President Trump Must Appoint an Ethics, Governance and Compliance Secretary
Recent circumstances indicate that there seems to be a need for a Governance and Compliance Secretary, responsible for special Ethics or Conflict of interest issues in the Governance department at the White House. We review some of the recent instances.
The first public-policy legislation President Trump signed into law was a rollback of the Dodd-Frank Act, repealing amongst many others, the Securities and Exchange rule requiring oil, gas and mining companies to disclose their international payments. Trump's Signature probably will weaken the global and U.S. Fight on Corruption. The jury is still out on the other financial regulatory issues governed by Dodd-Frank.
Governmental Ethics and Integrity
There also seems to be a need for the president's staff to follow ethics rules—not flout them. This was a situation when the regulatory branch expressed displeasure with a White House decision not to discipline special presidential counsellor as well as its deputy counsel's assertion that many ethics requirements for the executive branch do not apply to White House staff.
When the government staff violate these rules, the unique Governance and compliance Secretary could impose discipline, instead of engraving the situation by inventing a legal fiction on whom the governance rules apply or nor.
Since ExxonMobil stands to benefit from the U.S. State Department's approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, and consequently, Secretary of State has recused himself from the permitting decision.
- The decision to approve or reject the Keystone XL pipeline as ExxonMobil has heavily invested in high-cost, ecologically critical tar sands production served by the pipeline.
Transition must put ongoing investigations at risk
And most recently traditional politicians were also concerned when Trump administration's request that NY district attorney Preet Bharara's and other US attorneys' resignations.
It is normal for incoming presidents to make their choices for US attorney positions across the country. However, the Ethics and Governance Secretary could ensure that it must be done so in an orderly fashion and the transition does not put ongoing investigations at risk.
In Mr Bharara's case, the bold moves to relentlessly stand up for what is right was a 'personal' drive to root out public corruption, lock up terrorists, take on Wall Street. This approach served as a model for other US attorneys across the country on Governance issues.
A smooth transition in an orderly fashion that doesn't put ongoing investigations at risk would have been in the interest of the fight against a number of governance cases (Deutsche Bank AG's handling of “mirror trades” that helped Russian clients convert rubles into Western currency, a high-profile securities fraud case against Valeant Pharmaceuticals International and political corruption cases involving New York Mayor and Governor)
Then there is a son-in-law who needs to disclose exactly how all family members will comply with the current conflict of interest laws.
The Governance, Ethics and Integrity department could;
- Detail how the entire administration will comply with ethics legislation that requires government employees to avoid handling issues that could affect their pocketbooks.
- Detail how the entire departments will comply with complying with the law by just divesting their assets and ensure segregation of duties and conflict of interest issues.
- Detail how the entire administration will comply to recuse themselves from areas in which they have a conflict.
