Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

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."

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

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.

Read More

Project 2025: Anti-Abortion Blueprint Quietly Taking Hold

A stethoscope and gavel.

Getty Images, ATU Images

Project 2025: Anti-Abortion Blueprint Quietly Taking Hold

Last spring and summer, The Fulcrum published a 30-part series on Project 2025. Now that Donald Trump’s second term has started, Part 2 of the series has commenced.

While the national spotlight often falls on state-level abortion bans or Supreme Court rulings, a quieter but more transformative effort is underway in Washington. In his second term, President Donald Trump is not simply revisiting past culture war battles—he’s enacting a structural overhaul of federal reproductive health policy, rooted in a sweeping plan known as Project 2025.

Keep ReadingShow less
Chicago Head Start Programs Face Uncertainty After Regional Office Closure

Morning drop-off at the Carole Robertson Center for Learning.

Claire Murphy

Chicago Head Start Programs Face Uncertainty After Regional Office Closure

ALBANY PARK – The laughter of preschool children permeates the hallways of the Carole Robertson Center for Learning on a sunny Thursday morning in Albany Park.

Teachers line their students up outside classrooms, counting names off one by one. Children congregate by their playmats and colorful rugs, about to be served breakfast.

Keep ReadingShow less
Man looking at stocks on his phone. Stock market.

As Trump pushes disruption, the markets push back.

Getty Images, Alistair Berg

The Markets Strike Back: Why Trump’s Economic Fantasies Keep Crashing into Reality

Trump may have won the election, but he’s losing the markets. In just 100 days, Wall Street has erased nearly $6 trillion in global equity value, according to Bloomberg data cited in The Guardian. The S&P 500 has logged one of its worst openings to a presidential term since the Nixon years. And fund managers—the real-world referees of economic confidence—are sending a message Congress seems unwilling to deliver: enough.

While Trump’s second term has been marked by a tsunami of executive orders, tariff threats, and regulatory purges, the financial markets are refusing to play along. From panicked sell-offs to jittery consumer sentiment and retreating business investment, U.S. capital is staging its own quiet rebellion. Consumer confidence has dropped to its lowest level since 2020, with Americans’ outlook on jobs, income, and business conditions sinking to a 13-year low, according to The Conference Board.

Keep ReadingShow less
Who Really Pays for Congress? Local Donors All but Disappear in 2024

Hundred dollar bills.

Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

Who Really Pays for Congress? Local Donors All but Disappear in 2024

WASHINGTON, D.C. - There is an old saying: All politics is local. However, many voters may get the impression this is becoming less and less a reality -- particularly in US House and Senate elections where candidates are elected to represent specific districts or states, but campaign to a national audience.

This is because local influence in the most contested races is dying out -- a statement not contrived from opinion, but fact.

Keep ReadingShow less