As many as 30 Trump administration appointees may be in violation of ethics guidelines intended to prevent officials from working in agencies they once lobbied, a government watchdog said Monday.
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The appointees include a top federal health official who worked for medical supply interests, an Office of the U.S. Trade Representative official who previously lobbied for U.S. Steel Corp. and a Pentagon official who lobbied for a military software company seeking defense contracts.
Public Citizen, a non-profit consumer protection and government accountability advocacy group, filed 30 ethics complaints against the agencies and the White House after the group identified dozens of appointments in the Trump administration that it says appear to violate one of the president’s ethics rules.
As a result of a report titled The Company We Keep, the group sent letters requesting that each of the respective designated agency ethics officers investigate and respond to the 30 identified appointments of individuals the group identified as lobbyists.
In letters sent to the agency and office heads on Monday, the organization argued that hiring people who lobbied for interests directly related their new government offices, absent a formal waiver, violates President Trump’s own ethics guidelines.
During his first week in office, Trump issued an executive order requiring all administration appointees to sign an ethics pledge that, in part, addressed previous work as lobbyists. Public Citizen said the ethics order surprised many and used some of the same key provisions from President Barack Obama’s earlier ethics executive order.
“I will not for a period of 2 years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts,” the agreement under Trump reads.
Officials in violation of Trump’s ethics order can recuse themselves, or bypass the restriction by way of an ethics waiver.
ABC News has requested comment from the White House.
Public Citizen identified 133 executive branch…
