Donald Trump was emphatic on the campaign trail in 2016: If he made it into office, he would “drain the swamp” with an expansive ethics package cracking down on lobbying. Most of those proposals quickly went by the wayside. On the campaign trail again almost a year ago, Trump decried Washington’s revolving door as a “big problem.”
Now, barely a half-year into his second administration, a handful of senior White House aides are already heading for the exits — and right through the revolving door between the federal government and K Street, where they’re lining up cushy lobbying gigs.
On Wednesday, the all-Republican lobbying firm CGCN Group announced it has hired White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields.
A day earlier, POLITICO reported that Trent Morse will leave his post as deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of the Office of Presidential Personnel to launch his own lobbying firm. Morse is also partnering with another high-powered Beltway shop, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.
Also on Tuesday, digital assets giant Tether announced that it had hired former White House cryptocurrency adviser Bo Hines to provide strategic advice on digital assets and U.S. strategy.
Earlier this month, longtime Trump adviser and senior White House strategist May Davis Mailman exited the administration to start her own government affairs firm.
The departures — and the White House’s response to them — show how Trump has abandoned any pretense of cleaning up the age-old ways of Washington, and they illustrate the ways in which his administration continues to push the bounds of ethics norms and guardrails designed to prevent government officials from profiting off their time in public service.
They also reflect the desperation from those outside the administration for help navigating a presidency where policies with massive financial implications for businesses, nonprofits, universities and more can change on a dime.
“The demand for these folks is so high that business and folks are looking for a sherpa for this administration, just because it’s so different,” said Ivan Adler, who runs an executive search firm in Washington and calls himself the “Lobbyist Hunter.” “There aren’t a lot of people out there, and people are taking advantage of that.”
