Under His Nose

During his campaign last year, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to "drain the swamp" by limiting the power of foreign lobbyists in Washington and, particularly, at the White House. Shortly after becoming President, he signed an order banning anyone in his administration from lobbying for a foreign government for life after leaving the White House.

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump's former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was actually lobbying for foreign clients from inside the White House while working for the government at the same time (details here and here). The project in question was a joint Russian/Middle Eastern nuclear-power plan that included foreign government participation.

While in the White House, Flynn directed National Security Council staff to meet with the foreign companies involved to speed the project along. So while taxpayers were paying their salaries, White House staff was doing lobbying work for a foreign consortium.

So this leads us to several possible conclusions:

One, Trump is so incompetent he doesn't realize his own National Security Advisor, one of the President's closest aides, is breaking the law right under his nose.

Two, Trump is such an abysmal and morally compromised administrator that he can't demand adherence to the law by his own staff.

Three, Trump's promise to curtail foreign lobbying was yet another lie.

Four, Trump knew all along his presidential order limiting lobbying was a joke and he never planned to enforce it.

The answer may be some or all of the four possible conclusions above. On the last point, it is worth noting that Trump's White House has granted far more ethics waivers in less than a year than President Obama's White House did during his entire eight years in office (details here).

The bottom line, instead of draining the swamp, Trump has stocked it with lots more alligators, venomous snakes, spiders, and scorpions.