United States Office of Government Ethics

src: si.wsj.net

The United States Office of Government Ethics (OGE) is an independent agency within the executive branch of the U.S. Federal Government which is responsible for directing executive branch policies relating to the prevention of conflict of interest on the part of Federal executive branch officers and employees. Under the Ethics in Government Act, this agency was originally part of the Office of Personnel Management from 1978 until it separated in 1989.

Video United States Office of Government Ethics

Primary duties

The main duties of OGE include the following:

• Establishing the standards of conduct for the executive branch;
• Issuing rules and regulations interpreting the criminal conflict of interest restrictions;
• Establishing the framework for the public and confidential financial disclosure systems for executive branch employees;
• Developing training and education programs for use by executive branch ethics officials and employees;
• Ensuring that individual agency ethics programs are functioning properly by setting the requirements for them, supporting them, and reviewing them.

Maps United States Office of Government Ethics

Office of Director

The Director of OGE is appointed by the President after confirmation by the U.S. Senate. The Director of OGE serves a five-year term, thereby overlapping presidential terms, and is subject to no term limit. The rest of the OGE employees are career civil servants. Created by the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, OGE separated from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in 1989 pursuant to reform legislation.

The acting Director of OGE is currently David J. Apol, formerly the general counsel of the OGE.

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Issues involving President Trump

A series of tweets on 30 November 2016 from the office's official Twitter account praised President-elect Donald Trump for planning to divest his business holdings in order to resolve potential conflicts of interest, following an announcement where Trump reaffirmed his intent to take himself out of business operations, despite him having made no firm commitment to a divestment like selling his businesses or a blind trust. A number of observers speculated that the office's account might have been hacked, a suggestion it later denied. The New York Times suggested that the apparent misunderstanding behind the postings were deliberately intended to reveal the independent agency had advised Trump's legal counsel that a divestment was the only adequate remedy for resolving any conflict, and, by extension, pressure Trump into doing so. A Freedom of Information Act request by news organization The Daily Dot revealed that OGE Director Walter M. Shaub personally ordered officials within the agency to post the 9 tweets.

Under the Trump Administration, the Office reversed its own internal policy prohibiting anonymous donations from lobbyists to White House staffers who have legal defense funds.

OGE certification of Ethics Agreement Compliance Form

On May 11, 2017, the Office of Government Ethics requested the Trump administration and its associates submit a form regarding divestment of assets and possible conflicts of interest.

src: media.npr.org

List of former directors

• J. Jackson Walter, 1979-1982
• David H. Martin, 1983-1987
• Frank Q. Nebeker, 1987-1989
• Stephen D. Potts, 1990-2000
• Amy Comstock, 2000-2003
• Robert Cusick, 2006-2011
• Walter Shaub, 2013-2017

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See also

• Title 5 of the Code of Federal Regulations

src: wamu.org

References

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External links

• Official website

Source of article : Wikipedia