US President Donald Trump dedicated one of his latest in-office decisions to exempt current and former members of his administration from the terms of the ethical commitment, including a five-year ban on lobbying their former departments. .
The ethical commitment was introduced in one of Trump’s first decrees, signed on January 28, 2017, within his campaign pledge to “clean up the swamp,” an allusion to the fight against corruption. It required Trump-appointed officials to accept that lobbying veto and promise not to accept jobs that would require them to register as “ foreign agents ” after leaving the government. Trump’s executive order authorized the attorney general to investigate any violation of the ethical commitment and file civil charges if necessary.
Trump reversed the decree on Tuesday in a one-page document released by the White House shortly after 1 a.m. Wednesday, hours before his term ended.
The text read, “Employees and former employees subject to the commitments of Executive Order 13770 will not be subject to those obligations as of January 20, 2021 at noon.”
Former President Bill Clinton signed a similar order a few weeks after his last term in office, allowing his former employees to lobby immediately after they left the government.