few weeks later, Koenig joined the White House as a policy assistant, putting him in a position to implement his former employer’s agenda. Sure enough, just over a year later, the administration has acted on 16 of the 19 suggestions that Freedom Partners listed. The moratorium on federal coal leases? Lifted. The Paris climate agreement? Withdrawn. The Clean Power Plan? Repealed. The FCC’s net neutrality policy, the EPA’s Waters of the United States rule, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s arbitration rules? All reversed.
My guess is that the real gold is to be found in the section about Special Government Employees, who are not required to submit financial disclosure forms, which are public records, and who are exempt from a number of other ethics requirements that apply to government work. Spelunking through this database is going to be fun, and ProPublica is promising regular updates. The Swamp may be the only thriving wild ecosystem left in the country once these guys are finished with it.
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