There Goes Another One

The head of the federal agency charged with overseeing government ethics announced Thursday he is resigning nearly six months before his term is set to expire.

Walter Shaub Jr., the director of the independent Office of Government Ethics, tweeted the resignation letter he sent to President Donald Trump, announcing his last day on the job would be July 19.

[...]

He clashed with Trump and his advisers over issues ranging from how Trump has handled his business dealings as president to the way the Trump transition was handled and the promotion of Trump businesses from White House staff.

  NBC

Kudos.

Add Mr. Shaub to Luis Borunda, who resigned from the Election Integrity Commission, Hui Chen, who resigned from the corporate compliance division of government ethics, and the several people who resigned from State. People with a conscience don't seem to want to work for the Trump administration.

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

UPDATE 8/19:  In the wake of the resignation - or firing, depending upon who's telling it - of both Steve Bannon and Carl Icahn from the Trump administration today, The New Yorker has a lengthy article on Icahn in which the following is noted about Shaub:

The White House official who would, in theory, police Icahn’s status is Stefan Passantino, the deputy counsel to the President for compliance and ethics.

[...]

It is ironic for Passantino to rule on the controversy surrounding Icahn’s conflicts of interest—because Passantino has a conflict of his own. On June 28th, Walter Shaub, the head of the Office of Government Ethics, wrote a letter pointing out that Passantino, in his mandatory disclosures as a full-time White House employee, noted that before joining the Administration he had been a corporate lawyer. He listed the clients for whom he had done work in the two years prior to joining the government. One of them was Icahn. At the time that Passantino was initially queried about the propriety of Icahn’s position, he made no mention of this relationship.

Two weeks after Shaub sent his letter, he resigned, saying that he could no longer meaningfully perform the function for which the Office of Government Ethics was designed. Shaub warned that the United States was facing a “historic ethics crisis.” The White House released a statement lashing out at Shaub, dismissing his concerns as “grandstanding.”

  New Yorker