Nethercutt left the House of Representatives at the end of his term in January 2005, but said that he would probably not completely retire from politics. In 2005, he and two other political veterans (former Interior Department deputy secretary J. Steven Griles and former White House national energy policy director Andrew Lundquist) formed the political lobbying firm of Lundquist, Nethercutt & Griles, LLC. Griles resigned in 2007, after he pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in connection with the Abramoff scandal, the top Bush administration official to do so.