Overview
Executive Order 13770, entitled "Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Appointees," was an executive order issued by US President Donald Trump on January 28, 2017, that directs executive branch employees on a ban from becoming a lobbyist for five years. The order, which reflected an increasingly standard practice of issuing such ethics rules by executive order early in a new administration, borrowed language from similar orders issued by past administrations.
Purpose
Ethics Pledge. Every appointee in every executive agency appointed on or after January 20, 2017, shall sign, and upon signing shall be contractually committed to, the following pledge upon becoming an appointee:
Review of order
The executive order directs executive branch employees on a ban on lobbying any government official for two years and the agency they worked in for five years. It also prevents them from ever lobbying the US on behalf of a foreign government or foreign political parties. If someone is found guilty of not complying with the order, they could be barred for another five years on top of the order's five years for a total of ten years. The order has a lifetime ban on lobbying for foreign governments.
Revocation
Trump revoked the order on the final day of his presidency without explanation. This allowed his appointees, some of whom had trouble finding work after the White House, to immediately begin working as lobbyists. President Bill Clinton similarly revoked his comparable executive order at the end of his presidency, something Trump criticized him for during the 2016 campaign.
Reaction
NPRs Tamara Keith states, "As Trump's team drafted his order on ethics, they appear to have borrowed heavily from the language used in orders signed by both Clinton and President Obama. Obama also pulled from Clinton, in parts and the ethics directive signed by President George W. Bush is nearly identical to the one signed by his father twelve years earlier. But that's less surprising given those were presidents using the language of their predecessor from the same party.
Perhaps more importantly, Trump not only seems to be lifting from Democratic presidents' language, but they are presidents he has condemned, including for not draining the swamp." "The story here is not the copying per se, it is the claim Trump has been making that he is doing something really different, new, and righteous when, apparently, in many respects he is actually copying Democrats he so thoroughly condemned as corrupt," said John Woolley, a professor at UC Santa Barbara and co-director of the Presidency Project. News coverage contrasted the revocation of the ban with Trump's earlier pledge to "drain the swamp."
See also
* List of executive actions by Donald Trump