Gutting the Office of Government Ethics: Walter Shaub's Resignation in Protest and the Transition from Compliance to Defiance on Executive Branch Ethics
Tier 3Documented2017-01-11 to 2017-07-19
Factual Summary
Walter Shaub Jr. served as the Director of the United States Office of Government Ethics from January 2013 through July 19, 2017. OGE is an independent executive branch agency responsible for overseeing the financial disclosure process, administering ethics agreements, and providing guidance on conflicts of interest for the executive branch. Shaub was originally appointed during the Obama administration and had served in government ethics roles since the George W. Bush administration.
The first significant clash between Shaub and the incoming Trump administration occurred on January 11, 2017, nine days before Trump's inauguration. At a Brookings Institution event, Shaub publicly criticized Trump's plan to hand management of his business empire to his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr. while placing his assets in a trust. Shaub stated that this arrangement was "meaningless from a conflict of interest perspective" and that only full divestment would address the president's conflicts. He noted that every president since the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 had either divested conflicting assets or used a qualified blind trust, and that Trump's plan did neither.
In March 2017, Shaub criticized the White House for failing to discipline Senior Adviser Kellyanne Conway after she used a Fox News appearance to promote Ivanka Trump's clothing line, stating "Go buy Ivanka's stuff." OGE determined that Conway's endorsement violated federal ethics regulations. Shaub wrote that the White House's failure to impose any disciplinary action "risks undermining the ethics program."
In April 2017, Shaub issued a directive requiring the White House and all federal agencies to produce copies of ethics waivers that had been granted to former lobbyists serving in the executive branch. Such waivers are public documents, but the Trump White House had withheld them, arguing that OGE lacked the legal authority to compel their disclosure. After a public dispute, the White House eventually released some waivers, but the confrontation highlighted a fundamental disagreement about OGE's authority.
Shaub also disclosed that an attorney for Trump had visited OGE and requested that the president be exempted from the requirement to certify that his financial disclosure report was true. Shaub stated that every financial disclosure filer in the history of the program had signed such a certification, and that the request was "that the president be the first person in history to file a financial disclosure report without having to certify it was true." The request was refused.
On July 6, 2017, Shaub announced his resignation, effective July 19, 2017, six months before the expiration of his five-year term. In interviews following his resignation, Shaub described the Trump White House as "a disappointment" and stated that the administration had undermined the ethics framework by refusing to comply with longstanding norms and by treating OGE's guidance as optional rather than binding.
After his departure, Trump bypassed the senior career official next in line for the acting director position and instead appointed a political appointee, David Apol, as acting director. Shaub joined the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan election law organization, as senior director for ethics.
Primary Sources
1. Walter Shaub, remarks at the Brookings Institution, January 11, 2017 (criticism of Trump's divestiture plan)
2. OGE data call directive to the White House and federal agencies regarding ethics waivers, April 28, 2017
3. Walter Shaub, resignation letter, July 6, 2017
4. OGE determination regarding Kellyanne Conway's promotion of Ivanka Trump's products, February-March 2017
Corroborating Sources
1. NPR: "Ethics Office Director Walter Shaub Resigns, Saying Rules Need to Be Tougher," July 6, 2017
2. NPR: "Exiting Ethics Chief Walter Shaub Calls Trump White House 'A Disappointment,'" July 7, 2017
3. TIME: "Ethics Director Walter Shaub Resigns After Trump Clashes," July 2017
4. The Hill: "Ethics director who clashed with Trump resigns," July 2017
5. NBC News: "Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub resigns his post," July 2017
6. Government Executive: "Trump Names Acting Ethics Chief, Bypassing Senior Career Official," July 2017
Counterarguments and Context
The Trump administration argued that the president is exempt from the conflict-of-interest statutes that apply to other executive branch officials and that Trump's decision to transfer management of his business to his sons was a voluntary measure that went beyond what the law required. Administration officials contended that Shaub was overstepping his authority by publicly criticizing the president's arrangements and that OGE's role is advisory, not enforcement. Some legal commentators noted that prior presidents' compliance with OGE norms was voluntary and that no statute requires the president to divest assets. Conway's promotion of Ivanka Trump's brand was addressed through internal counseling, which the White House argued was a proportionate response. However, Shaub's criticisms were rooted in four decades of bipartisan practice in which presidents of both parties had complied with OGE guidance as a matter of institutional integrity. The refusal to certify financial disclosures, the withholding of ethics waivers, the failure to discipline ethics violations, and the eventual replacement of the ethics director with a political appointee represented a systematic departure from the norms that had governed executive branch ethics since the post-Watergate reforms.
Author's Note
This entry is classified as Tier 3 because the facts are documented through primary evidence, including Shaub's public statements, OGE directives, and the documented responses from the White House. Shaub's resignation and his public explanations for it are matters of public record. The normative judgment that the Trump administration's approach constituted an erosion of government ethics oversight, rather than a legitimate exercise of executive discretion, is supported by the historical record of bipartisan compliance with OGE norms but remains subject to debate about the scope of presidential prerogatives.