With the departure of Office of Government Ethics (OGE) Director Walter Shaub fast approaching, questions about ethics and the Trump administration have resurfaced. Since resigning as OGE Director earlier this month, Walter Shaub has said that he could not perform his job in the way that he felt he should because of President Trump’s potential conflicts of interest and pushing back on OGE’s requests and recommendations by the administration. In this interview, Stanford Law Professor Robert Gordon discusses law, ethics, President Trump, the OGE, and ongoing questions about the president’s business ties and potential conflicts of interest.

What is the main purpose of the OGE? And is the administration legally bound to cooperate with it?

In the wake of the Watergate scandals, Congress in 1978 legislated strict new conflict-of-interest rules for executive appointees and created the OGE to oversee implementation of the rules. I say “oversee” rather than “enforce” because OGE has no enforcement power. The Inspectors General of the various agencies and departments are charged with investigating complaints; and only the Attorney General has authority to bring civil enforcement actions against persistent violators.

The legislation exempted the President from the conflict-of-interest rules. That was not because, as Trump has put it, “the President can’t have a conflict of interest.” It was rather because the scope of the President’s authority and official actions is so broad that it is not practical to ask him to recuse himself from all decisions that might affect his economic interests. In the past, the director of OGE has worked with incoming presidents to get them to divest themselves of business interests that might pose obvious and direct conflicts, or to put those interests in a blind trust, or limit them to investments in funds managed by others.  Every President from Carter through Obama has cooperated with OGE, except the current incumbent.