Trump demands Ethics Office end probe into Lobbyists working for him

[BmorePat87]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/us/politics/trump-white-house-government-ethics-lobbyists.html?_r=0

Quote:the White House, in a highly unusual move, sent a letter to Walter M. Shaub Jr., the head of the Office of Government Ethics, asking him to withdraw a request he had sent to every federal agency for copies of the waivers. In the letter, the administration challenged his legal authority to demand the information.

Dozens of former lobbyists and industry lawyers are working in the Trump administration, which has hired them at a much higher rate than the previous administration. Keeping the waivers confidential would make it impossible to know whether any such officials are violating federal ethics rules or have been given a pass to ignore them.

Mr. Shaub, who is in the final year of a five-year term after being appointed by President Barack Obama, said he had no intention of backing down. “It is an extraordinary thing,” Mr. Shaub said of the White House request. “I have never seen anything like it.”

Marilyn L. Glynn, who served as general counsel and acting director of the agency during the George W. Bush administration, called the move by the Trump White House “unprecedented and extremely troubling.”

“It challenges the very authority of the director of the agency and his ability to carry out the functions of the office,” she said.

The White House says it's just politics and that they're committed to being highly ethical, despite the fact that, as early as January, lobbyists were being hired to work on the very issues they lobbied for. Trump has the authority to issue waivers on his own directive to prevent this very scenario, making it more lip service than commitment to end the revolving door of lobbyists working in the government. They just want more time to deal to challenge legality of this request to find how many lobbyists are working for Trump. I'm sure there's nothing to hide based on their response...