By Conover Kennard ·
While the Trump
administration is up to its collective neck in scandals, Donald Trump just
exempted his entire senior staff from provisions of his own ethics
rules, thus giving any conflicts of interest a pass.
The ethics waivers
total more than five times the number granted in the first four months of the
Obama administration.
This move follows an
intense dispute between the White House and the Office of Government
Ethics, which had been pushing the Trump administration to stop granting such
waivers in secret, the New York Times reports.
Trump’s executive order on ethics has been
waived at least 11 times since the administration came into power.
Just before taking office, Trump signed an executive
order seemingly in line with his ‘Drain the Swamp’ rhetoric, to restrict the
role of lobbyists in his administration.
While that sounded good at the time, he’s
failing to keep that promise. In fact, he’s filling swamp up to an
unprecedented level of madness and corruption.
The ethics waivers will now permit White House staffers to work
on matters that could affect their former employers or clients or involve
issues from which the aides would be normally be excluded because of past
lobbying work, Politico reports.
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon are
included among those given an ethics pass.
Chief White House strategist Steve Bannon also received a waiver to the rules as part of a blanket exemption for all White House appointees allowing them to communicate with the press. His reported discussions with former colleagues at the pro-Trump site Breitbart News, which Bannon chaired until last year, had raised red flags among ethics watchdogs.
The swamp is taking over:
The White House waived the rule for Trump energy policy adviser Michael Catanzaro, a former lobbyist for the oil and gas industry. He was given approval to work on “energy and environmental policy issues” including the Clean Power Plan, the Waters of the United States rule and other environmental regulations.Tax policy adviser Shahira Knight, a former Fidelity executive, was approved to deal with tax, retirement and financial services issues even though she’d previously lobbied on those topics.“The National Economic Council has been tasked with addressing issues relating to tax, retirement and financial services. The Administration has an interest in you working on matters in those areas due to your expertise and prior experience,” the waiver reads.White House economic aide Andrew Olmem was cleared to work on a variety of finance-related issues despite his lobbying for several big insurance companies and banks.
What is Trump going to do next, sign an executive to pardon for
himself and his administration from any past or future crimes?
Or sign an executive order to disallow his own impeachment?
We’re not sure why some Trump supporters aren’t catching on to
the level of corruption in this administration.
Seriously, Trump could eat a live puppy then wipe his mouth with
its tail and his supporters would cheer him on.
Author Conover Kennard makes tea partiers cry as a hobby. She was Commander of
Jade Helm15 during the failed takeover of the South. She's also one of the
biggest arseholes on Twitter. At night, she can be found drinking Conservative
tears while pulling off the wings of flies just because she can. She is the
founder of a Marxist, Commie, Maoist, Socialist site and has contributed to
several other sites, blah blah blah. She is an awful person but she doesn't
like to brag about that.
