President-Elect Trump Begins Draining The Swamp

Pence removing lobbyists from Trump transition team



November 16, 2016

Lobbyists are being purged from official roles in President-elect Donald Trump's transition team, sources told Fox News late Tuesday.

The move to get rid of lobbyists in key roles was one of the first decisions made by Vice President-elect Mike Pence in his role overseeing the construction of a Trump administration.

One source said the decision to remove the lobbyists "makes good on [Trump's] vision of how he wants his government constructed."

Tuesday evening, Pence formally signed a memorandum of understanding putting him in charge of the transition team. A similar document had been signed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who spent months running transition operations before his demotion last week.

TRUMP COMPLETES FIRST INTEL BRIEFING AS PRESIDENT-ELECT

The switch slowed Trump's ability to coordinate the transfer of power with the Obama administration. White House spokeswoman Brandi Hoffine told the Associated Press the administration was waiting on more documents required by law before agencies could begin sharing information with the transition team.

Pence ignored questions from reporters Tuesday, both as he entered Trump Tower with a thick binder tucked under his arm, and as he left six hours later.

A person familiar with the transition efforts told AP different factions in Trump's team "are fighting for power."

"That organization right now is not designed to work," according to the person close to the efforts, who like others involved in the transition, insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the internal process.

The group organized by Christie had featured a litany of lobbyists, former bureaucrats, academics and corporate lawyers. That caused consternation from Trump, who won cheers on the campaign trail for his repeated promises to "drain the swamp" in Washington.

It had also drawn the attention of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who repeatedly attacked Trump during the campaign on behalf of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. On Tuesday, Warren called on Trump to replace more than 20 members of his transition team with ties to Wall Street firms and other corporations.

"If you refuse," Warren wrote, "I will oppose you, every step of the way, for the next four years. I will champion the millions of Americans you will fail to protect. I will track your every move, and I will remind Americans, every day, of the actions you take that fail them."

Among those who departed Trump's transition team Tuesday was former Rep. Mike Rogers, a Christie recruit and a respected Republican voice on national security issues. The Wall Street Journal reported that Frank Gaffney, a former defense official in the Reagan administration, had been brought in to assist on national security issues, along with Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and former Rep. Pete Hoekstra.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD AFFILIATE FUELING PROTESTS?

Former GOP national security official Eliot Cohen blasted Trump's team on Twitter, calling them "angry, arrogant." Cohen opposed Trump during the campaign, but in recent days, he said those who feel duty-bound to work in a Trump administration should do so. But he said Tuesday that after an exchange with Trump's team, he had "changed my recommendation."

Trump's transition team was also reviewing secretary of state candidate Rudy Giuliani's paid consulting work for foreign governments, which could delay a nomination or bump Giuliani to a different position, according to a person briefed on the matter but not authorized to speak publicly about it.

Giuliani founded his own firm, Giuliani Partners, in 2001, and helped businesses on behalf of foreign governments, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. He also advised TransCanada, which sought to build the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, and helped the maker of the painkiller drug OxyContin settle a dispute with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Businessman Carl Icahn disclosed on Twitter, based on conversations with the president-elect, that Trump was considering Steve Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker, and Wilbur Ross, a billionaire investor, to lead the Treasury and Commerce departments.

Trump himself broke with protocol Tuesday night by leaving Trump Tower without his press contingent. The transition team had told reporters and photographers there would be no movement by the president-elect for the rest of the day and night, but less than two hours later a presidential-style motorcade rolled out of the building, suggesting that Trump was on the move and leaving reporters scrambling.

Trump turned up at Club 21, a midtown Manhattan restaurant where he was having dinner with his family. Reporters were not allowed inside, and Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks asked that they respect that he was having an evening out with his family.

A short time later a tweet appeared on Trump's account: "Very organized process taking place as I decide on Cabinet and many other positions. I am the only one who knows who the finalists are!"

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/11/16/pence-removing-lobbyists-from-trump-transition-team.html

 

Really? You are as gullible and stupid after the election as you were before the election. What a surprise.

 

You still can't read. The OP told you everything you need to know, loser.

 

And yet Michael Korbey, David Malpass, Stevem Mnunchin, J. Steven Hart, Myron Ebell, and Jeffrey Eisenach remain part of the transition team. Hum? Nothing you posted suggests otherwise. Besides, Fox lies almost as much as Trump. Find a real news source dum-dum.

 

How Obama failed to shut Washington's revolving door

“When I’m president of the United States, if you want to work for my administration, you can’t leave my administration and then go lobby.” — Barack Obama, campaigning in Iowa in August 2007
“The revolving door — the pattern of people going from industry to agency, back to industry — that will be closed in the Obama White House.” — Obama, in Iowa in December 2007


The vow of a novice Chicago senator to freeze out lobbyists and nail shut the revolving door was no throwaway line in Barack Obama’s stump speech. It was central to the narrative animating his 2008 campaign: a promise of wholesale change to business as usual in Washington. His presidency would be different.

Eight years later, here’s how different it looks: The top lobbyist for the private health insurance industry that continues to battle aspects of Obamacare is a former Health and Human Services official who played a powerful role in implementing the legislation. The head of the software industry’s lobbying group is a former Obama White House appointee who oversaw the negotiation and enforcement of the intellectual property rules essential to that business. And an Obama aide deeply involved in crafting the White House’s broadband Internet policy now serves as the chief lawyer for the telecom industry group seeking to legally overturn those same rules.

All presidents back away from some of their most dramatic campaign promises. But seven years into Obama’s presidency, the revolving door shuttling officials out of his administration is spinning at a rapid clip, and Obama has seen his campaign promise founder against the deeply ingrained culture of selling government expertise in Washington. “They were overpromising on something they could never deliver,” said Melanie Sloan, former executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “It’s worse than doing nothing.”


White House

Obama's 2016 world tour
By Edward-Isaac Dovere

There’s no doubt grand promises were made. Just one week after Obama’s sweeping victory, transition chief John Podesta declared that the president-elect made a commitment “he intends to enforce in his government, so that the undue influence of Washington lobbyists and the revolving door of Washington ceases to exist.” On his first full day in office, Obama underscored the issue's personal significance by signing what the White House billed as an “historic” executive order to bar his appointees from lobbying their former administration colleagues for two years after leaving the government.

What happened instead?

The Obama administration has hired more than 70 previously registered lobbyists, according to a 2014 POLITICO review, and watched many officials circle through that revolving door, as Obama’s lobbying policy was weakened by major loopholes and a loss of focus over time. What’s more, the current laws around lobbying, which the administration measures were built on, simply ignore many instances observers would regard as lobbying — and the White House never pressed for changes to those laws.

Obama’s promises on lobbying received considerable media attention in his first months in office but interest waned. Ethics experts say the last year or two have tested the policy like never before as some Obama appointees jump to take highly paid K Street posts before the policy knowledge and connections they made inside the administration run the risk of being devalued if a Republican wins the White House.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/barack-obama-revolving-door-lobbying-217042

 

From Lobbyists To Loyalists, See Who's On Donald Trump's Transition Team
BRIAN NAYLOR

• 
  
  Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell (from left), retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, David R. Malpass and former Attorney General Edwin Meese are serving as key members of President-elect Donald Trump's transition team.
  
  L: Michael Conroy/AP, Carolyn Kaster/AP, Mario Tama/Getty Images, Michael Stewart/WireImage
  The Trump transition team is a work in progress, but there are certain things we know. It's being led by Vice President-elect Mike Pence, and it includes an executive committee that includes several members of President-elect Donald Trump's family.
  
  NPR has obtained an organizational chart, which lists the names of those who are heading "teams" with responsibility for many of the federal agencies and departments. Several of them, especially in the national security realm, played advisory roles in the Trump campaign. Most are white men. And, somewhat surprisingly for an administration that pledges to reduce the impact of lobbyists in Washington to "drain the swamp," a fair number of them are lobbyists.
  
  Keep in mind that the transition is a fluid process. For instance, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was the original transition chairman until he was replaced by Pence, and Mike Rogers was originally the national security lead, until he unexpectedly withdrew. The New York Times reported that lobbyist Matthew Freedman, also on the national security team, was fired. (Trump denied the Times report that his transition team is in flux, tweeting that it's going "so smoothly.")
  
  bio on BCG's website, Nicol's focus is on telecommunications and airlines. Prior to his work at BCG, he worked at Babcock and Wilcox, an energy and environmental technology company.
  
  Nicol will oversee the following six groups, each with its own lead.
  
  
  DEFENSE
  Keith Kellogg is a retired Army lieutenant general who endorsed Trump last summer. He served two tours in Vietnam and was chief of staff for the 82nd Airborne Division in Operation Desert Storm. Since retiring from the military, Kellogg has worked for a number of defense and homeland security contractors.
  
  • Michael Meese is working under Kellogg on Veterans Affairs. He is a retired Army brigadier general who served as a senior adviser to Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq and Afghanistan. He taught at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and currently teaches at Georgetown University. He also serves as chief operating officer of the American Armed Forces Mutual Aid Association, which helps military families deal with financial matters. He happens to be the son of another transition team member, former Attorney General Edwin Meese.
  NATIONAL SECURITY
  Former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers was originally slated to lead the National Security transition team. However, in a statement released Tuesday, he said he was "pleased to hand off our work" to a new team led by Mike Pence.
  
  There are several people working underneath the head of the National Security team. They include:
  
  1. DHS: Cindy Hayden, lobbyist for Altria, a giant tobacco company.
  2. State: Jim Carafano, vice president at the conservative Heritage Foundation and, according to its website, "a leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges."
  3. Intelligence: Ronald Burgess, a retired Army lieutenant general who served as deputy director of national intelligence from 2005 to 2007 during the George W. Bush administration, and for a month in 2009. He has been at Auburn University, working on national security and cyber programs, since December 2012.
  ECONOMIC ISSUES
  
  Enlarge this image
  Republican David R. Malpass, seen in 2010, is advising Donald Trump.
  
  Mario Tama/Getty Images
  David Malpass is the president of Encima Global, a consulting and economic research firm. Previous positions include work at Bear Stearns as a chief economist, controller at Consolidated Supply Co. and a variety of appointments during the Reagan and Bush administrations, including deputy assistant treasury secretary for developing nations, deputy assistant secretary of state and senior analyst for taxes and trade at the Senate Budget Committee. Malpass ran unsuccessfully for a New York Senate seat in 2010 and was an adviser to former New York Mayor Rudy Giulianiduring his 2008 bid for the White House. In an interview with Marketplace, Malpass expressed his belief that Trump is capable of changing government, saying, "[The federal government] is this giant entity that's constantly affecting people's lives. And I think they haven't been making good decisions in the current administration and we need a better one."
  
  Bill Walton is the chairman of Rappahannock Ventures (a private equity firm) and Rush River Entertainment (film production company). He is a senior fellow for the Discovery Institute's Center on Wealth, Poverty and Morality and is the chairman of the board and CEO of Allied Capital Corp.
  
  DOMESTIC ISSUES
  
  Enlarge this image
  Ken Blackwell, seen in June, is the former Ohio secretary of state.
  
  Drew Angerer/Getty Images
  Ken Blackwell is the senior fellow for human rights and constitutional governance at the conservative Family Research Council. The author of several books, including Resurgent: How Constitutional Conservatism Can Save America, Blackwell is a former mayor of Cincinnati and former Ohio secretary of state and treasurer. He was the first black major party nominee for Ohio governor in 2006 (he lost to Ted Strickland) and ran unsuccessfully for chairman of the Republican National Committee in 2009. Blackwell has previously spoken out against Trump, saying, "Donald Trump is an existential threat to conservatism. He is arguably one of the most divisive figures in modern political history and his candidacy represents not only a threat to the Republican Party, Donald Trump is dragging the nation into the political gutter. It's time for conservative voters to open their eyes and understand the nation deserves better than this political huckster." Blackwell's appointment drew criticism from the left for anti-gay comments he has made.
  
  There are several people working underneath Blackwell, heading up various teams. They include:
  
  
  1. EPA: Myron Ebell directs environmental and energy policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and is a leading climate change skeptic. He opposes the Clean Power Plan, which is aimed at reducing carbon emissions, calling it illegal. He heads a group called the "Cooler Heads Coalition" that questions "global warming alarmism."
  2. DOE/NRC: Mike McKenna, president of MWR Strategies, a lobbying firm. His clients have included Koch Companies and Dow Chemical. He worked for the Department of Energy during the George H.W. Bush administration.
  3. Labor: Steve Hart, chairman of Williams & Jensen, a Washington lobbying firm. According to his bio on the company's website, he has been named "one of Washington's top lobbyists." He worked at the Justice Department during the Reagan administration and at OMB and the Labor Department.
  MANAGEMENT/BUDGET
  
  Enlarge this image
  Edwin Meese, seen in 2015, is a former U.S. attorney general.
  
  Mark Wilson/Getty Images
  Edwin Meese is a fellow emeritus at the conservative Heritage Foundation. He served President Reagan in a variety of positions, including attorney general, and as a member of Reagan's National Security Council. He also headed the transition team after Reagan won the 1980 election.
  
  Kay Coles James is the former director of the Office of Personnel Management. She served as Virginia's secretary of health and human resources and is the former senior vice president of the Family Research Council.
  
  AGENCY TRANSFORMATION AND INNOVATION
  Beth Kaufman
  
  Policy Implementation Team
  The policy implementation team is led by Ado Machida. Machida served as a deputy assistant and acting director for domestic policy to former Vice President Dick Cheney and was previously a lobbyist at Akin Gump Straus Hauer & Feld LLP and BAE Systems. He was a senior economic policy adviser on Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign.
  
  Machida oversees a team of 14 people, including the executive legal action lead and executive authority adviser.
  
  EXECUTIVE LEGAL ACTION LEAD
  Andrew Bremberg has long been an adviser to top Republicans. He served as a policy adviser to Gov. Scott Walker during his presidential campaign and to Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. He is the former chief of staff in the Office of Public Health and Science at the Department of Health and Human Services and was brought in to help on health policy as part of the transition team for Mitt Romney during his bid for the presidency.
  
  

 

Funny, but 65% of our population is white. And the vast majority of our executives are men just like the Obama team.

"A fair number", huh? But he promised to "reduce the impact" not eliminate. "A fair number" to me is political speak for "we want to make a mountain out of a mole hill."

 

I think it's ludicrous to believe that all lobbyists could be eliminated from any president's transition team. It's simply not possible. President-Elect Trump, however, is doing a wonderful job minimizing their influence. Bravo!

 

Did Lyin Joe crawl out of his safe place?
Lyin Joe, here are a couple observations:
#1 Your opinion is worthless
#2 Your thoughts are worthless
#3Your cut and pasted are worthless
#4 Your presence is annoying
4 good reasons for you to STFU. Snivel and whine in private from now on OK?

 

And let's not forget Reince Priebus. As establishment as it gets. Instead of draining the swamp, Trump is adding alligators. But nice back-pedaling though.

 

Hellz yeah! The man hasn't even taken over the reins of power yet and he's already kicking ass!

Trump transition team announces five-year lobbying ban for appointees



November 17, 2016

Appointees to President-elect Donald Trump's administration will be asked to sign a form barring them from being a registered lobbyist for five years after they leave government service, officials announced Wednesday -- following up on the D.C. outsider's pledge to "drain the swamp."

Republican National Committee chief strategist Sean Spicer said on a conference call with reporters that the prohibition would help to ensure people won't be able to use government service "to enrich themselves."

In addition, Spicer announced that Trump transition team members would be barred from lobbying about the issues they had worked on for six months after their departure. He did not immediately explain how either ban would be enforced.

The new Trump transition policy is one of several aimed at curbing the influence of lobbyists. During the presidential campaign, Trump vowed to institute a five-year lobbying ban for all departing members of Congress and their staff, in addition to executive branch officials.

His original transition team, assembled under New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, was packed with lobbyists and interest advocates. In recent days, Trump put Vice President-elect Mike Pence in charge of transition, and he is changing some of the people who are involved.

Pence is "making good on President-elect Trump's promise that we're not going to have any lobbyists involved with the transition efforts," Trump spokesman Jason Miller said Wednesday. "And this is, when we talk about draining the swamp, this is one of the first steps. And so, the bottom line is, we're going to get the transition team where we need it to be."

In a "60 Minutes" interview that aired Sunday, Trump said he'd had no choice but to initially rely on lobbyists in Washington because "the whole place is one big lobbyist." He vowed to "phase that out."

His White House predecessors have made similar promises.

On the campaign trail in 2007, Barack Obama frequently condemned the "revolving door" of Washington in terms strikingly similar to Trump.

When Obama won the presidency the following year, he banned practicing lobbyists from participating in transition activities and banned those who had been a lobbyist in the previous year from joining the administration to work on issues they handled as lobbyists. Obama's transition team participants were also barred from lobbying the White House for a year after their departures.

With government influencers still firmly entrenched, Obama won re-election in 2012 after a second campaign that included almost no talk about the revolving door.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...es-five-year-lobbying-ban-for-appointees.html

 

And then there is this little item to consider. You guys are born suckers!


Trump used to rail against drug prices. Now the industry's allies are helping shape his agenda

President-elect Donald Trump made the cost of prescription drugs a central part of his healthcare pitch while campaigning but has been silent on the issue since being elected. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

Donald Trump and his congressional allies are making big plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act and overhaul other government health programs.

But the president-elect appears to have downgraded plans to act aggressively to control rising drug prices, handing the pharmaceutical industry an early victory and providing another illustration of the influence of lobbyists on the new Trump administration, despite Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp” of special interests in Washington.

Trump, who once made the cost of pharmaceuticals a central part of his campaign healthcare pitch and included the issue on his campaign website, hasn’t mentioned the subject since the election, even though the issue is consistently cited as the top healthcare problem Americans want to see fixed.

And Trump’s transition healthcare agenda makes no mention of drug prices, though it lists six other healthcare priorities, including restricting abortion, speeding federal approval of new drugs and restructuring Medicare and Medicaid.

“One of the major issues that Americans say they are concerned about is high healthcare costs, and a key part of that is prescription drugs. It’s a pocketbook issue,” said Nancy LeaMond, executive vice president of the influential AARP.

“People are looking to see what the president-elect and his team are ready to do.”

The Trump transition team did not respond to questions about the new administration’s prescription drug agenda.

But already the drug industry’s allies, including lobbyists and senior elected officials who have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in industry money, are taking on important roles in the transition and in work on the 2017 agenda.

Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s political career, for example, has long been supported by pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co., which is based in his home state of Indiana. The drug maker, through its political action committee and employees, is Pence’s third largest all-time political contributor, according to calculations by the independent Center for Responsive Politics.

Pence is now leading the Trump transition.

Other key figures in Trump’s circle of advisors have included a former executive at drug makers Pfizer and Celgene and the chairman of Williams & Jensen, a leading Washington lobbying firm. According to federal lobbying reports, Williams and Jensen’s clients in recent years have included 11 of the world’s largest drug makers, including Pfizer, Novartis, AstraZeneca, Merck and Bayer.

Shares of many pharmaceutical companies’ stock rose after Trump’s election last week.

In contrast to his silence on drug prices, Trump displayed little hesitation blasting them when he was campaigning.

He railed against the political power of the drug industry, which he said was responsible for blocking Medicare from using its bargaining power to negotiate lower drug prices for seniors.

“They have a fantastic lobby. They take care of all of the senators, the congressmen,” Trump said at a GOP primary debate in Miami in March.

 

The man was elected a week ago and he still hasn't built the wall, yet! What's the hold up?

 

Trump team announces tough lobbying ban
A promised five-year ban for administration officials could thin the talent pool.

By Isaac Arnsdorf

11/16/16 10:44 PM EST

Updated 11/16/16 10:40 PM EST

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President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team on Wednesday announced that it will require incoming officials to terminate their lobbying registrations, and agree not to lobby again for five years after leaving the administration.

Anyone joining the transition or the administration will have to sign the following pledge: “By signing below I hereby certify that I am not currently registered and reporting as a federal lobbyist as defined by the Lobbying Disclosure Act as amended or as a compensated lobbyist at the state level in any state. If I was listed as lobbyist in the most recent lobbying disclosure forms or reported to be filed by federal or state law, I hereby notify the president-elect’s transition team that I have filed the necessary forms to the appropriate government agency to terminate my [lobbying registration]. I will provide the transition team with written evidence of my federal or state lobbyist termination as soon as possible."


“The key thing for this administration is going to be that people going out of government won’t be able to use that service to enrich themselves,” Republican National Committee chief strategist Sean Spicer said during a conference call. After the call, he rejected a suggestion that the post-employment ban could hinder the transition team’s ability to recruit qualified applicants.

But the sweeping post-employment restrictions could make it difficult for Trump, whose transition team has struggled to get off the ground, to attract experienced professionals in policy circles where lobbying is a common revenue stream.


Presidential Transition

Trump’s vast web of conflicts: A user’s guide
By Darren Samuelsohn

The policy is in some ways far more rigid than President Barack Obama’s groundbreaking lobbyist ban.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/donald-trump-lobbying-ban-231534

 

Loser!