An Open Door for Pesticide Lobbyists at the U.S.D.A.<br />Representative Elijah E. Cummings, the top Democrat on the committee, said<br />that if Ms. Adcock had violated her ethics agreement, it contributed “to a troubling pattern of President Trump’s failure to ‘drain the swamp.’”<br />Rebeckah Adcock, a former lobbyist for CropLife America, a trade group representing the pesticide<br />industry, has agreed not to participate in matters involving her former employer.<br />In fact, interviews and visitor logs at the Agriculture Department showed<br />that Ms. Adcock had already been meeting with lobbyists, including those from her former employer, the pesticide industry’s main trade group, CropLife America, and its members.<br />Ms. Adcock, who left the trade group in April, maintained contact with her former industry allies despite a signed ethics agreement promising to avoid for one year issues involving CropLife as well as matters<br />that she had lobbied about in the two years before joining the government.
