Trump White House ringed by 'swamp' denizens despite pledge

[WhiteTara]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-white-house-ringed-swamp-denizens-despite-pledge-181444422.html

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mike Pence has returned to Washington. So has his closest political ally, Bill Smith.

Smith spent a dozen years as Pence's chief of staff while the current vice president was a congressman and later Indiana governor. He's expanding his lobbying practice into the nation's capital now that Donald Trump and Pence hold the White House. In a photo on his firm's website, Smith and Pence are seen huddling in close consultation on an airplane. "It's a new world," the site declares.

The "new world" of Trump's Washington was supposed to be one with fewer Bill Smiths. But the lobbyists, consultants and ex-government officials who make their living selling their influence aren't dissuaded by that piece of Trump's agenda.

Former campaign aides and other associates, like many before them, are setting up shop in Washington, eager to trade on their connections. This migration happens anytime a new president comes to town. Still, it demonstrates the uncomfortable reality Trump faces if he is serious about his promises to "drain the swamp" of those who use their ties to public officials to make "a fortune."

It also belies a reality of such perennial promises to clean up Washington: No one, even those knee-deep in it, considers himself or herself to be part of "the swamp."