An Unethiical President Causes Government Ethics Head To Resign

The head of The Office Of Government Ethics resigned from his job because our president ignored the ethical rules that have been followed by our previous presidents.  The rules are pretty clear and past presidents have voluntarily lived by the rules.  Donald Trump does not accept the basic idea that the president should not use his office to enrich himself and his allies.  He has flaunted the rules and he has given his political appointees the same freedom.  The reasons for his resignation are summarized below:

Walter M. Shaub Jr., who is resigning as the federal government’s top ethics watchdog on Tuesday, said the Trump administration had flouted or directly challenged long-accepted norms in a way that threatened to undermine the United States’ ethical standards, which have been admired around the world.

“It’s hard for the United States to pursue international anti-corruption and ethics initiatives when we’re not even keeping our own side of the street clean. It affects our credibility,” Mr. Shaub said in a two-hour interview this past weekend — a weekend Mr. Trump let the world know he was spending at a family-owned golf club that was being paid to host the U.S. Women’s Open tournament. “I think we are pretty close to a laughingstock at this point.”

Some members of Congress believe that it is important to have ethical rules to guide the behavior of the president and his appointees.  They would like to restore the office to its normal role of ethical guidance.  Donald Trump has not let ethics stand in the way of personal self enrichment.  Its unlikely that anything can be done while he remains in office.  It could easily turn into a political battle instead of clarifying the rules and the role of the ethics office.  In any case, a list of ethical violations by The Donald  is contained in this article. They have made the US a laughing stock to the rest of the world.  Trump seems to believe that the power to ignore ethical restrictions is one of the perks of his office.