美国国家公共电台 NPR White House Discloses Ethics Waivers For Presidential Aides

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Last night, the White House released 14 ethics¹ waivers, documents that exempt² some top presidential aides from important ethics rules. As NPR's Peter Overby reports, the disclosures came after a quiet but tough battle between the Trump³ administration and the Office of Government Ethics.

PETER OVERBY, BYLINE⁴: The waivers are considered public documents, but for weeks after President Trump took office, they weren't made public. In April, the Office of Government Ethics began to push the issue. The White House initially⁵ said OGE didn't have the legal authority to do that. But yesterday, it agreed to post the waivers online. OGE Director Walter Shaub Jr. had a terse⁶ response.

WALTER SHAUB JR.: I was pleased to see the White House release the waivers on its website. Having the waivers is critical to ensuring that agencies and individual appointees are adhering to the ethics requirements.

OVERBY: Among those getting ethics waivers, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus was allowed to take bonuses of a $175,000 from his old job running the Republican National Committee. Presidential counselor⁷ Kellyanne Conway was allowed to communicate with clients from her former consulting firm but only on broad policy matters. Three former corporate⁸ lobbyists will keep working on the issues they dealt with before - finance and energy and the environment. And Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News, can meet privately⁹ with that media outlet¹⁰.

More waivers are out there, and the Office of Government Ethics expects to make them public as it collects them from other federal agencies. Peter Overby, NPR News, Washington.