Catherine Ho

President-elect Donald Trump’s new proposals to crack down on lobbyists’ influence in Washington read like the most stringent attempt in recent history to rein in the booming influence industry. But the reality could be much different. Ethics experts and lobbyists say the new rules intended to “drain the swamp” of the special interests that President-elect Trump believes control the nation’s capital are rife with holes, appear vague and could be unconstitutional. And their biggest immediate impact is to make it more difficult for the Trump transition, which is already scrambling to fill thousands of government jobs in the next several weeks, to find qualified people to work in the administration. “It’s going to be really difficult to fully flesh out a working government if you’re not able to collect the talent of people who know how to pull the levers of government,” said Democratic lobbyist Zach Williams, a partner at the lobby firm Forbes-Tate.