Ethics office blasts Donald Trump refusal to disclose lobby waivers
The message from a senator to the government ethics office: Use your authority to force the president to reveal how many waivers he’s granted to ex-lobbyists in his new administration. That was Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley‘s demand to the Office of Government Ethics in June 2009. He was seeking information about some of President Barack Obama‘s most controversial appointees, the people who used to make their living pressing the federal government for money and policies. Eight years and a political flip later, Republicans in President Donald Trump‘s administration say OGE lacks that authority, and they’ve asserted that there’s no need for them to publicly disclose any ethics waivers. Trump’s budget director Mick Mulvaney is asking that ethics director Walter Shaub halt his inquiry into lobbyists-turned-Trump administration employees. “In particular, this data call appears to raise legal questions regarding the scope of OGE’s authorities,” Mulvaney wrote in a letter last week to Shaub. Shaub fired back Monday that OGE’s request is well within bounds. He highlighted Grassley’s request years ago as evidence that lawmakers agree, even though Republicans so far have been silent on the Trump administration’s resistance to disclosure. The ethics director says he expects to see the waiver information within 10 days. “I want to assure you that a request from the Director of the Office of Management and Budget is not something that I decline lightly,” Shaub wrote to Mulvaney The back-and-forth follows a request Shaub made in late April that agency heads share with his office waivers that the Trump administration has issued to its ethics policies concerning lobbyists. As part of Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp” of Washington, he continued an Obama-era two-year prohibition of lobbyists and lawyers hired into the executive branch from working on “particular” government matters that involved their former clients. Trump also instituted a five-year lobbying freeze and lifetime ban on foreign government lobbying for people who later leave his administration. Like Obama, Trump is making exceptions to those rules. In his two terms as president, Obama granted waivers to 66 White House and administration employees, according to what the Office of Government Ethics posted on its website. “In the Obama administration, the President ordered that waivers be shared with OGE, and we gladly did so,” Obama’s chief ethics counsel Norman Eisen said Monday. Waivers continue under the Trump administration, but the extent of them is unknown because his executive actions on ethics do not include provisions for public disclosure or information-sharing with OGE. While each administration has the authority to grant waivers, there should be some central repository for the public to learn when an employee has been granted one, said Sean Moulton, the open government program manager at the Project on Government Oversight in Washington. Mulvaney’s letter last week indicated that administration agencies, such as Treasury, Commerce and Defense, wouldn’t respond to Shaub. Separately, there’s a longstanding legal question about whether the White House itself is subject to any disclosure to the OGE. The Office of the White House Counsel has until June 1 to comply with Shaub’s data request or decline in writing. Eisen called the move by Mulvaney “the latest salvo in his attack on good government.” Democratic lawmakers also seized on the White House’s desire to keep ethics waivers private – in such a way that seemed to channel Grassley circa 2009. They asked the OGE to keep up the fight. “It is critical that you and your office make transparent how the individuals serving in the Trump Administration are complying, or failing to comply, with President Trump’s executive order and other ethics requirements,” Rep. Elijah Cummings and other Democrats on the House Oversight Committee wrote in a letter dated May 19. “Your role is particularly important because the White House itself is keeping this information secret.” House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican who says he is soon leaving office, did not respond to requests for comment. Eight years ago, Grassley asked the OGE to force “the Obama administration to live up to its word.” “As a senior member of the United States Senate, I have consistently worked to ensure that the business of the Government is done in as open and transparent manner as possible,” Grassley wrote in his June 10, 2009, letter to OGE’s then-director Robert Cusick. Shaub wrote in his letter Monday to Mulvaney that it was Grassley’s letter that prompted his office to develop a policy of posting ethics waivers for the Obama administration. “However, the current Administration has not been complying with this established practice,” Shaub wrote. Grassley’s office did not return repeated requests for comment. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Donald Trump attorney didn’t want him to sign financial disclosure
President Donald Trump’s attorneys initially wanted him to submit an updated financial disclosure without certifying the information as true, according to correspondence with the Office of Government Ethics. Attorney Sheri Dillon said she saw no need for Trump to sign his 2016 personal financial disclosure because he is filing voluntarily this year. But OGE director Walter Shaub said his office would only work with Dillon if she agreed to follow the typical process of having Trump make the certification. The Associated Press obtained the letters under a Freedom of Information Act request. Trump led his family’s private company until becoming president, and even now maintains financial ties to it. He has avoided full transparency about his finances by breaking the long tradition of major party political candidates making their tax returns public. His attorney’s effort to sidestep certification of his personal financial disclosure marks another departure from the norm. Each year, the OGE processes thousands of those forms, all of which are certified. “This is not at all typical; in fact I’ve never heard of anyone trying this,” said Marilyn Glynn, an OGE employee for 17 years before retiring in 2008. Her positions included acting director and general counsel. “It would be as unusual as not signing your taxes.” The certification means that if a person knowingly included incorrect financial information, the OGE can seek a civil penalty such as a fine, or even make a referral to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. Glynn said OGE has indeed used those tools to enforce the integrity of certification. The letters indicate Shaub and Dillon talked through the importance of Trump presenting true information and signing off on it as such. OGE typically works with federal employees and their representatives and also certifies the financial disclosures. “As we discussed, OGE will provide this assistance on the condition that the President is committed to certifying that the contents of his report are true, complete and correct,” Shaub wrote in a May 10 letter. “When we met on April 27, 2017, you requested that he be excused from providing this certification.” In her letter to Shaub, Dillon says the president will “sign and file” documents regarding his 2016 financials by mid-June — an indication that she agreed to the requirement. Dillon also stressed in her letter, dated May 9, that Trump is under no obligation to file a financial disclosure this year and is doing so voluntarily. “President Trump welcomes the opportunity to provide this optional disclosure to the public, and hopes to file it shortly,” she wrote. Personal financial disclosures include an accounting of a person’s personal income, assets and liabilities. Trump’s 2016 form will span his general election candidacy, election and transition to power — potentially shedding light on the immediate impact his Republican nomination and election had on his Trump Organization. Last May, then-candidate Trump’s disclosure form showed his business empire had grown in value while he was running for office. However, the information is no substitute for tax returns, which Trump has chosen not to release. Tax documents would show his effective rate of income tax and detail the extent of his charitable giving. Trump’s decision to file a personal financial disclosure puts him in the company of past Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and others. The law gives presidents a reprieve from filing financial disclosures in their first year, but citing transparency, they typically file anyway on or before May 15. Shaub references that history in the first line of his letter to Dillon: “Thank you for your letter dated May 9, 2017, regarding the President’s decision to adhere to the longstanding tradition of voluntarily filing a public financial disclosure report in the first year after taking office.” Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Days from inauguration, Donald Trump still owns/controls 500 companies that make up the Trump Organization
President-elect Donald Trump pledged to step away from his family-owned international real estate development, property management and licensing business before taking office Jan. 20. With less than two weeks until his inauguration, he hasn’t stepped very far. Trump has canceled a handful of international deals and dissolved a few shell companies created for prospective investments. Still, he continues to own or control some 500 companies that make up the Trump Organization, creating a tangle of potential conflicts of interest without precedent in modern U.S. history. The president-elect is expected to give an update on his effort to distance himself from his business at a Wednesday news conference. He told The Associated Press on Friday that he would be announcing a “very simple solution.” Ethics experts have called for Trump to sell off his assets and place his investments in a blind trust, which means something his family would not control. That’s what previous presidents have done. Trump has given no indication he will go that far. He has said he will not be involved in day-to-day company operations and will leave that duty to his adult sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr. The president-elect has not addressed the ethical minefield of whether he would retain a financial interest in his Trump Organization. A look at what’s known about what Trump has and hasn’t tried to resolve his business entanglement before his swearing-in: FOREIGN INVESTMENTS Trump has abandoned planned business ventures in Azerbaijan, Brazil, Georgia, India and Argentina. The Associated Press found he has dissolved shell companies tied to a possible business venture in Saudi Arabia. It’s unclear whether those moves are signs that Trump is dismantling the web of companies that make up his business. Trump Organization general counsel Alan Garten has insisted none of the closures is related to Trump’s election. He calls them “normal housecleaning.” The Trump Organization still has an expanding reach across the globe: The Trump International Golf Club in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, is set to open next month. Trump has said there will be “no new deals” while he’s in office. But Eric Trump, an executive vice president at the Trump Organization, told Argentinian newspapers last week that the company was open to another business venture in the country. “We would like to find something,” Eric Trump told Clarin, as he toured a Trump building construction site. “We’ll find a project.” The younger Trump did rule out expansion in Russia, at least any time soon. “Is there a possibility sometime in the next 20, 30 years we end up in Russia? Absolutely. Is it right for us right now? Probably not,” Eric Trump said, in a video interview with La Nacion posted on the newspaper’s website. Asked about the potential for conflicts of interest if the business continues to operate, Eric Trump compared the separation between the Trump-led government and Trump-led company to the separation between church and state. “These two things will be unfailingly separate,” he said, adding, “we will not share functions.” ___ DOMESTIC BUSINESSES Of Trump’s U.S. portfolio, no venture has become more emblematic of the potential conflicts of interest facing Trump than his hotel at the Old Post Office in the nation’s capital. The federal government, which he soon will oversee, holds the lease on the building he turned into a sparkling luxury hotel that opened shortly before Election Day. The terms of Trump’s contract with the government expressly prohibit elected officials from having a financial interest in the property. Democratic senators said the General Services Administration told them that the moment Trump takes office, he would violate the terms of his contract Neither GSA nor Trump transition officials responded to inquiries about what steps, if any, Trump has taken with regard to that contract provision. Trump is still listed as a producer for the reality TV show, “Celebrity Apprentice.” He has said he will not spend time working on the show. Financial disclosures he filed during the campaign show his company, Trump Productions, earned about $5.9 million from “The Apprentice” shows in 2015. Trump has a considerable amount of business debt that could put creditors in the position of having leverage over an enterprise with close ties to the U.S. president and his family. Last May, Trump reported on his financial disclosure that he had at least $315 million in debt related to his companies. The disclosed debt, mostly mortgages for his properties, is held by banks, including Deutsche Bank and investors who bought chunks of the debt from the original creditors. ___ CHARITIES Last month, Trump announced that he would shutter his charity, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, to avoid conflicts of interest. The decision came after the foundation admitted in a tax filing that in 2015 and an unspecified number of previous years it violated IRS prohibitions against self-dealing, broadly defined as using charity money or assets to benefit Trump, his family, his companies or substantial contributors to the foundation. The New York attorney general’s office has said the foundation cannot dissolve until it completes its investigation into whether Trump used the foundation for personal gain. The attorney general’s office has not said whether the investigation will be wrapped up by Trump inauguration. Eric Trump has decided to shut down his charity, which primarily raised money for St. Jude’s children’s hospital, to pre-empt conflicts of interest. That move came after the younger Trump was found to be offering in a charity auction a coffee date with his sister, Ivanka Trump, who is expected to take a position in the White House. ___ FAMILY Questions remain about how Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner, who is planning to advise the president, will separate from their own businesses. On Saturday, representatives for Kushner told the AP that he has been talking with the Office of Government Ethics and is exploring taking steps to disentangle himself from his business, The Kushner Companies, in preparation for taking a White House role. Under those plans, Kushner representatives say he
