Government Ethics Chief Resigns, Casting Uncertainty Over Agency
WASHINGTON — Walter M. Shaub Jr., the government’s top ethics watchdog, who has repeatedly gone head-to-head with the Trump administration over conflicts of interest, said on Thursday that he was calling it quits.
Mr. Shaub’s five-year term as the director of the Office of Government Ethics is not set to expire until January, but with little chance of renewal and an appealing offer in hand from a nonpartisan advocacy group, he said the time was right to leave.
“There isn’t much more I could accomplish at the Office of Government Ethics, given the current situation,” Mr. Shaub said in an interview on Thursday. “O.G.E.’s recent experiences have made it clear that the ethics program needs to be strengthened.”
His new position, he said, will allow him to advocate freely for such changes.
In a short letter informing President Trump of his decision, Mr. Shaub did not offer a specific reason for his departure but extolled “the principle that public service is a public trust, requiring employees to place loyalty to the Constitution, the laws and ethical principles above private gain.” He said he had not been pressured to resign.
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The White House promptly accepted Mr. Shaub’s resignation, and Lindsay E. Walters, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement that the administration “appreciates his service.” Mr. Trump, she said, would nominate a successor “in short order.”
By departing ahead of schedule, Mr. Shaub handed Mr. Trump an opportunity to begin putting his mark on the agency overseeing the federal government’s vast ethics program, including that of the White House. The office’s director has traditionally had wide latitude to set its priorities, its tone in working with the White House and other federal agencies, and, perhaps most important, how to interpret the country’s ethics laws.
The vacancy is all but certain to frighten Democrats and those in the small world of government ethics who see the office under Mr. Shaub as an important political bulwark against conflicts of interest in the upper echelons of the government. To Mr. Trump’s defenders, who have seen Mr. Shaub, an Obama appointee, as politically motivated, it is more welcome news.