WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) joined U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and 16 of their colleagues in writing to the White House to express alarm that the Trump administration is attempting to block the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) from discovering how many lobbyists and industry lawyers have been granted ethics waivers by the administration over the past few months. After taking office, President Trump signed an executive order to continue the Obama-era policy of prohibiting lobbyists and lawyers from working on issues involving their former clients. However, the Trump administration has since hired dozens of former lobbyists and industry lawyers at higher rates than its predecessors, raising concerns about whether these hires are violating the law or have been given a waiver allowing them to ignore it. OGE recently requested to know how many people have been given waivers but the White House took the highly unusual step of asking it to withdraw its request even though OGE is statutorily entitled to obtain and review the waivers.
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“A pledge that allows for secret waivers is, quite obviously, meaningless,” the Senators wrote. “Your letter…suggests that rather than working with Congress to ensure the highest ethical standards in the Trump Administration, you are willing to take whatever steps you can to hide potential conflicts of interest from view. We want to make clear that we will use all tools available to us as United States Senators to make waivers to the Trump Ethics Pledge available to the public…the Administration cannot dispute that Congress has the right to this information.”
The Senators noted that there is a long-established precedent of disclosing waivers for executive branch ethics pledges – both Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama made all waivers granted to their ethics pledged available for public review. OGE has set a June 1st deadline for the agencies to respond to its request.
The letter was also signed by U.S. Senators Tom Udall (D-NM), Edward J. Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Patty Murray (D-WA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Jon Tester (D-MT) and Gary Peters (D-MI).
“It is an extraordinary thing,” said OGE Director Walter Shaub of the effort to deny OGE the waivers. “I have never seen anything like it.” OGE was granted the power to request information on ethics waivers following the Watergate scandal.
Even President Trump’s own nominees have acknowledged that the Trump Administration’s ethics standards, in addition to being undermined by secretive waivers, are weaker than the previous Administration’s rules. This issue came up at the recent confirmation hearing for Deputy Interior Secretary Nominee David Bernhardt when Senator Duckworth pressed Mr. Bernhardt on whether he was aware that, under the Obama administration’s ethics rules, he would not have qualified for his nomination due to conflict of interest concerns. Mr. Bernhardt confirmed that fact.
A PDF copy is available here.
