White House agrees to detail ethics waivers for former lobbyists
Source: Reuters
The White House will comply with a request from the US government’s ethics agency to provide information on which former lobbyists are working in the administration, an administration official said on Friday.
Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), said in a letter that the administration was not seeking to impede efforts by the Office of Government Ethics to obtain that information, despite earlier protests from Walter Shaub, the director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE).
“OMB shares the belief that the executive branch must uphold the highest ethical standards in accordance with the law,” Mulvaney wrote. “Our concern was, and is, protecting the process related to the data call.”
Shaub, an appointee under Barack Obama in the final year of a five-year term, in April had requested copies of waivers the Trump administration granted to former lobbyists now appointed to positions in the government. Those requests were sent to agencies across the administration, seeking waivers that would allow former lobbyists to work on issues they had been involved with as paid advocates.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/26/white-house-ethics-waivers-trump-administration
Reuters
Saturday 27 May 2017 01.53 BST
