US ethics office struggled to gain access to Trump Team, emails show

[Fast Walker 52]

Source: CNBC

The office tasked with overseeing ethics and conflicts in the federal government struggled to gain access to leaders of the Trump transition team, and warned Trump aides about making decisions on nominees or blind trusts without ethics guidance, according to new emails obtained by MSNBC.

Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub emailed Trump aides in November to lament that despite his office's repeated outreach, "we seem to have lost contact with the Trump-Pence transition since the election."

Trump aides may also be risking "embarrassment for the President-elect," Shaub warned, by "announcing cabinet picks" without letting the ethics office review their financial information in advance. The perils for White House staff were even more severe, Shaub argued, because they might begin their jobs without crucial ethics guidance, raising a risk of inadvertently breaking federal rules.

"They run the risk of having inadvertently violated the criminal conflicts of interest restriction at 18 USC 208," Shaub wrote, citing a federal conflicts law in an email to Trump Transition aide Sean Doocey.

Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/07/us-ethics-office-struggled-to-gain-access-to-trump-team-emails-show.html

---

We are looking down the barrel of just massive, unparalleled corruption...

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Ehics, shmethics. We don't need no stinking ethics.

How much longer do you think the Office of Government Ethics will continue to exist under this maladministration?

[christx30]

2. I was picturing Trump sending a staffer down

to the local 7-11 to buy a few burner phones, so they could do communication without being monitored.
Sadly, that is way too easy to imagine.

[Fast Walker 52]

4. I don't even think they'll be that careful...these fuckers are bold and will do it right in the open

cause they don't think they will get caught.

[pangaia]

8. They won't. By whom?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

11. Quis custodies ipsos custodes?

[pangaia]

12. Honto desu yo

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

13. Som var s veldig snilt av deg!

[pangaia]

14. 谢谢

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

17. You win.

Norwegian is more obscure than Chinese but also more intelligible for an English speaker.

[pangaia]

18. LOL laugh out loud.. or is it Lots of laughs.. I never knew.... LOL!!!

Xie Xie

I have several Norwegian friends. Oslo, Trondheim and Sarpsborg. They all speak better English than I do...

[Chasstev365]

3. We and the Democratic Party need to raise hell over this!

Portray the GOP as the most brazenly corrupt poltical party on US history and keep pounding that message until Nov 2018.

[MBS]

10. YES.

[Fast Walker 52]

5. Relevant letter from ethics office

https://twitter.com/tamarakeithNPR/status/817772341467942912

The letter from the chief of the Office of Government Ethics to @SenSchumer and @SenWarren is pretty remarkable.

[Achilleaze]

6. Republicans think ethics are for suckers

I mean, the very first freaking thing they did with power was to try and shitcan Congressional ethics.

Republican "family values + ethics" are - as the record shows - the direct eqivalent of using ripped off taxpayer dollars to get drunk and have bathroom diaper sex with high-priced toe-tapping hookers while tweeting insults at people who actually live out high morals and ethics, and don't need to stand in the public square as out-and-out hypocrites proclaim a level of "moral superiority" that is total bullshit.

In King Comrade Casino (RNC), Republicans have found their perfect role model. He will serve as the degenerate draft-&-tax dodging, woman-violating, contractor-deadbeat inspiration for generations of Republican spawn.

[pangaia]

7. Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub -

is just a wee bit naive.

[Fast Walker 52]

15. LOL, apparently... just a nerdy bean counter who better keep quiet from now on

the thugs are back in town

[sarah FAILIN]

9. Remember when failure to pay a nanny taxes was the end of an appointment?

Trump doesn't.

[Fast Walker 52]

16. he is unpresidented....