More Than 40 Lobbyists ‘Infesting the Obama Adminsitration’

Mini-profiles on 20 of the lobbyists in the president’s administration that he promised wouldn’t be there.

Fresh from his pledge that “lobbyists won’t find a job” in his White House, President Obama—on his first day in office—quickly signed an executive order “banning former lobbyists from working on issues related to their lobby”, Gus Lubin reports at Business Insider.

That said:

• a lobbyist for the military industrial complex is his deputy secretary of defense;
• a lobbyist for Goldman Sachs is his chief of staff for his treasury secretary;
• a lobbyist for a teachers’ union is his assistant to his secretary of education;
• a lobbyist in the agriculture industry is his assistant to his secretary of agriculture;
• a lobbyist from the energy and environmental industries is his deputy to his secretary of the interior;
• a lobbyist for Monsanto is his deputy commissioner to the Food and Drug Administration;
• a lobbyist for Swiss banking interests is his chief counsel to the Internal Revenue Service.

See the mini-profiles of 20 lobbyists here. and the list of all 40+ here.