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When President Donald Trump convened his Cabinet for a meeting Wednesday, there were a few new faces around the table: Sitting to the President’s left was Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan; on the President’s right, acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt. Both come with their own conflict-of-interest concerns: Shanahan, who replaced James Mattis, was a Boeing executive before joining the administration. And Ryan Zinke’s replacement, Bernhardt, used to lobby for the oil industry.
The new acting chiefs join the former lobbyists who currently run the Department of Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency regulating corporations they once worked for.