Despite Obama’s stated intentions to put an end to former aides representing “special interest” groups in Washington, members of his old team are getting hired in droves by the very groups that will need the presidents support most.

The Washington Post reports:

“Obama came into office promising that his administration would hew to higher standards than his predecessors did. He implemented rules barring former aides from directly lobbying the government for two years and frequently decries the influence of “special interests” in Washington.

But the efforts have done little to slow a tide of groups hiring former top aides as highly paid consultants, speakers and media advisers in an effort to influence the administration — part of a longtime Washington practice in which interest groups seek access to the White House by hiring people who used to work there.”

One issue former aides are cashing in on from groups on both sides of the debate is the Keystone XL pipeline decision:

“The decision on whether to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline is a political headache for President Obama. But to five of his former aides, it represents a business opportunity.

Four of them — Bill Burton, Stephanie Cutter, Jim Papa and Paul Tewes — work as consultants for opponents of the project, which would carry heavy crude oil from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries. Another, former White House communications director Anita Dunn, counts the project’s sponsor, TransCanada, among the clients of her communications firm.”

It does not end there.

Former administration spokesman Tommy Vietor and speechwriter Jon Favreau have been hired by Trout Unlimited to help lobby the Environmental Protection Agency. The two are longtime drinking buddies.

The head of the Obama campaign’s data analytics team is also cashing in, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

Dan Wagner, chief analytics officer for Obama’s 2012 campaign, just received millions from Google chairman Eric Schmidt to start his own company. The company will be staffed by dozens of former campaign employees and will attempt to profit off the “micro-targeting” strategy that worked so well for Obama. The company will work exclusively for Democrats.

Other top aides such as Jim Messina have started their own consulting firms.

Robert Gibbs and Ben LaBolt are even joining forces to create a “strategic communications” firm of their own.

Cutter, who served as counselor to the Treasury secretary for the first few months of the Obama presidency, last year praised the president’s antagonistic approach to the big banks.

“It wasn’t always politically popular, but it was the right thing to do, from saving the auto industry, or beating back fierce lobbying by the big banks and Wall Street to pass Wall Street reform,” she told PBS NewsHour in September, describing some of the “tough decisions” the president made in office.

Since the election, Cutter has gone into freelance corporate consulting, the New Republic reported last month.

She also sits on the board of President Obama’s dark money group, Organizing for Action, which has said it will reject donations from corporations and lobbyists.

The “nonpartisan” nonprofit has drawn scrutiny for its 2014 plans, lobbying registration in the state of New York, and reported schemes that would grant donors who give above certain thresholds different kinds of access to the president.

Cutter, who has been touted as a member of Obama’s boys’ club while pushing economic reform for working class women, stated gender identity was irrelevant on the campaign.

When you’re in the thick of it and you’re looking around the table, you’re not counting how many men or how many women are sitting around. That’s your team. And we had been together for many, many years. So it was a close-knit team that worked well together.

Cutter said she does not regret calling presidential candidate Mitt Romney a “felon.”

“I don’t regret saying it, it is the truth,” said Cutter.

The Massachusetts native also divulged that her favorite comfort food is cheese.

“Organizing for Action is going to be a very effective tool to organize people all over the country for the president’s agenda,” Cutter said. “To move us forward, whether it’s gun control, to protect our children, whether it’s climate change, whether it’s immigration reform, whether it’s to protect our economy and continue moving forward for the middle class.”

As a 501(c)4, the organization can take in unlimited donations and is not required to disclose its donors, though sources say the group will disclose them.

The new organization will be separate from the Democratic National Committee, with Obama’s 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina serving as the national chair of the group. [...]

The formation of the group will make Messina the de facto political director for Obama, and is an implicit rejection of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, an Obama outsider not close to the president, as the party’s operational leader. [...]

The Obama campaign finished with an unmatched list of millions of email addresses of supporters and volunteers tagged by geography and degree of devotion that was perhaps Obama’s biggest advantage in mobilizing support for his second-term agenda. The campaign developed extensive technology for use in its organizing and finished with $5.3 million still in the campaign coffers.

A Democratic source said the group will disclose all donors, BuzzFeed reported Friday, though as a 501(c)4, the group will not be required to do so. Obama once called Super PACs, many of which are connected to 501(c)4 groups “a threat to democracy.”

OFA has already begun to engage on the gun control issue. Messina sent an email Thursday to supporters advocating for Obama’s slate of executive actions, while former deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter promised the campaign network would “activate very soon” the day before.

“President Obama’s network across this country, grassroots individuals, who organize, volunteered with their time to get the president reelected are much more powerful than the NRA lobby,” Cutter said in an interview with Ed Schultz. “And I think that you can expect to see that network activated, very soon.”

Former campaign officials, including Cutter, are reportedly working on restructuring Obama for America into a 501(c)4 or Super PAC.

CNN reported Wednesday that Obama for America officials are working to make the group a separate entity:

Senior Obama campaign aides are currently working on the specifics of how to restructure Obama for America, but are considering several different options such as converting it to a 501c4 or perhaps a super PAC, a source familiar with the campaign said.

The new campaign organization will be headed by Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager who oversaw the president’s victory over Republican Mitt Romney in November. Messina, Stephanie Cutter, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon and several other top Obama aides are working out the details.

“After the election, it was clear from the conversations with supporters that they wanted to continue the progress we made in the first four years and continue it together,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Obama’s 2012 campaign outraised and outspent the campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by hundreds of millions of dollars. It also boasts an email list “much bigger” than 14 million people, according to CNN.

Following the election, Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter said “decisions were being made” about housing the massive organization–and its email list–at the Democratic National Committee, casting doubt on whether the DNC would subsume the group.

TODD: Let’s talk about the politics a minute–the future of Obama for America. How much a part of the DNC does it become? How do you do in 2014 what Obama for America was incapable of doing in 2010?

CUTTER: Well, let’s talk about 2014. Those decisions are being made now whether Obama for America gets housed at the DNC –

TODD: Could it really be a separate organization?

CUTTER: Or it could be a separate organization. I think that coming out of the 2008 election Organizing for America, which was really a separate –

TODD: But you housed it in the DNC.

CUTTER: Right. Those decisions are being made now.

Full interview:

MITT ROMNEY: I think today we got another indication of how President Obama and his campaign fail to grasp the seriousness of the challenge that we face here in America. His campaign said this today about the Benghazi terrorist attack—they said this, and I quote, “The entire reason this has become the political topic it is, is because of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.” No, President Obama, it’s an issue because this is the first time in 33 years that an United States ambassador has been assassinated. Mr. President, this is an issue because we were attacked successfully by terrorists on the anniversary of 9/11. President Obama, this is an issue because Americans wonder why it was it took so long for you and your administration to admit that this was a terrorist attack. This is a very serious issue. These are very serious questions and the American people deserve serious answers and I hope they come soon.

Romney was speaking Thursday at a campaign event in Asheville, N.C.