https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-drain-the-swamp/2020/10/24/52c7682c-0a5a-11eb-9be6-cf25fb429f1a_story.html
Trump’s
rapid action after the Sept. 25 fundraiser — one of dozens of
high-dollar donor events he has headlined while in office — emblemizes
how much he has abandoned his 2016 pledge to “DRAIN THE SWAMP.”
In
the closing weeks of that election, Trump led cheering supporters in
chants of that slogan, promising that he would completely disrupt the
culture of Washington. He warned of the power of lobbyists and political
donors who he said effectively bought off elected officials. He told
voters he was uniquely prepared to take on the issue, because he knew
personally as a contributor how the system worked.
But during
his four years in office, Trump has taken few steps to clean up
Washington. He has instead presided over a norm-shattering expansion of
private interests in government.
Among the
five pledges Trump made to “drain the swamp” and curtail the influence
of lobbyists in a major campaign speech in October 2016, a Washington
Post review found that he sought to address only two, through an
executive order in January 2017 — which contained a major loophole.
