Ethics schmethics: Another waiver issued to bypass new rules
During his first full day in office, President Obama signed an executive order instituting "strict" new ethics rules for the administration, for which he has issued several waivers.
President Obama announced his strict, new ethics rules with fanfare, but then almost immediately began issuing waivers for his people to sidestep those rules.
The White House announced another such waiver today, for two lawyers reviewing Bush-era documents.
From Politico:
The White House has waived its ethics rules to allow two lawyers in the White House Counsel’s Office to continue to work on matters relating to former President George W. Bush.
The waivers were granted Thursday to Chris Weideman and Jonathan Kravis, both of whom formerly worked for Williams & Connolly and both of whom handle matters that involve Bush, White House ethics counsel Norm Eisen said in a statement posted on the White House blog.
The conflict arose because a lawyer who is one of Bush’s official representatives, Emmet Flood, recently joined Williams & Connolly.
The statement on the White House blog says the two are “working on matters concerning President George W. Bush’s interests as a former President.”
The authorization is needed because President Bush’s counsel this summer joined a firm at which the two Associate Counsels formerly worked.
… Paragraph 2 of the Ethics Pledge contained in the President’s Executive Order on Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel prohibits appointees from participating in matters involving their former employers for a period of two years. As a result of Mr. Flood’s move, this provision would, absent a waiver, bar Mr. Weideman and Mr. Kravis from continuing with their current work. As a result, all their work and accumulated knowledge would have to be transferred to other staff. That would be a substantial waste of resources, makes little sense and, in our view, was not the intent of the Executive Order. Thus, we granted this limited waiver.
This waiver will allow Mr. Weideman and Mr. Kravis to continue communicating with Mr. Flood on these issues. To be clear, these issues do not involve broader questions of Administration policy; they only relate to the former President’s rights and privileges in his official capacity.
They may not be working on “broader questions of Administration policy,” but the devil’s always in the details.
And what’s the point of having an ethics pledge that you’re just going to ignore anyway?
Sources:
Politico, Aug. 13, 2009
W.H. waives ethics rules for 2 Obama lawyers
The White House Blog, Aug. 13, 2009
Update on the President’s Ethics Executive Order
The White House, Jan. 21, 2009
