Republicans and Democrats on the House Oversight Committee told Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub that he should refrain from using Twitter.
“I think we were all concerned about the initial tweets,” said Maryland’s Elijah Cummings, the panel’s top Democrat. “We told him that it didn’t seem professional.”
Cummings was discussing missives posted on the OGE’s official site Nov. 30 praising then-President-elect Trump for divesting himself from his business empire. Although the office said it was responding to tweets from Trump promising to take such actions, Trump had yet to do so. The OGE’s words were considered premature at best and sarcastic and biased at worst.
“We told your counsel we’d sing your praises if you divested, we meant it,” one tweet from the official OGE account — which Shaub wrote — directed to Trump’s account read. “Bravo! Only way to resolve these conflicts of interest is to divest. Good call!”
Those posts, and other comments from Shaub, prompted committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, to invite Shaub in for a chat Monday.
“I had a little bit of a difficult time getting him to come visit with us,” Chaffetz said after the hour-plus-long meeting in his committee office. “It wasn’t nearly as difficult as he thought it was going to be. It should be a little easier to communicate. I think we both understand that. I think everybody’s blood pressure is coming down here.”
Chaffetz underscored that no investigation is underway and that he merely wanted to speak with Shaub so that his office, which is charged with combing through executive branch officials’ financial disclosure forms looking for conflicts of interest, can do its job, and so that the two watchdogs can work in concert.
He also emphasized that the concern about Shaub’s tweeting is bipartisan.
“It’s fair to say members on both sides of the aisle complained about his tweeting,” Chaffetz said. “It wasn’t helping the situation. It’s not his role to do that.”
At least one Democrat took it easy on Shaub for expressing himself over Twitter.
“It’s a little hard to criticize him for tweeting when the president has decided that’s his favorite way of communicating,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly D-Va.
Shaub said the meeting with Chaffetz and nine committee Democrats was “productive.”
“I think it was a very productive meeting; we had a very candid exchange,” Shaub said after. “I think it was extremely useful to have a meeting.”
The lawmakers also discussed the bureaucrat’s worries that his staff of 75 employees did not have enough time to comb through all the documents before the Senate started holding confirmation hearings.
“The announced hearing schedule for several nominees who have not completed the ethics review process is of great concern to me,” Shaub wrote Senate leaders earlier this month about the compressed timetable. “This schedule has created undue pressure on OGE’s staff and agency ethics officials to rush through these important reviews.
“More significantly, it has left some of the nominees with potentially unknown or unresolved ethics issues shortly before their scheduled hearings,” he wrote Jan. 6.
Connolly said things have improved since then.
“He felt they have really caught up and that they are getting good cooperation from the administration and the nominees themselves,” Connolly said. “He’s got 75 employees and he’s got what, two or three billionaires he has to vet? You can imagine what that financial disclosure is like.”
Connolly took Trump to task for freezing the federal workforce at a time that a small office such as OGE is trying to sift through reams of paper.
“This is the same crowd that wants to put a freeze on federal hiring,” Connolly said, noting Shaub’s office is allowed 80 employees but only has 75. They train 4,500 ethics officers across the federal government and conduct 7,000 trainings annually, he said about the office’s workload.
Cummings said tweets aside, he’s worried that the controversy is undermining the agency and its important work.
Earlier this month Trump’s Chief of Staff Reince Priebus took a shot at Shaub.
“The head of the government ethics ought to be careful because that person is becoming extremely political,” Priebus told ABC News Jan. 15.
Shaub told the lawmakers that Priebus’ comments “had a chilling effect on him and his agency,” Cummings said.
“I want to make sure that we are not doing anything that threatens or destroys the very things that underpin, the very agencies that underpin, our democracies, and ethics is very, very important,” Cummings said.
Chaffetz wouldn’t say if the meeting assuaged his concerns about Shaub’s leadership.
“I think we better understand each other,” Chaffetz answered. “I’ve expressed my frustration.”
The authorization for the office, created in 1978 as part of the post-Watergate reform movement, expired last year. Chaffetz said he’s committed to re-upping it and is bringing in representatives from good government groups to make recommendations about how to improve the agency through reauthorization legislation.
“There’s a broader reform that I think we can look at — what should federal employees do and not do,” for example, Chaffetz said.
