Trump's Pick for Interior Dept. Continued Lobbying After Officially Vowing to Stop, New Files...
Source: The New York Times
Trump’s Pick for Interior Dept. Continued Lobbying After Officially Vowing to Stop, New Files Indicate
By Coral Davenport
April 4, 2019
WASHINGTON — A previously unreleased invoice indicates that David Bernhardt, President Trump’s choice to lead the Interior Department, continued to lobby for a major client several months after he filed official papers saying that he had ended his lobbying activities.
The bill for Mr. Bernhardt’s services, dated March 2017 and labeled “Federal Lobbying,” shows, along with other documents, Mr. Bernhardt working closely with the Westlands Water District as late as April 2017, the month Mr. Trump nominated him to his current job, deputy interior secretary. In November 2016, Mr. Bernhardt had filed legal notice with the federal government formally ending his status as lobbyist.
Westlands, a powerful California agribusiness group, was one of Mr. Bernhardt’s main lobbying and legal clients between 2011 and 2016. In that time, Westlands paid Mr. Bernhardt’s firm $1.3 million for lobbying services. A New York Times investigation this year revealed how Mr. Bernhardt made it a priority at the Interior Department to promote policies long sought by Westlands, including a weakening of Endangered Species Act protections for an imperiled fish. Those changes would have freed more water from the San Francisco Bay Area for irrigation.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Bernhardt, Faith Vander Voort, said in an email that the invoice had been labeled incorrectly and that the documents did not describe lobbying activity.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/climate/david-bernhardt-interior-lobbying.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
= new reply since forum marked as read
