Pot, meet Kettle

Four Cabinet-level officials were reportedly scolded in private meetings at the White House last month for news stories detailing questionable ethical behavior.

  The Hill

That's pretty nervy. The head snake knew they were snakes when he brought them in.

CNN reported Friday that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin and Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt were among those called to the White House.

[...]

The agencies were also reportedly given guidelines, titled "creating a culture of compliance." The advice outlined in that document highlighted the importance of "optics," saying that officials should refrain from behavior that could appear outside their agency's mission.

[...]

The meetings were held at the request of White House chief of staff John Kelly, and stressed the importance of avoiding even so much as the appearance of unethical behavior, according to CNN.

And they went out smirking, knowing they'd be there long after Kelly gets ditched.

And, speaking of Shulkin, WTF?

Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin has reportedly cut off contact with top agency officials and now operates out of an office with an armed guard at the door amid ongoing tensions with top staff.

Shulkin, a VA holdover from the Obama administration promoted to the head job by President Trump, has canceled morning meetings with top Trump appointees in the department and hasn't spoken to his public affairs chief in weeks. He fears that his aides in the nation's second-largest bureaucracy, behind only the Pentagon, are actively lobbying the White House for his ouster, The Washington Post reports.

  The Hill

Somehow his choice of approaches to the problem doesn't seem likely to make it better.

“Things have come to a grinding halt,” one senior manager told the Post. “It’s killing the agency. Nobody trusts each other.”

Among those allegedly seeking Shulkin's ouster are public affairs chief John Ullyot, legislative affairs head Brooks Tucker and top aide Jake Leinenkugel, who all clashed with Shulkin over policies seen to be out of step with the Trump administration, as well as hires for the agency.

The friction led to the three regularly meeting to plot Shulkin's firing, the Post reports, while also overruling the Cabinet secretary on policy decisions.

[...]

Shulkin is the only Trump Cabinet secretary who also worked under the Obama White House, and he has battled scandal during his time under Trump. Last week it was revealed that Shulkin was the target of an inspector general investigation into the use of his personal security detail to perform errands.

In February, a separate inspector general investigation found that Shulkin improperly accepted tickets to the Wimbledon tennis tournament and used taxpayer dollars to take a trip to Europe that cost $122,000 in total. The report alleged that government emails were doctored so that taxpayer funding covered travel expenses racked up by Shulkin's wife.

Perhaps he thought he should perform his duties in the image of his boss and so many of his fellow cabinet members.

Trump must not be paying any attention to the VA, even though reforming it for the benefit of vetrans was one of his major campaign hooks. But why did he put an Obama appointee at the helm in the first place? Curious.

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