FAIR AND BALANCED
White House: It’s in ‘Public Interest’ for Staff to Skirt Ethics Rules to Meet With Fox News
White House counsel Don McGahn exempted Bill Shine from ethics rules so he can have meetings with their former colleagues at Fox News.
LACHLAN MARKAY
08.13.18 11:17 AM ET
It is “in the public interest” for the White House's top communicator to be excused from federal ethics laws so he can meet with Fox News, according to President Donald Trump’s top lawyer.
Bill Shine, Trump’s newly minted communications director, and Larry Kudlow, the White House’s top economist, who worked at CNBC before his White House post, have both been excused from provisions of the law, which seeks to prevent administration officials from advancing the financial interests of relatives or former employers.
“The Administration has an interest in you interacting with Covered Organizations such as Fox News,” wrote White House counsel Don McGahn in a July 13 memo granting an ethics waivers to Shine, a former Fox executive. “[T]he need for your services outweighs the concern that a reasonable person may question the integrity of the White House Office’s programs and operations.”
Kudlow, a former CNBC host, received a similar waiver allowing him to communicate with former colleagues.
Including Shine and Kudlow, the White House has granted a total of 20 waivers to provisions of various federal ethics laws and the ethics pledge that President Trump instituted by executive order the week he took office. Federal agencies have granted many more such waivers.
more:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/white-house-its-in-public-interest-for-staff-to-skirt-ethics-rules-to-meet-with-fox-news?via=newsletter&source=DDAfternoon
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