Getty Images
Here’s a look at how swampy Trump’s appointments are based on their lobbying and fundraising
CHARLOTTE ALTER | RYAN TEAGUE BECKWITH
In mid-October, Donald Trump unveiled a major campaign slogans: “Drain the swamp.”
“It’s become the hottest expression,” he
said at a rally in New Hampshire.“If we win on November 8th, we are going to Washington, D.C.—when we win, OK—and we are going to drain the swamp.”
Trump used the term broadly to refer to what he called the “entire corrupt Washington Establishment,” including the outsized influence of lobbyists, political rewards for campaign donors and outright corruption.
Since becoming President-elect, however, Trump’s actions haven’t exactly lived up to his rhetoric, especially when it came to stocking his Administration.
While his Cabinet-level picks have been less traditional—a lot more billionaires and retired military officers than usual, for one thing—it’s clear that they are much more swampy as a whole than Trump pledged.
For one, the nominees are far from inexperienced in the ways of lobbying.
Eleven of his 19 Cabinet and Cabinet-level appointments announced so far have sat on the boards of corporations or organizations that have lobbied the federal government, spending a total of $497.5 million. (Most of that comes from Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson, who headed ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute and was a member of the Business Roundtable when those groups spent a combined $368.4 million on lobbying.)
