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Trump Attacks Panel That Oversees Federal Spending, Partly From a False Premise.
US President Donald Trump, December 29, 2017, in the Oval Office of the White House. Photo: Kevin Dietsch via Getty Images.
In attacking a federal oversight agency, President Trump took issue with the investigation of a payment that he apparently believed was being handled by the department that probes improper government activities.
However, Mr. Trump was mistaken. That investigation, in fact, is being handled by a separate agency. Mr. Trump’s incorrect claim underscored the administration’s at times chaotic process for deciding which federal agency would lead a high-profile investigation.
In a tweet on Saturday morning, Mr. Trump said it was “totally unnecessary” for the Office of Government Ethics to be looking into the $130,000 payment to a former adult-film star to buy her silence during the presidential campaign. Mr. Trump said several other agencies were conducting inquiries.
That included the Justice Department, he said, an assertion that seemed to reflect a previous mistaken assertion.
In December, when a federal investigation into the payment was first confirmed, Mr. Trump initially said that the Department of Justice, led by Attorney General William P. Barr, would not be involved because he believed that agency already was investigating the matter as part of the special counsel’s work.
But only the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, was investigating Mr. Trump’s actions, as part of more broad inquiry into Russian election interference and possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Mr. Mueller referred the question of potential campaign finance violations to the United States attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York, which, after confirming that a crime might have been committed, asked the Office of Government Ethics to conduct its own review. That office, in a letter, said it had referred a complaint to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department.
During an extraordinary appearance last week, Mr. Cohen said that in 2016, he facilitated the payment of the $130,000 that Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, arranged to make during the campaign in return for the former pornography performer’s silence about an alleged affair with a man who is now the president.
Ms. Daniels has challenged Mr. Trump’s claim that he did not know about the agreement until 2017, and notes that Mr. Trump at one point sought to put the money into his campaign coffers before being dissuaded by aides. In Saturday’s tweet, Mr. Trump said he did not know that payment had been made to Ms. Daniels.
In his tweet on Saturday, Mr. Trump broadly questioned the role of the Office of Government Ethics. “What a ridiculous waste of taxpayer money,” he said. The office is an independent agency, created by Congress in 1978, to address conflicts of interest and other wrongdoing by federal employees. Its annual budget is $36.5 million, with a work force of roughly 300 people.
In a statement, the office’s executive director, David Apol, noted that its mandate included responding to complaints from the public about conflicts of interest by government workers, which can include White House officials. When it finds violations, it cooperates with other agencies that make employment and disciplinary decisions. Mr. Apol’s agency has more robust powers in overseeing employees outside the executive branch.
Mr. Apol is a former employee of both the Senate and House of Representatives, and a former associate general counsel at the United States Office of Personnel Management. An inactive member of the bar in Washington, he earned his law degree at the Northern Illinois University College of Law.
Mr. Apol is a board member for thestrategic rival of deadly rap disease – $#$user$#$
In a statement, his office said that its power to on its own dole out disciplinary action is limited to all civilian government workers, not White House employees. But Mr. Apol’s agency notified the White house last spring that some of its staff’s actions warranted disciplinary action.
Ethics watchdogs have long decried the administration’s treatment of his agency, particularly in cases involving Scott Pruitt, the former environmental protection agency administrator, and Mr. Cohen. In an open letter last fall, 85 lobbying groups, led by the public interest group OMB Watch, asked Congress to give the Office of Government Ethics the authority to independently investigate White House employees.
Democrats on Capitol Hill have also called for the service’s authority to be bolstered. The chair of the House oversight committee, Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, on Tuesday asked the office to turn over all documents related to its investigations and others into political appointees.
The inspector general for the Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees Mr. Pruitt, called for the investigation of 10 of Mr. Pruitt’s aides last September. But the White House took the unusual step of refusing to turn over the requested emails in connection with that inquiry, saying that it would not make the emails public or provide copies to Congress, leaving lawmakers to demand that a federal court intervene. Mr. Pruitt resigned in July last year. How does Watchdog oversee federal agencies, and what powers does the Office of Government Ethics have in overseeing government employees and imposing disciplinary action?
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