The White House revealed Wednesday it has granted 14 ethics waivers to various members of President Donald Trump's staff.
At the start of his term, Trump signed an executive order that
limited the contact select government employees could have with former
clients and employers. It also restricted what lobbyists could do in his
administration.
But these ethics waivers essentially grant certain White House staffers a free pass.
Kellyanne
Conway, who's the counselor to the president, got the OK to talk with
former clients. And White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus can keep
up with the Republican National Committee.
The waiver could also let Priebus keep a $100,000 bonus he received from the RNC.
All
executive office appointees got a broad waiver, giving them permission
to talk with news organizations on "broad policy" issues.
That
applies to chief strategist Steve Bannon, who formerly ran Breitbart
News. It also appears to retroactively clear Bannon of any ethics violations over his reported conversations with Breitbart employees after he joined the White House.
Vice
President Mike Pence's chief of staff also got a waiver. Prior to
joining Pence's White House team, Joshua Pitcock was a lobbyist for the
state of Indiana. The waiver gives him permission to work with state
officials on a number of issues, including refugee policy, opioid abuse
issues and tax reform.
Three other former lobbyists — Michael
Catanzaro, Shahira Knight and Andrew Olmem — were granted waivers
allowing them to continue working on issues they'd lobbied for.
Right
now, we only know about the ethics waivers issued in the White House,
not across Trump's entire administration. The White House hasn't said
yet if any were granted to federal agencies.
Over former President Barack Obama's eight years, his administration issued 66 individual ethics waivers.
The
Trump administration has so far published 11 individual waivers, but
three others affect large groups of executive branch employees.
___________________________________
http://www.newsy.com/stories/trump-administration-reveals-who-received-an-ethics-waiver/
No comments:
Post a Comment