“Trump ethics rules curtail lobbyists, while also loosening some Obama restrictions”

Matea Gold for WaPo:

President Trump on Saturday signed a far-reaching ethics policy that will make it harder for administration appointees to profit off their time in government as lobbyists, while also carving out loopholes that government watchdogs said will speed up Washington’s revolving door.

The presidential executive order builds off ethics rules signed by former president Barack Obama in 2009, banning executive appointees from lobbying their agencies for five years after leaving office and from lobbying anyone in the executive branch for the rest of his administration. Trump also banned appointees from ever working as lobbyists for a foreign government….

But his ethics rules also shorten the “cooling-off” period during which former appointees can communicate with the agency where they worked from two years to one. And while former lobbyists who join the government will still be banned from participating in any matter they lobbied on for two years, Trump’s order allows them to join an executive agency that they lobbied in the previous two years — something prohibited under Obama.

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