President Trump Signs Lobbying & Ethics Executive Order
Following up on his campaign promise to “drain the swamp” in Washington, President Trump signed an executive order on January 28 outling the ethics obligations of his appointees.
The executive order strictly limits appointees’ ability to accept gifts from lobbyists – a restriction first imposed by President Obama. As a result, President Trump’s appointees cannot take advantage of the full range of gift exceptions available to career employees under the OGE gift rules. President Trump’s order also directs OGE to adopt rules to apply the executive order’s restrictive lobbyist gift ban to all government employees. If the OGE Director follows through on this, significant additional changes to the government-wide gift rules will be required.
The executive order’s “revolving door” provisions make it easier for lobbyists to join the administration, but they will generally be subject to greater restrictions when their employment ends. An individual who was a registered lobbyist in the two years preceding appointment can now work for the agency he or she formerly lobbied. President Obama had generally prohibited such employment. However, the new order prevents an appointee from engaging in “lobbying activities” with respect to his former agency for 5 years after leaving service. In addition, appointees have a lifetime ban on accepting work from foreign governments or foreign political parties which would require registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. But, the order reduces from two years to one year the “cooling-off period” during which certain senior executive branch officials are prohibited from representing others before their former agency.
It is not yet clear if other lobbying or ethics changes are on the way. President Trump has previously suggested expanding the definition of a “lobbyist” to close loopholes. This might take the form of deleting the “two contacts” or “20 percent” of time thresholds that are parts of the current lobbyist registration test, which would greatly increase the number of organizations required to register under the LDA.