White House, ethics office clash over hiring of ex-lobbyists
WASHINGTON — House Democrats and independent watchdog groups on Monday raced to side with the federal government’s top ethics official in his latest standoff with the Trump administration.
Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the top Democrat of the House Oversight panel, released a letter Monday signed by all of the committee’s 18 Democrats, backing a request by Office of Government Ethics director Walter Shaub to review and publicly disclose any ethics waivers the administration may have granted to allow former lobbyists to work in the administration.
In a letter sent to Shaub last week, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney asked Shaub to hold off on his request and questioned whether Shaub has legal authority to seek the information.
Late Monday, Shaub issued a scathing, 10-page response and refused to back down. He called Mulvaney's request "highly unusual" and said he expects agencies to comply with his call to provide information on ethics waivers by June 1.
"Public confidence in the integrity of government decisionmaking demands no less," Shaub wrote.
Ethics groups and some congressional Democrats have expressed alarm at reports that dozens of ex-lobbyists and others with ties to Wall Street and energy companies have found jobs in the Trump administration.
Trump signed ethics rules earlier this year that barred any lawyers and lobbyists joining the administration from working on matters that involved their former clients. But Trump, unlike President Barack Obama, made no commitment to disclose whether his administration is granting any waivers to that provision or other parts of his ethics order.
Mulvaney’s letter, first reported by The New York Times, “appears to be an effort by the White House to prevent oversight and enforcement of their own policy,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of the Democracy 21 watchdog group. “They want to hide how many lobbyists they are hiring.”
Shaub, an Obama appointee whose five-year term expires next year, has clashed repeatedly with the White House. Even before Trump took office, Shaub publicly criticized him for failing to relinquish his ownership of his real-estate and licensing businesses.
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Earlier this year, Shaub urged the White House to discipline Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway for violating federal rules by endorsing first daughter Ivanka Trump’s clothing line during a televised interview from the White House briefing room.
The White House Counsel’s Office rebuffed that recommendation, saying Conway had acted “inadvertently.”
