How Trump abandoned his pledge to ‘drain the swamp’
‘The 45th President’: One in a series looking
back at the Trump presidency
By
Oct. 24, 2020 at 1:26 p.m. CDT
On a
Friday evening in late September, President Trump huddled with high-dollar
donors, lobbyists and corporate executives in a private room at the hotel he
owns in Washington, where attendees took turns pitching the president on their
pet issues.
Trump
was there to raise big money for his reelection effort. The price of admission:
as much as $100,000 per person to get in the door.
For his
guests, it was a chance to make the most of what has emerged as a signature
feature of Trump’s Washington: the ability of wealthy donors to directly lobby
the president.
One
talked to him about solar panels; another about business loans, according to
two people who participated and, like others interviewed for this report, spoke
on the condition of anonymity to describe private interactions. At least one
guest was told by Trump to follow up with White House Chief of Staff Mark
Meadows, conveniently seated nearby.
One
attendee’s plea on behalf of an obscure railway project in Alaska in need of
federal approval appeared to get immediate results.
Just
after midnight, mere hours after the campaign fundraiser, Trump tweeted that
it was his “honor to inform you that I will be issuing a Presidential Permit
for the A2A Cross-Border rail.”
“Congratulations
to the people of Alaska & Canada!” he added, noting that the state’s
congressional delegation was supportive of the move. The presidential permit was
officially issued three days later.
Trump’s
rapid action after the Sept. 25 fundraiser — one of dozens of high-dollar
donor events he has headlined while in office — emblemizes how much he has
abandoned his 2016 pledge to “DRAIN THE SWAMP.”
In the
closing weeks of that election, Trump led cheering supporters in chants of that
slogan, promising that he would completely disrupt the culture of Washington.
He warned of the power of lobbyists and political donors who he said
effectively bought off elected officials. He told voters he was uniquely
prepared to take on the issue, because he knew personally as a contributor how
the system worked.
“When you
give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do,” he told the Wall Street Journal in
2015.
But
during his four years in office, Trump has taken few steps to clean up
Washington. He has instead presided over a norm-shattering expansion of private
interests in government.
The
government has had to spend money at
Trump’s private hotels as his family has traveled around the globe. Trump sidestepped rules that
had been designed to prevent nepotism, allowing his son-in-law to serve in a
top government role. He has touted companies run by
supporters and allies who received government contracts. His administration has
allowed former lobbyists to serve in jobs in
which they have oversight of policies that affect their former employers.
Among
the five pledges Trump made to “drain the swamp” and curtail the influence of
lobbyists in a major campaign speech in October 2016, a Washington Post review
found that he sought to address only two, through an executive order in January
2017 — which contained a major loophole.
Craig
Holman, a lobbyist for the government watchdog group Public Citizen, had
initially expressed cautious optimism about Trump’s ethics pledge in 2017. He
now says the president has worsened Washington’s profiteering culture in nearly
every way.
“The
whole administration has taken Trump’s tone — self-dealing, self-enriching,
enriching your friends and familes — that’s smart, if you listen to Trump,” he
said.
Judd
Deere, a White House spokesman, said in a statement that the president has
followed through on his promises, casting “the swamp” as those who have opposed
Trump’s agenda.
“President
Trump has fought tirelessly in his effort to make Washington accountable to the
American people — that can be seen not only in his government ethics reforms,
but also in his push to drain the swamp of its tired, failed, recycled ideas,
such as working to end endless wars, tearing up disastrous trade deals that
shipped our jobs overseas, rolling back burdensome regulations and expediting
permit approvals, and putting an end to uncontrolled immigration,” he said.
“And that is why the Swamp has fought so hard against this President every step
of the way.”
Rich
contributors have long had access to elected officials in Washington, but as
president, Trump as dropped any pretense that they should not be afforded
special treatment.
Donors
and others seeking access appear routinely at his private clubs in Florida and
New Jersey, where they have buttonholed the president on the patio or golf
course.
The
ability of outside favor-seekers to influence Trump has at times worried
administration officials. A group of Mar-a-Lago members sought to shape the direction of
the Department of Veterans Affairs, as the former VA secretary detailed
in a book.
Donors attending fundraisers at his Bedminister club weighed in on the GOP tax
bill, according to people familiar with internal discussions.
Barry
Bennett, a 2016 Trump campaign adviser and lobbyist for foreign interests, said
business for him was booming before the coronavirus pandemic.
The
president’s attacks on the swamp have been effective in one way, he said: “To
the extent that Washington is less popular, and people are more angry at their
government, that’s been the effect of the Trump presidency.”
'I know
the system'
When
Trump launched his presidential bid, he distinguished himself from rivals for
the Republican nomination by saying he would fund his own campaign, eschewing
the support of donors who he said corrupted the political system by seeking
favors in exchange for their contributions. The argument proved powerful with
voters.
“I will
say this — [the] people [who]
control special interests, lobbyists, donors, they make large contributions to
politicians and they have total control over those politicians,” he said at
a Republican primary debate in March
2016. “And frankly, I know the system better than anybody else and
I’m the only one up here that’s going to be able to fix that system, because
that system is wrong.”
He
likewise termed super PACs, which can accept unlimited amounts of money, a
“disaster.” “They’re a scam,” he said at a debate in October 2015. “They
cause dishonesty.”
Trump unveiled
the phrase “drain the swamp” in a speech in Green Bay, Wis., in
October 2016, wielding it as a weapon against Democrat Hillary Clinton, who was
benefiting from a network of wealthy
donors that she and former president Bill Clinton had cultivated over
four decades.
“There
were a lot of Democrats that Trump may not have beaten with that message,” said
Charles R. Black Jr., who has worked as a Republican lobbyist and consultant
for nearly five decades. “The message worked — but it worked especially because
of who she was.”
It was
quickly a hit with Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters, entering the lexicon
of call-and-response cries at his signature rallies. It remains one of the most
popular chants and resonant messages, campaign aides say.
“We’re
going to go to Washington. We’re going to drain the swamp,” Trump said at a North Carolina rally in
2016. As the crowd picked up the chant — “Drain the swamp! Drain the swamp!” —
Trump explained that when he first heard the phrase, he hated it. He thought it
was “hokey.” But then he said he noticed how crowds responded.
“The
place went crazy,” he said, adding: “Now I love the expression. I think it was
genius.”
By
then, Trump’s original promises to use his own wealth to power his campaign had
crumbled.
He
ultimately reported spending $66 million of his own money on his winning
campaign, only a small portion of the more than $564 million he raised by
the end of 2016. By July 2016, he began appearing at fundraisers for a super
PAC supporting his election.
Trump
made no pretense of self-funding his 2020 campaign. Instead, he spent four
years attending closed-door events for his wealthiest supporters, raising
millions of dollars for his campaign and the America First super PAC.
Some of
the country’s most powerful individuals have lent their properties for Trump’s
gilded fundraising events, from the California hillside mega-mansion of Oracle
founder Larry Ellison to the Hamptons beachfront palace of hedge fund manager
John Paulson. The entry fee for some: as high as $580,600 a person, with
much of the money flowing to the Republican National Committee, which as a
party committee can accept large contributions. Many of the events are at
Trump’s private clubs or hotels, where donors both contribute to his campaign
and stay or dine at his properties.
Donors
have gotten access not just to Trump at these events, but also to a range of
senior Cabinet officials such as Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, Interior
Secretary David Bernhardt and Trump advisers such as Peter Navarro, Kellyanne
Conway, Bill Stepien and Corey Lewandowski, invitations show.
Donor
pitches
While
his predecessors typically kept their remarks at donor events short and
scripted, Trump speaks loosely and profanely — even discussing sensitive military
operations and vulgarly describing political foes.
“It’s
like a rally speech, but with a lot more swearing,” one regular attendee said.
At a
campaign fundraiser held Thursday at the JW Marriott in Nashville, one donor
made a point of praising Trump for his work draining Washington’s swamp,
according to an attendee.
“I had
no idea how deep it was. I had no idea how mean it was,” Trump responded,
speaking to a crowd of supporters who had paid as much as $250,000 to be in the
room.
Among
those in attendance at the Sept. 25 event at Trump’s hotel in Washington
was Mead Treadwell, a former lieutenant governor of Alaska and vice chair of
Alaska-Alberta Railway Development Corp., the company attempting to build a
1,600-mile railway to link a port in Anchorage to Canada. It requires federal
approval because it would cross the border.
The
project is still in its early phases, but company officials have said having
the permit in hand will be key to raising additional money and moving forward.
Treadwell
said he spoke to Trump at the event about the project’s potential benefits to
Alaska. He said the company had lobbied for the White House to take over the
approval process from the State Department, where it had previously resided.
The White House agreed in February and the issue was fully briefed for White
House lawyers five or six months ago, he said. Then the company waited.
Treadwell
attended as a guest of the fiancee of the railway company’s chairman, he said.
He said his comments were brief, thanking Trump for considering the project —
and the White House for taking it over.
Treadwell
noted that Alaska’s governor and congressional delegation back the project and
had been lobbying the White House for the approval, and that he believed their
input was what probably spurred the president.
Sen.
Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) also spoke to Trump on the day of the fundraiser,
presenting a one-page memo explaining the proposal and telling the president
that the rest of the delegation supported it, according to a person with
knowledge of their conversation. Sullivan did not respond to a request for
comment.
Still,
Treadwell said, the tweet was surprising.
“I
can’t tell you how or why the White House made the decision when they did,” he
said. “All I can say is, we’ve had a long series of consultations on this.”
He
added: “I don’t think there was any quid pro quo.”
A White
House official said the project has state support, the permit had already gone
through a review process and its approval was unrelated to the fundraiser.
The
ability of high-dollar donors to shape Trump’s views was put into sharp relief
earlier this year, when onetime Trump supporter Lev Parnas released recordings
of events.
In the recordings, one
donor could be heard proposing the president hold a summit meeting with Kim
Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, at a South Korean golf course he owned.
Another donor, who owns a Canadian steel company, pushed Trump to limit steel
imports to the United States.
Parnas
and his business partner Igor Fruman, who were working with Trump lawyer
Rudolph W. Giuliani, urged the president to
recall the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, whom they viewed as unfriendly to
interests of a new natural gas company they had formed.
“Get
rid of her! Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow,”
Trump could be heard immediately
instructing an aide after the two made the request.
Parnas,
now a sharp critic of Trump, has been charged with campaign finance violations
and defrauding investors in his company. He has denied wrongdoing. Parnas said
it was widely understood by donors that they were paying for face time with
Trump.
“Everyone
knew that about Trump — all it took was that one minute, if he liked it,” he
said. “It was okay to spend a million dollars on a dinner. Because that dinner
could make your whole life.”
A
lobbying loophole
It was
eight days after Trump’s inauguration, and he was sitting in the Oval Office
surrounded by top aides such as then-White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus,
issuing one of his first executive orders. The presidential directive addressed
one of his major “drain the swamp” planks: a promise to curb lobbyists.
“Most
of the people standing behind me will not be able to go to work” after they
leave government, Trump said.
The
order addressed one of his campaign promises when it came to lobbying: It
required senior executive branch officials to sign a pledge that they will
never in their lifetime work as registered foreign lobbyists.
But
when it came to lobbying overall, the order had a loophole: It
prohibited former executive branch appointees only from lobbying the agencies
where they had served, not the government overall.
Overall,
Trump has largely failed to fulfill the pledges he made in his Green Bay “drain
the swamp” speech. He had promised he would push Congress to pass a five-year
lobbying ban into law so it could not be lifted by a future president. But he
never proposed such legislation. Nor did he ask Congress to impose a similar
five-year lobbying ban on its members, as he had promised he would in 2016.
In
addition, he never tried to seek to “close all the loopholes” used by former
government officials who get around registering as lobbyists by calling
themselves “consultants” and “advisers.” And he never acted on his pledge to
stop foreign lobbyists from campaign fundraising — and in fact, has benefited
from their financial support.
As his
promises to curtail lobbying have faded, Trump allies who can offer insight to
private interests have flourished.
“People
who know how Washington and the administration works, those people are always
going to be valuable,” Bennett said.
Priebus,
for example, has been paid up to six figures for private speeches to describe
Trump’s decision-making process, according to people with knowledge of the
speeches. Priebus declined to comment.
Other
Trump allies have worked as traditional lobbyists.
Take
David Urban, a Trump campaign adviser in 2016 and 2020, who has counseled the
president on senior personnel matters and politics, often in weekend phone
calls, and has regularly flown on Air Force One.
His
lobbying clientele in the Trump era has included a range of companies with
interests before the government, including the weapons giant Raytheon, T-Mobile
and ByteDance, the parent company of mobile app TikTok, which was targeted by
the Trump administration.
Urban
did not respond to requests for comment. He recently went to work for ByteDance
full time.
Former
New Jersey governor Chris Christie, a longtime adviser who served as Trump’s
coach before this fall’s presidential debates, has
earned nearly $200,000 lobbying for the Puerto Rican power authority this year,
as well as for health systems that were seeking coronavirus-related government
funding and a shipping conglomerate, according to lobbying records.
Trump
has long railed against Puerto Rico but decided earlier this year to grant the
country nearly $13 billion in aid.
In an
interview, Christie said he had only personally lobbied the president once — on
behalf of a legal client, who was given a pardon last year. He said he had
never lobbied the president for business clients but deals with White House and
agency officials.
Christie
said he had “no idea” if his advocacy on Puerto Rico led Trump to agree and
grant the country aid this fall, partially for the grid: “He has never told me
that directly.”
Backed
by foreign lobbyists
Perhaps
one of the most successful figures in the Trump lobbying era has been Brian
Ballard, who got his start with Trump lobbying for his company in Florida.
In the
past four years, he has lobbied the federal government on behalf of dozens of
clients, including private prison company Geo Group, which in 2017 moved its
annual leadership conference to a Trump-owned property, as well as Uber and Amazon,
public records show.
According
to tallies by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Ballard’s firm
has earned $58.8 million in lobbying fees since 2017.
Ballard
has made so much money that Trump aides have complained he has too much access
to the president and his administration, according to three officials.
In a
statement, Ballard said he “has thrived by building an exceptionally talented
and bipartisan team that has followed the same tradition of effective, ethical
representation that we have long-established in Florida.”
After
20 years in Florida, he said he had opened an office in Washington “at the
direct request of many of our Florida clients.” The expansion of his lobbying
business came, he wrote, in 2017 — the same year Trump took office.
Among
those who have sought his help are a number of foreign governments, including
Albania, Azerbaijan, the Dominican Republica, Kosovo, the Maldives, Mali,
Turkey, Qatar and Zimbabwe, records show.
Despite
his ties to foreign countries, he has played a lead role in the president’s
fundraising operation as finance vice chairman of the Republican National
Committee, helping raise millions for Trump’s reelection. Two of his employees,
former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi and Susie Wiles, have worked for the
president’s political operation. Bondi has gone from working as a Ballard employee to
a White House lawyer, back
to a Ballard employee and campaign adviser.
Ballard’s
fundraising efforts are exactly the kind of activities that Trump promised to
stamp out in 2016.
In his
Green Bay speech, Trump claimed of Clinton that “her international donors
control her every move.”
“I am
going to ask Congress to pass a campaign finance reform that prevents
registered foreign lobbyists from raising money in American elections,” he said
at the time.
But
once in office, Trump never proposed to Congress any sort of campaign finance
overhaul — much less legislation that would bar foreign lobbyists from
political fundraising.
Another prominent fundraiser for
Trump’s reelection campaign, David Tamasi, has lobbied for
the nation of Georgia and Kosovo’s Foreign Affairs Ministry. Tamasi declined to
comment.
Meanwhile,
some of the president’s top allies have been ensnared in investigations related
to foreign lobbying.
Elliot
Broidy who served as deputy finance chairman of the Republican National
Committee in 2017, pleaded guilty Tuesday to
acting as an unregistered foreign lobbyist for Malaysian and Chinese government
interests.
Trump’s
former campaign chairman Paul Manafort admitted to
federal prosecutors that he failed to register as a lobbyist for a Ukrainian
political party. So did Trump’s
deputy campaign manager Rick Gates.
A
senior White House official said that with his 2017 executive order, Trump
accomplished all that is within his authority to curb lobbying, including
instituting a five-year ban for former officials lobbying their former agencies
and expanding the definition of lobbying.
However,
government watchdog groups said the minimal lobbying restrictions that Trump
put in place have done little to stop Washington’s revolving door culture.
Trump’s order prohibited
appointees who had been lobbyists within two years before their appointment
from participating in business related to topics of interest to their former
clients for two years.
But a report compiled
by Public Citizen in March 2018 — only 14 months into the administration —
found that 133 former lobbyists had been appointed to the Trump administration.
They included 60 who had lobbied within two years of joining government and 35
of those former lobbyists were appointed to oversee the specific topics about
which they had previously lobbied.
Last
year, ProPublica found that
at least 33 former Trump administration officials had found ways to essentially
lobby after leaving government, despite the supposed five-year ban on such
activities. Some styled themselves consultants and advisers — the kind of end
run around the rules that Trump once railed against.
“It’s a
meaningless piece of paper that was just put out to live up to the ‘drain the
swamp’ promise,” Holman said of the executive order. “No one takes it
seriously.”
Black,
the veteran Washington lobbyist, said some agencies initially held lobbyists at
arm’s length — agreeing to speak by phone and email, but not accepting
meetings, for example.
But he
said Trump was such an unknown quantity in Washington that it is not surprising
that lobbyists who had relationships with him and top aides would benefit.
As for
purging the city of special interest influence, he said: “That’s probably a
century-long project, if you wanted to take it on.”
