The Office of Government Ethics gave Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin a pass Friday for endorsing the “Lego Batman” movie, citing Mnuchin’s admission earlier in the day that he was wrong to do so.
Because Mnuchin acknowledged that he should not have made the endorsement and said that he would undergo further ethics training, Director Walter Schaub declared, the office “intends to give Secretary Mnuchin the opportunity to make good on the pledge.”
If, however, Mnuchin fails to do so, the office will seek further action, Schaub said in a letter to Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee who had requested an ethics probe into Mnuchin’s comments.
Last Friday, Mnuchin told the audience at a public interview to take their kids to see “Lego Batman.”
Although Mnuchin issued a disclaimer that he was not supposed to endorse products before making that statement, Wyden wasn’t pleased.
Mnuchin ran afoul of two standards in recommending the movie. One is that he is an owner of the company that produced “Lego Batman,” presenting a conflict of interest.
Another is that administration officials are not supposed to endorse specific products.
That second rule is the one that Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway broke in February, when she endorsed Ivanka Trump’s product line during a television interview.
In that case, the ethics office recommended disciplinary action against Conway as a deterrent to future such lapses. In his letter Friday, Schaub suggested that the fact that Mnuchin infringed on the same rule “seems to prove my point.”
