The head of the Office of Government Ethics resigned his post on Thursday. Walter Shaub Jr. has a fixed five-year term as director of the OGE, but he opted to quit to work with an advocacy group.
Shaub, who was appointed at the start of the second term of former President Barack Obama, said he resigned because he could not accomplish much at the agency due to the current situation, The New York Daily News reported. He said the agency’s recent experience calls for a stronger ethics program.
Trump’s failure to divest
After Republican candidate Donald Trump won the November election, he refused to completely divest from his businesses.
Presidents who win an election are supposed to place their assets into blind trusts and not run by family members. In the case of the real estate billionaire, his business empire is in the care of his two adult sons, Donald Jr. and Eric Trump.
With the family continuing their real estate business, the New York Attorney General questioned some transactions made by the Eric Trump Foundation for breaching state regulations. For instance, money received by the Eric Trump Foundation from the Donald J. Trump Foundation was used to pay a golf course owned by the president.
Shaub recommended that Kellyanne Conway, an adviser to the president, be disciplined. She urged Americans, in a TV interview, to buy clothing line from Ivanka Trump.
Before Shaub was promoted as director of the OGE, he was a longtime employee of the agency which experienced a surge in inquiries since Trump occupied the White House. Public contacts ballooned to over 39,000 during the first six months of 2017, compared to 164 only at the start of the fiscal year 2016.
Resignation is effective on July 19
The 46-year-old official has two more weeks left on his public service since his resignation is effective on July 19. His five-year term is supposed to end in January 2018, Reuters reported. Shaub said he was not pressured to leave his position.
With Shaub’s resignation, Trump would need to nominate a replacement.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, said he looked forward to scrutinizing Shaub’s replacement who must prevent lobbyist and private interest from “rigging the system against working families under the cover of darkness.”
From the OGE, Shaub will be the next head of a nonpartisan group based in Washington. The Ethics Practice at the Campaign Legal Center is dedicated to democratic reforms, according to Larry Noble, the center’s general counsel.
