Trump is Filling the Swamp, not Draining it
President-elect Donald Trump just exposed the rank hypocrisy behind his latest promise to “Drain the Swamp” in Washington. In a series of tweets, Trump attempted to condemn the timing of a Republican move to gut Congress’s independent ethics watchdog on the very first day of their new congressional session. But rather than looking like a principled stand, his tweets just drew more attention to the deep, serious, and dangerous ethical problems faced by Trump and his cabinet picks.
Nobody should be confused: Trump’s ham-handed tweeting doesn’t mean he cares about ethics -- if he did, he’d drain his cabinet of the swamp creatures he’s nominated and take a good, hard look at his own troubling portfolio. The truth is that Trump’s condemnation of House Republicans is simply one more attempt to draw attention away from the countless areas in which he and his administration have already made a mockery of a promise to change Washington. The ethical quandaries are enough to fill the everglades -- and Trump hasn’t even taken office yet.
The failure begins right at the top, with a president-elect who is already using his new position to profit from deals big and small, including selling personal access in return for $500+ tickets to a New Years Eve bash at his private club in Palm Beach Florida and pushing foreign governments to approve development projects for his company around the world.
And the situation with Trump’s cabinet is no different.
Among the worst examples: Trump has nominated a person who has dedicated his entire career to promoting the interests of fossil fuel billionaires over the health of our families and communities, and at the expense of clean air and clean water, to be in charge of the very agency responsible for enforcing America’s environmental protections.
“Polluting” Scott Pruitt, whom Trump wants to run the Environmental Protection Agency, first received national attention when the New York Times uncovered an “unprecedented, secretive alliance” between him in his role as attorney general for the state of Oklahoma and massive energy corporations to undermine environmental safeguards. Pruitt went so far as to send a letter to the White House that was written by and for the oil and gas industry -- without even bothering to edit it. Sloppy.
Beyond that, Pruitt has sued the EPA time and again on behalf of his industry friends to block air and water protections, setting up a clear conflict of interest over the fact that he will now be tasked with enforcing those same protections. We can only guess that his real plans are to ignore them or throw them in the garbage -- because we know he doesn’t recycle.
Then there is Rex Tillerson, Exxon CEO and Trump’s secretary of state nominee, who was awarded one of Russia’s top honors and symbols of friendship by Vladimir Putin. Putin and Exxon have one major thing in common: a desire to scrap U.S. restrictions on drilling and sanctions on Russia so they can drill for oil without restraint in the Arctic. American sanctions on Russia have prevented Exxon Mobil from exploiting huge amounts of territory, costing the company over a billion dollars.
If he’s confirmed as secretary of state, Tillerson -- or #Rexxon, as we like to say -- would go from leading one of the world’s largest oil companies to shaping international climate policy. Given that Tillerson would be coming from a company that has used smoke and mirrors in Washington and in the media for decades to cloud the scientific consensus on man’s role in driving catastrophic climate change, this is deeply dangerous. Environmental advocates used to joke that Exxon Mobil ran U.S. foreign policy. Donald Trump took the joke literally and apparently thinks it’s the greatest idea ever.
The bottom line is that appointing Scott Pruitt to run the Environmental Protection Agency and Rex Tillerson to run the State Department is like having an arsonist serve as fire chief. It’s dangerous, it’s destructive, and it’s foolish.
But here’s the good news: We can still stop it from happening. Just today, under intense pressure from constituents all over the country, House Republicans buckled and announced they would delay their effort to gut the Independent Ethics Office. Grassroots pressure worked -- and it will work again, if we speak up together in opposition to these radical appointments by an incoming president who enters with the least public support of any president for whom polling data is available.
Now, it’s time to tell Congress to stop Trump’s dangerous appointments in their tracks. That starts by getting our senators to dump #PollutingPruitt and #Rexxon here and now. Click here, speak out, and spread the word.