By Heather Timmons and Gabriella Borter
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – America’s top ethics official charged with preventing conflicts of interest among government officials will soon take the hot seat in Washington as President-elect Donald Trump’s new cabinet and other appointees disclose their financial assets and prepare for their new jobs.
“We are in contact with the transition team and we are working with them,” David Huitema said recently in his first official interview with Reuters since being sworn in on December 16. The inauguration will be on January 20.
Ethics experts say the director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) is in the spotlight during any presidential transition, but Huitema faces special challenges ahead of Trump’s second term, assessing myriad business connections for Trump, his family and advisers.
Experts pointed to the short, troubled tenure of Walter Shaub, the last person in office when Trump entered the White House, and noted that several of Trump’s latest nominees have expressed disdain for the agencies they will lead.
After nine years as the U.S. State Department’s chief of ethics, Huitema will lead OGE’s standard task of helping scrutinize dozens of new Senate-approved nominees and thousands of political appointees for potential financial and personal conflicts.
If he does his job well, chances are Huitema could be fired fairly quickly, Shaub warned in an open letter last month. Huitema told Reuters that he believed in the intentions of most of the new government members.
He shared his views on ethics education and maintaining public trust, but declined to answer specific questions about the new administration. The ethics office deals only with potential civil servants, he pointed out. That means they won’t vet outside advisers like billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, whom Trump has asked to recommend cutting government spending.
Q: What exactly does OGE do?
A: “The ultimate goal is to ensure that federal employees make decisions based on the national interest and the administration’s political priorities, rather than any personal interest, especially financial interest. … OGE itself is a small agency of only about 75 employees, but we work with a team of about 4,000 ethics officers, who work more directly with federal officials.”
One important immediate task, he said, will be “the release of nominees’ financial information, which will help ensure that candidates for Senate-confirmed positions meet their requirements for full disclosure of their financial interests and arrangements.”
Q. How does the financial disclosure process work with presidential candidates? A: Typically, he said, candidates for top jobs fill out reports early on to help the office “identify potential conflicts or steps candidates might take if confirmed so that all of that information is available to the Senate and officials so they know what they’re getting into.” let in.”
Q. What are the deadlines? When do people have to reveal it? A. He said the nominees should file a report “within five days of being appointed. . . . Our goal is to help those incoming officials, to help the Senate, and to do it as efficiently as possible.”
He noted that “any member of the public may request a copy” of any financial disclosure report filed with the OGE. “The idea is that the public can also play a role in monitoring conflicts of interest.”
Q. What is the enforcement mechanism if there are conflicts of interest? A: “It is not so much whether there is a conflict on the form itself, but whether ultimately any federal employee is engaged in work that conflicts with their financial interests.
“The conflict of interest law is a criminal law, so the ultimate solution is prosecution by the Department of Justice. Our role is really to help advise employees to avoid that situation…
“We work with agency ethics officials if we become aware of a potential conflict of interest issue to make sure it’s resolved, ultimately we’ll also work with the Department of Justice if necessary.”
Q: As head of ethics at the State Department, what lessons have you learned?
A: “Most employees, career and appointed, want to follow the law and want to act with integrity and appreciate the help of ethics officers …” Q: In your congressional testimony, you said you think OGE can help “combat the growing cynicism and mistrust that can undermine our democratic self-government.” Can you explain? A. “We want to make sure that employees … do not act on the basis of personal interests, especially financial interests and personal motivations. …
“In practice, federal ethics rules may be more limited in their actual scope than people appreciate, so people’s assumptions that there is a particular problem with compliance with federal ethics laws may not be well founded.
Q. What are some examples of interests that are not significant enough to raise flags?
A. “Financial conflict of interest laws are … pretty precise in terms of their scope. You either have enough stock to cause a conflict or you don’t.”
Q. Can ethics be taught? For people coming from the business side, the interaction is often deliberately based on “How can I use this to give myself or my company an advantage”.
A. “I hope so because there are a lot of requests for ethics training,” he said, laughing. He agreed that officials coming from the private sector are used to “networking and ‘What can you do to help someone so they can benefit from you in return’… The challenge is to make sure those officials and new hires understand that the expectations within government are a little different…”
Q. What happens if DOJ doesn’t take ethics laws seriously? Where does that leave you?
A. “Prosecution is one extreme, but there is enforcement at the agency level in terms of discipline.”
Q. The president can grant a waiver exempting someone from conflict of interest laws, correct? Is this something that OGE can refuse or advise against?
A. “The President in some cases and agency heads or officials … may grant waivers,” but must consult with OGE. He said exemptions can be granted when “the potential conflict of interest is not considered that significant. Ultimately, the OGE should know when an exemption is issued. They can be made public.”
