1 in 14 Trump appointees is a former lobbyist, four times the rate under Obama

Trump Town is a Propublica/Columbia Journalism Investigations interactive database of everyone working in the Trump administration; the latest revision reveals that Trump has hired 281 former lobbyists to regulate the industries that used to sign their paychecks.

That's one in every 14 political appointments, quadruple the peak rate of lobbyist hiring under Obama, which arrived six years into his presidency.

In many cases, these lobbyists are working directly in senior oversight roles for the industries they once represented: Colin Roskey spent two decades repping the health care industry, and now he's deputy secretary for legislation for mandatory health in Trump's Department of Health and Human Services. His recusals are confidential, but prior to his appointment, he was working for the price-gouging dialysis giant Fresenius Medical Care, which made more than a third of a billion a year from Medicare. That was just one of 27 clients he lobbied for before he entered Trump's HHS.

But don't worry, Roskey's not overseeing the health care industry anymore. He quit government service and was immediately rehired by the health industry lobbying firm he'd worked for prior to his government service, Lincoln Policy Group.

And while Trump has dismantled the Obama ethics rule that lobbyists from working in government, Obama's former appointees are not shy about taking lobbying work. For example, Bridgett Taylor -- who was deputy secretary for legislation for mandatory health in Obama's Department of Health and Human Services -- now lobbies for PHRMA, the lobbying arm of the price-gouging, monopolistic, murderous pharmaceutical industry. Read the rest