Hope and Fail

Two more lobbyists offered waiver to sidestep ethics rules

During his first full day in office, President Obama signed an executive order instituting "strict" new ethics rules for the administration. The White House has issued three waivers to allow lobbysts to work for the administration.

Two more lobbyists have been granted waivers to work in the White House, allowing them to bypass the supposedly strict ethics rules President Obama issued on his first full day in office.

From Jake Tapper at ABC News:

Almost three weeks ago the Obama administration granted ethics wavers for two additional officials who had previously worked as lobbyists. On February 20 the administration signed waivers for Jocelyn Frye, former general counsel at the National Partnership for Women & Families, and Cecilia Muñoz, the former senior vice president for the National Council of La Raza, allowing them to work on issues for which they lobbied.

These two are in addition to deputy Defense Secretary Bill Lynn, a former Raytheon lobbyist whose waiver was granted two days after President Obama announced on January 21 what he heralded as the most sweeping ethics rules in American history — ones that would “close the revolving door that lets lobbyists come into government freely.”

The Executive Order on Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel requires that lobbyists who become members of Obama administration will not be able to work on matters they lobbied on for two years, or in the agencies they lobbied during the previous two years. Out of approximately 800 executive branch appointments, three waivers have been granted, the Obama administration said.

The White House announcement, after spending a considerable amount of space patting itself on the back, says this is the reason why:

We took the rare step of granting the waivers to Ms. Frye and Ms. Muñoz because of the importance of their respective positions and because of each woman’s unequalled qualifications for her job. Each is a leading substantive expert on the relevant issue areas and each also has long-standing relationships with constituencies important to their respective offices.

So there were no two other people in the whole United States that could fulfill their duties?

The White House calls this a “rare step,” but the ethics rules were less than a month old when the administration granted waivers to three people.

What’s more, according to Tapper, waivers aren’t needed for everyone:

Not all of the former lobbyists entering the administration have required the formal waivers; the White House has also required incoming administration officials who worked as lobbyists to write letters of recusal, indicating issues that they will stay away from dealing with because of their previous jobs. But those letters of recusal have not yet been disclosed.

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