FAIR: 'He Is the King of Dirty Deals'

 

View article on FAIR's website 'He Is the King of Dirty Deals' JANINE JACKSON   Janine Jackson interviewed Public Citizen’s Lisa Gilbert about lame duck Donald Trump for the December 25, 2020, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.   Public Citizen Janine Jackson: Whatever he or his minions fantasize, Donald Trump will no longer be president on January 20. Whether the Trump administration tested US institutions and aspects of governance or revealed existing weaknesses, it's clear that the tsunami of corruption and callousness has left wreckage. As eager as we may be now to look ahead, or just away, the truth is Trump as a lame duck continues to wreak important havoc. We talked a couple of weeks ago about the zealous return to federal executions, unheard of for decades, but many other actions are less visible. Public Citizen is keeping their eyes on the administration's last-minute maneuvers; they have a new web tool to track them. We're joined now by Lisa Gilbert, Public Citizen’s executive vice president and also founder of the Not Above the Law coalition. She joins us by phone. Welcome to CounterSpin, Lisa Gilbert. Lisa Gilbert: Thanks so much for having me. JJ: Well, some of it, as I say, we can see. The attempt to hobble the transition, for instance, initially barring staff from having any contact with Biden's incoming team. That's the type of thing that is, yes, graceless and norm-breaking, but also materially harmful. But that's just the tip of the iceberg of what Public Citizen’s new web tool calls “Trump's Lame Duck Tantrum.” LG: That's right. So we are looking across the board at the ways that we expect Trump to do dirty deals or try to pardon cronies or roll back regulations that are critical to public health and safety in these last critical weeks. We wanted this tool to come into effect at a moment where we think it's critical that we not lose the thread of what Trump is able to do in this moment, and pay deep attention to it, in the hopes that we can either stop what he's doing, or at least alert the Biden administration of these last-minute actions, so they can roll them back in turn. JJ: Just to take one, that Trump was going to roll back regulations on corporations was clear. I spoke with Amit Narang from Public Citizen early in the administration, when Trump issued that goofy executive order that for any new rule, federal agencies had to repeal two existing rules. You know, it's just the kind of ham-fisted…. I thought Public Citizen maybe even brought a suit around that. But that order fairly represents the corporate capture of the regulatory process under Trump, would you say? LG: Absolutely. I mean, that order was so inane, the idea that you would promulgate one safety rule and arbitrarily remove two others that are not connected to it in any way, off the books. It just shows such a lack of regard for human life, and for health and safety, and a devotion to the idea that regulations are somehow by their very nature bad, or "red tape" or harmful. And we know that the opposite is true: All they are is the end stage of a law, when we actually get to protect people. JJ: Right, right. What are some of the regulations in that sphere? What are some of the things that Trump is up to now that you think it's worth keeping an eye on? LG: Since we are at the end of an administration, we do usually see presidents try to accomplish their goals in a flurry of activity. And since one of Trump’s goals is to roll back health, safety, environmental and financial regulations, we are certainly seeing a flurry of those kinds of last-minute activities. So in our tracker, we take a look at some of the rules that have been rolled back since November 3, since the beginning of the lame duck. So there are environmental rules, like approving coal ash in the environment; the EPA finalized a rule that outlines a process for approving existing unlined coal ash pits. They've, for example, removed the protected status of the gray wolf. Or allowing air polluters to avoid oversight; the EPA recently changed its interpretation of the Clean Air Act to benefit polluters. It's just all of the same cloth, this idea that we better rush these rules out the door to hurt our environment. That's not the only area, but just a really tangible one that people clearly understand. Public protections are needed, and the Trump administration is walking us in the wrong direction. JJ: There's a section in this web tool—it’s a live database; people can add to it—called “Dirty Dealing,” and, you know, we think of favor trading, and it's crummy, but as you're saying on environmental things, it's not just somebody getting richer, it's actual material harm that might not be as easy to undo as we think. So some of the deals that Trump has made have had impacts that are beyond just thinking, “That's not how business should be done.” Lisa Gilbert: "He’s rushing through controversial hirings, filling commissions, changing the structure of the federal government to make it easier to move political appointees to become long-term career appointees." LG: That's completely right. We look at a couple of different categories of so-called “dirty dealing.”  And, of course, there are many that we could have highlighted, but we looked in part at where his legal defense donations have been going. He's raised hundreds of millions of dollars from his supporters for legal defense in his ill-thought quest to overturn the election results, but there's a real question as to where that money is going to go. You know, is it intended to further either Trump or his family or his cronies’ political ambitions? Is it going to cover his campaign debts? We really don't know, and it is very unsavory to see him raising money for something we know is a fool's errand, but then using it for political ambitions. So we highlight that. We look at how he's thinking about rewarding allies as another sort of dirty deal. We think that it's a little bit scary to think about how people are burrowing into the administration at this moment. He’s rushing through controversial hirings, filling commissions, changing the structure of the federal government to make it easier to move political appointees to become long-term career appointees, all with this idea of undercutting the Biden administration and leaving his loyalists behind him. We talk about punishing enemies, as well, in the dirty dealing space. So I think there are numerous categories—unfortunately, he is the king of dirty deals, but this tracker tries to take a slice of how he's been spending his time on this front during the lame duck. JJ: If I could just ask you a kind of process question, because I'm from the DC area, and my parents worked for the federal government, and I remember, it’s almost a joke, “The appointees come in…and then they go,” you know, and the career civil servants are like, “Yeah, here we still are, doing the work.” So when you say “burrowing” Trump folks within agencies, can you explain that a little bit, he's actually changing rules to allow folks who are appointees to become career? LG: Yes. So he passed an executive order, which we are also tracking, his lame duck executive orders, to create a new type of federal employee, a Schedule F federal employee. It has two problems: These federal employees are easier to fire and let go. So if he turns career employees into Schedule Fs, it means that they have less protection, so we're worried about that. But also, there is flexibility to move people in and out, between political and career, within this new Schedule F determination. And so he has begun to do that, moving a set of politicals into these career posts, so that means they will stay. And it is definitely, as you say, unusual; politicals tend to come and go with the new administration. JJ: Absolutely. LG: And it's a political direction. And that might not happen as much as it has in other transitions. JJ: I find that actually deeply concerning—all of this is, certainly, but that's a real structural change that I think, maybe if you're not familiar with the culture, or just the way things work in DC, might not stand out to you, but it certainly is dramatic. Well, we've mentioned that this is a database, a web tool. I think there's a lot of information that reporters would find useful for starting stories, but also that just the general public might want to keep up on. How are you hoping that this tool will be used? LG: Both of those ways. So our hope is that in this moment, where some of these actions by President Trump are not being taken notice of by reporters, by the general public, that they will find this tool and use it, and also help us by flagging things they're seeing, so we can add it to the database. It's pretty egregious, the level of activity that the Trump administration is undertaking in this moment, and we don't want to miss anything. So I think the hope is that as Trump does things like move to politicize the civil service, under the noses of all of us, tools like this will help us stay on top of it and push back in the media. JJ: We've been speaking with Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of Public Citizen. Find their work online at Citizen.org. Lisa Gilbert, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin, LG: Thank you.

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