SC's Mulvaney says he only talked to lobbyists who paid up while in US House

A former S.C. congressman, now in the Trump administration, says he talked only to lobbyists who gave his campaign money during his time in the U.S. House.

“We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress,” Mick Mulvaney told a Washington conference of the American Bankers Association on Tuesday, according to the New York Times. “If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you.”

Mulvaney added if his constituents from South Carolina's 5th District came to his office, "I talked to you without exception, regardless of the financial contributions.”

The Indian Land Republican was in the House from 2011 to 2017, when he was named White House budget director by President Donald Trump. He later was named temporary head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where he has faced criticism for scaling back the agency's enforcement actions on financial institutions.

At Tuesday's conference, Mulvaney encouraged bankers to continue their lobbying efforts in Congress, calling it one of the "fundamental underpinnings of our representative democracy. And you have to continue to do it.”

Asked about the comments later by The Times, Mulvaney spokesman John Czwartacki said, “He was making the point that hearing from people back home is vital to our democratic process and the most important thing our representatives can do. It’s more important than lobbyists, and it’s more important than money.”

Mulvaney received nearly $63,000 from payday lenders for his congressional campaigns. Rules governing those lenders have been relaxed by the Trump administration, and federal court cases against some dropped by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

This story was originally published April 25, 2018 at 12:10 PM with the headline "SC's Mulvaney says he only talked to lobbyists who paid up while in US House."