Skip to content
Subscriber Only
Politics

Trump’s Ethics Order Seen as Boost for Shadow Lobbying

  • Five-year ban may push more ex-officials to avoid registering
  • Lobbyist filings have declined by roughly 3,700 since 2007
President Donald Trump speaks after signing executive orders related to a lobbying ban in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Jan. 28, 2017.

President Donald Trump speaks after signing executive orders related to a lobbying ban in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Jan. 28, 2017.

Photographer: Pete Marovich/Pool via Bloomberg
By

and

Updated on

The ethics pledge that President Donald Trump has ordered all his appointees to sign looks tough: When they leave the federal government, they’ll have a five-year ban on lobbying the agencies where they worked.

But Trump’s order might open the door for more so-called “shadow lobbying,” ethics specialists say -- influence peddling that doesn’t quite meet the official definition of lobbying. That behavior, which can include arranging meetings with decision makers or attaching one’s name to a particular interest group’s cause, would avoid the terms of the executive order the president signed Saturday.