Money & power · the revolving door
The revolving door between government and industry, by administration
The revolving door, officials moving between government and the industries they oversee, runs in both parties. But unlike money spent at a president's own properties, it resists a clean count: the rules, definitions, and disclosure regimes changed under every administration since Clinton, so no honest single number ranks them. This page shows the one rigorous measured comparison that exists, and documented cases from each administration, not a false ranking.
The one rigorous, apples-to-apples slice (Bush vs Obama)
A 2019 Congressional Research Service study matched 6,665 Cabinet appointees to federal lobbying-registration records, a single source, single method, but it covers only two administrations. Its built-in finding is itself the neutrality point: the door swung outward under Bush (more officials left to lobby) and inward under Obama (more lobbyists joined).
| Cabinet appointees (CRS, 2019) | Entered from lobbying | Left to lobbying |
|---|---|---|
| Bush (3,295 appointees) | 79 (2.4%) | 228 (6.9%) |
| Obama (3,370 appointees) | 106 (3.1%) | 51 (1.5%) |
Documented cases, by administration
| Administration | Documented case | Direction |
|---|---|---|
| Clinton | Mickey Kantor, U.S. Trade Representative, then Commerce Secretary, then private-sector trade law representing industry before the WTO | gov → industry |
| Bush | Dick Cheney, Halliburton CEO immediately before becoming Vice President; David Bernhardt, Interior lawyer → oil/gas/water lobbyist → back to Interior | both directions |
| Obama | Peter Orszag, OMB Director, then vice-chairman at Citigroup (despite Obama's own ethics-pledge order) | gov → industry |
| Trump I | Steven Mnuchin (17 years at Goldman Sachs) → Treasury Secretary; Gary Cohn (Goldman president) → National Economic Council director | industry → gov |
| Biden | Antony Blinken, co-founded consulting firm WestExec Advisors (clients incl. Boeing) before becoming Secretary of State; many WestExec alumni joined | industry → gov |
| Trump II (partial) | Ethics-pledge order rescinded (Jan 2025); the Campaign Legal Center identified ≥47 former lobbyists in senior posts, 15+ barred under prior pledges; Adam Suess, Interior's acting land-and-minerals chief until Oct 2025, was by Q2 2026 a registered lobbyist for clients with business before Interior, and for an LNG developer that paid his firm $380K that quarter; by mid-2026, former White House press, legislative-affairs, and VP-counsel staff were registered to lobby the offices they had just left | gov → industry |
These are public-record career facts, not accusations of wrongdoing: three Democratic administrations, three Republican, and a mix of both directions, chosen to show the pattern spans the window.