Former Federal Ethics Chief Warns Of Trump’s ‘Authoritarian Coup’

When Donald Trump was running for president in 2016, he vowed to “drain the swamp” if elected — which was his way of promising to clean up the political environment in Washington, D.C. and make the federal government more accountable. But former ethics official Walter Shaub, in an op-ed for USA Today, argues that Trump’s presidency has been a nonstop attack on accountability.

Shaub served as director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics from 2013-2017. He resigned in the middle of Trump’s first year in office in protest of the White House’s complete disregard for ethics rules. And in his new op-ed, Shaub details some of the many ways in which accountability has been under attack during Trump’s presidency — from his “assault on inspectors general” to “open presidential profiteering” to the firing of officials who stood up to him, including former FBI Director James Comey and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

“The Sessions firing should have triggered Trump’s removal from office,” Shaub asserts, “but wild-eyed senators were hot on the trail of confirming conservative judges.” Continue reading.