(Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)The law and lobbying firm that previously employed President Trump’s pick to run the Interior Department saw a surge in revenue from clients hoping to influence the agency after he left for its upper ranks in 2017. Over the past three years, according to federal records, acting interior secretary David Bernhardt’s former firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck has quadrupled its business related to Interior. [The Energy 202: Senate Democrat blasts ethics of Trump Interior secretary nominee]The increase in BHFS’s Interior-related revenue also highlights how the firm has emerged in Trump’s Washington as a well-connected lobbying outfit on the management of federal lands. In 2017, Interior exempted the project from a federal review imposed on it by the previous administration. The matter has sparked a Justice Department probe into the former interior secretary.

Source: Washington Post April 03, 2019 21:22 UTC