Elections

Nonpartisan Group Calling For Reversal Of Obama’s Lobbyist Ban Fails To Disclose Clinton Legal Ties

Chuck Ross Investigative Reporter
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One of the lawyers who worked on Bill Clinton’s impeachment defense team in the 1990s is the CEO of a group pressuring President Obama to override his executive order prohibiting lobbyists from working in the executive branch.

As head of the Partnership for Public Service, Max Stier works with the federal government, as well as the Clinton and Trump campaigns, to help smooth out the presidential transition process.

Stier told Politico earlier this month that Obama’s ban — which he announced on his first day in office in 2009 — has cut into the pool of talent available for administration jobs.

While “there are political optics reasons why there’s a lot of attractiveness to make the ethics bars really strict,” when it comes to governing, Stier said “you’ve got to be careful that you’re not losing on actual talent.”

“It’s important because you want the new president, in my view, to have as much latitude to do what he or she thinks is best without having to worry” about negative backlash, added Stier.

But not disclosed in that article, in others quoting Stier, or on his organization’s website is his work as one of Bill Clinton’s defense lawyers.

Stier worked for the Beltway law firm Williams & Connolley on the case, which ended with the Senate acquitting Clinton on perjury and obstruction of justice charges despite lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

David Kendall was another lawyer at the firm and a member of the Clinton defense team. Kendall has been Hillary Clinton’s chief attorney during the ongoing scandal surrounding her emails.

Stier’s past work for Bill Clinton — which also includes his job as deputy general counsel at Clinton’s Department of Housing and Urban Development — raises questions about his objectivity, according to the president of one government watchdog group.

“Mr. Stier’s history as a member of Bill Clinton’s impeachment legal team, his association with a major DC law firm and his comments against the continued restriction on lobbyists all signal that the numerous lobbyists who have fund raised for the Clinton campaign will be richly rewarded if Clinton wins,” Ken Boehm, the president of the National Legal and Policy Center told The Daily Caller.

Overturning Obama’s lobbyist ban would allow both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to fill positions in their administrations. But it is Clinton — who has built decades-long relationships with some of Washington D.C.’s top lobbyists — whose administration would likely benefit more from ending the prohibition.

While Trump has hired some lobbyists to fill his campaign — most notably Paul Manafort, a lobbyist for numerous questionable foreign governments whom Trump fired earlier this month — Clinton has longer and more robust relationships with Beltway power brokers.

According to The Washington Post, Clinton has raised $7 million from lobbyists so far during the presidential campaign. Her campaign chairman is John Podesta, the co-founder of the Podesta Group, a top-tier Beltway lobbying firm. Podesta’s brother Tony is a major Clinton campaign bundler.

One Clinton-supporting lobbyist is making the same argument as Stier in supporting the overturn of Obama’s lobbying rule.

“I wonder if it’s been the experience of the administration over the course of two terms that the ban has, on occasion, impeded their ability to hire the best people,” Democratic lobbyist Al Mottur told The Post.

“If so, it’d make sense for them to lift the restriction or relax it prior to turning over the reins,” added Mottur, who has bundled more than $170,000 for Clinton so far this election cycle.

Little is known of Stier’s role on Clinton’s defense team. But a few articles from that bygone era show that Stier took charge of a project aimed at digging up dirt on special counsel Kenneth Starr.

According to news reports from 1999, Stier met with Dan Moldea, a reporter who was working for Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, a staunch Clinton supporter.

Moldea claimed he had information showing that Starr and others had leaked information about the case to the media. Moldea had also helped Flynt dig up dirt on Republican Reps. Bob Barr and Robert Livingston. He planned to release the information — which provided evidence of sexual misconduct — if either lawmaker went after Clinton.

As Moldea has written on his blog, he said that he received a call from Stier in May 1998 seeking evidence “to show that Mr. Starr had improperly leaked investigative material to the media.” Stier and Moldea met in person on June 26, 1998. Moldea reportedly told Stier that Starr routinely provided information to selected reporters.

Moldea wrote that he did not meet with anyone from Williams & Connolley after that meeting.

The Partnership for Public Service, Stier’s group, did not address The Daily Caller’s questions about Stier’s past work for the Clintons. Instead, a spokeswoman for the group said that it is non-partisan. She also referred to articles in which Stier applauded Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s formation of presidential transition teams relatively early in the race.

Obama has not indicated whether he will reverse his ban before he leaves office.

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