Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub proved himself to be a partisan hack a few months ago when he, in a stark break from tradition, started tweeting public criticism of then-President-elect Trump. Of course, partisan hackery is a dime a dozen inside the Beltway, but with his March 9 letter to Deputy White House Counsel Stefan Passantino, Shaub proved himself to also be ignorant of the very law on which he is charged to provide guidance.

The nuanced legal point that raised the ire of Shaub and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., was Passantino’s footnote in a letter regarding Kellyanne Conway’s praise of Ivanka Trump’s products, and whether such public praise was a violation of the legal prohibition against using one’s public office for private gain.