Trump’s Biggest Success: Proving the Inadequacy of Federal Ethics Laws
Welcome to the greatest jacking in modern history. Money, reputation, our very brand as a nation. My congratulations to the writer.
In fact, if the hapless Trump administration has shown anything, it is that our current ethics laws are inadequate, and that Americans cannot know for sure whether a sitting president is making decisions based on what’s best for the country or what’s best for his own portfolio.
Walter Shaub, who is stepping down as chief of the Office of Government Ethics this week (his term has six more months but he quit early), joined the office in 2001 under President George W. Bush and was appointed director in 2013 by President Obama. He has tried to hold Trump and his appointees to a variety of ethical standards, but has often been stiff-armed. His six months of sparring with Trump, he said in a statement announcing his resignation, has made it “clear to me that we need improvements to the existing ethics program.” In an interview with the New York Times, he went further, calling the U.S. “pretty close to a laughingstock” on ethics and saying that Trump’s behavior “creates the appearance of profiting from the presidency.”
More: Trump’s biggest success: Proving the inadequacy of federal ethics laws