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White House lacked top ethics official for 6 months

The top ethics office at the White House was kept vacant for a crucial six months of the Trump administration, and the president's lawyers sought to keep the situation under wraps, a watchdog group reported Tuesday.


The position was filled last month by Scott Gast, who has been an attorney in the White House counsel's office since the start of Trump' tenure. Stefan Passantino left the job in August and is now working for the Trump Organization, handling demands for materials and testimony in congressional investigations.

The half year when the job was vacant coincided with a particularly turbulent time in the West Wing – with a high degree of staff turnover, the climax of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation and a midterm election that created new oversight worries once the Democrats took control of the House. The top ethics officer's duties include setting and enforcing government ethics guidelines at the White House that prevent conflicts of interest, and the completion of officials' financial disclosure reports.

President Trump's failure to promptly fill the job "is consistent with his preference to leave important government positions vacant," according to CREW, or Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which reported the delay based on results of a Freedom of Information Act request. "Indeed, the president has allowed several agency Inspector General positions to remain vacant for the entire duration of his presidency. Vacancies, however, undermine the authority of acting officials and weaken morale in government offices."

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CREW said the record it obtained suggested that the White House was not cooperative with either the Office of Government Ethics or the Government Accountability Office when they sought details of Passantino's decision-making or the delay in replacing him.

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Presidential promises, promises, promises....

Former President Donald J. Trump answers question from Pastor Paula White-Cain at the National Faith Advisory Board summit in Powder Springs, Georgia, United States on October 28, 2024.

(Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Presidential promises, promises, promises....

When Donald Trump made his first successful run for president in 2016, he made 663 promises to American voters. By the end of his 2021 term of office, he could only fulfill approximately 23 percent of his vows. Before we get too excited as to what will happen when Trump 2.0 takes effect on Jan. 20, let’s take a moment to reflect on covenants made by a couple of other presidents.

PolitiFact tracks the promises our presidents have made. PolitiFact is a non-partisan fact-checking website created in 2007 by the Florida-based Tampa Bay Times and acquired in 2018 by the Poynter Institute, a non-profit school for journalists. Here’s a report card on three presidents:

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A bold next step for the Democratic Party

DEMOCRATIC PARTY FLAG

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A bold next step for the Democratic Party

In order to think about the next steps for the Democratic Party and the February 1, 2025, vote for a new Democratic National Committee Chair, it is useful to remember the context of three pairs of Democratic Presidents since the 1960s.

JFK and LBJ led the way for major progressive changes, ranging from the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to Affirmative Action and the War on Poverty. Johnson's Great Society was the most progressive agenda ever promoted by an American president.

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The 119th Congress: Some history makers, but fewer women overall

Vice President Kamala Harris presides over the electoral college vote count during a joint session of Congress in the House chamber on Monday, January 6, 2025.

(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

The 119th Congress: Some history makers, but fewer women overall

When the 119th U.S. Congress was sworn in, some newly elected women members made history.

Emily Randall, from Washington’s 6th Congressional District, is the first out LGBTQ+ Latina. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Angela Alsobrooks are the first Black senators to represent Delaware and Maryland, respectively — and the first two Black women to ever serve concurrently in the upper chamber. Sarah McBride, from Delaware’s at-large House district, is the first transgender member of Congress. All are Democrats.

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What can we learn in 2025 from the 100-year-old Scopes Trial?

Two groups of protesters, one blue and one red, marching with placards across an abstract American flag background.

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What can we learn in 2025 from the 100-year-old Scopes Trial?

Based on popular demand, the American Schism series will renew in 2025 with a look at science-based public policy caught in the crossfires of today’s culture wars.

Readers often send me comments on how this series effectively sheds light on our contemporary political divisions through careful examination and analysis of our own American history, since so many of our present issues are derivative of conflicts long brewing in our past. As I wrote last year on these pages, history can act as a salve for our present-day wounds if we apply it.

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