Duckworth, Senators Call on Trump to Disclose Ethics Waivers and White House Visitor Logs
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"Scandal follows ?conflict of interest like night follows day," the Senators write in a letter sent to the
In their letter, the Senators request that
Full text of the Senators' letter is below. A PDF copy is available here http://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/download/letter-to-trump-on-ethics-waivers-and-wh-logs.
Conflicts of interest and a lack of transparency have become major issues for the
Citing "grave national security risks," the Trump administration announced Friday that it would discontinue the previous administration's policy of releasing
The President
The
Dear Mr. President:
We write to urge you to take immediate steps to reverse a number of decisions by your administration that create conditions for conflicts of interest and potential corruption throughout the federal government.
The New York Times reported this weekend that your administration is being filled with "former lobbyists, lawyers and consultants who in many cases are helping to craft new policies for the same industries in which they recently earned a paycheck."[1] These do not appear to be isolated appointments. According to the
In addition, several Senators have raised concerns to your staff about the role
Early in your term, you issued Executive Order 13770, "Ethics Commitments by Executive
The Obama administration released its waivers and the rationale supporting them to the public.[7] You have not followed this precedent. The Director of the
Secrecy is becoming the hallmark of the
Your decision to spend an unprecedented amount of time and conduct significant government business at the Mar-a-Lago resort, which you call the "Southern White House," has compounded this lack of transparency. Despite repeated requests, your administration has refused to respond to congressional inquiries about security and screening at Mar-a-Lago. You have also refused to extend the Obama-era visitor log policy to that and other Trump properties at which you expect to regularly conduct government business.
Scandal follows ?conflict of interest like night follows day. Your decisions permit industry lobbyists to advance their agendas in your administration, confer with former clients and employers to craft government policy behind closed doors, and cash out by returning to their high-paying lobbying jobs to take advantage of those new policies, all thanks to secret waivers that are never made public. When industry captures its regulators, the American people rarely benefit.
We hope our assessment of your administration is wrong. We hope that it does not take a tragedy like a public health emergency or financial collapse caused by policies crafted by lobbyists to benefit their industry for you to begin to take seriously your pledge to "drain the swamp." We urge you to take these two steps to start to address these concerns:
Make public all waivers to your ethics pledge as soon as they are granted.
Release
Ultimately, no one benefits from a government riddled with conflict, scandal, and corruption. Should you take these initial steps, we stand ready to work with your administration to ensure the federal government meets the highest ethical standards. We are prepared to press for legislation to address these issues if you do not.
[1]
[2]
[3]
[5] https://www.warren.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1446
[6]
[7] https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/21stcenturygov/tools/ethics-waivers
[8] Lipton et al., "With
[9] On March, 15, 2017,
[10] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/disclosures/ethics-pledge-waivers (accessed
[11]
[12] See, e.g., "White House Transparency, Visitor Logs, and Lobbyists," House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations,
Read this original document at: https://www.duckworth.senate.gov/content/duckworth-senators-call-trump-disclose-ethics-waivers-and-white-house-visitor-logs
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