ETHICS/LOBBYING/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE/MICK MULVANEY: “The Trump administration, in a significant escalation of its clash with the government’s top ethics watchdog, has moved to block an effort to disclose any ethics waivers granted to former lobbyists who have work in the White House or federal agencies.
The latest conflict came in recent days when 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.’ “
-Eric Lipton, “White House Moves to Block Ethics Inquiry Into Ex-Lobbyists on Payroll, ” The New York Times online, May 22, 2017