Walter Shaub, the leader of the federal governmentethics office who previously criticized President Donald Trump over the president’s business interests, submitted his resignation on Thursday, nearly six months before the end of his term, The Hill reports.
Shaub will officially step down from the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) on July 19, according to a letter to Trump that Shaub posted on his Twitter account. The letter was a veiled shot at the Trump administration, which has routinely clashed with the small independent agency over the appearances of conflicts of interest.
“The great privilege and honor of my career has been to lead OGE’s staff and the community of ethics officials in the federal executive branch. They are committed to protecting the principle that public service is a public trust, requiring employees to place loyalty to the Constitution, the laws, and ethical principals above private gain,” Shaub wrote.
“I am grateful for the efforts of this dedicated and patriotic assembly of public servants, and I am proud to have served with them,” the letter closes. Schaub has served in OGE under both Republican and Democratic presidents, starting his tenure during the George W. Bush administration, and becoming director under former President Barack Obama.
His term was set to end in January 2018. He has worked for more than a decade in the ethics office, as the attorney in charge of the presidential nomination program, then as deputy general counsel.
Obama named him as the agency’s director in 2013. Except for a short stint in private practice, he has worked as a lawyer in various government agencies since 1997.
Shaub told CBS News on Thursday evening that he doesn’t know whether Trump is profiting from his businesses, but that’s not the point.
“I can’t know what their intention is. I know that the effect is that there’s an appearance that the businesses are profiting from his occupying the presidency,” he told CBS News correspondent Julianna Goldman during the first televised interview following his resignation.
“And appearance matters as much as reality, so even aside from whether or not that’s actually happening, we need to send a message to the world that the United States is going to have the gold standard for an ethics program in government, which is what we’ve always had,” he continued.
OGE Chief of Staff Shelley Finlayson is the first in line to succeed Shaub as acting director, but rules allow the White House to pick from senior officials at the office to fill the top slot. The OGE director position is decided by the president, and all eyes will be on whether Trump chooses someone to lead OGE or simply keeps the slot vacant.
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