Thursday, June 1, 2017

We Have a Number

The White House late Wednesday posted on its website ethics waivers granted to four ex-lobbyists and numerous others who have joined government – including one for Kellyanne Conway and another that applies to Steve Bannon.

In all, the White House has granted 14 ethics waivers.

The disclosures come after a tussle between the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) and White House lawyers. Other executive branch agencies and departments, such as treasury, state and defense, are expected to share similar information with OGE by Thursday. The Office of Management and Budget responded to OGE’s request for data last week by saying it had issued zero waivers.

[...]

The Trump administration waivers include four for former registered lobbyists. The rest are for other employees whose new government duties may overlap with their previous private jobs. Several are “blanket” waivers for groups of employees.

[...]

“To the furthest extent possible, counsel worked with each staffer to recuse from conflicting conduct rather than being granted waivers, which has led to the limited number of waivers being issued,” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said.

  Guardian
Fourteen is a limited number?

Huffington Post says it's 17.
President Donald Trump has granted ethics waivers to at least 17 of his top White House aides, including chief strategist Steve Bannon, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and senior counselor Kellyanne Conway, in addition to four former lobbyists.

[...]

His predecessor, Barack Obama, granted that same number of waivers to his top staff over the course of his eight years in office.

  HuffPo
I like the name of those waivers: ethics waivers.  If you ask me, everyone in Washington needs an ethics waiver.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

No comments: