WASHINGTON — A few weeks before he left the U.S. Senate in January,helped block the Enablers Act, a bipartisan proposal designed to curtail corruption and money laundering.
Virginia Canter, CREW’s chief ethics lawyer, said most employment rules for outgoing lawmakers deal primarily with lobbying. Generally, former House members cannot lobby for one year and senators for two years after leaving office. Similar restrictions cover certain congressional staff members. Coinbase brought on Toomey, a former Wall Street banker, in May, along with former U.S. Reps. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, and Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y. Coinbase is fighting charges by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it’s unlawfully facilitated the trading of crypto asset securities since at least 2019. On Thursday, the company asked a federal court to dismiss the charges, calling the SEC’s lawsuit an “extraordinary abuse of process.
In 2015, former U.S. Rep. Rod Blum, R-Iowa, introduced the No Golden Parachutes for Public Service Act, which would make the temporary lobbying restrictions for former lawmakers permanent.