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Donald Trump’s nominees are still not racing to get their ethics plans checked out. As of Monday, CNN reported that:
Of the current list of 21 nominees, 14 must still sit for Senate hearings, and only five of those 14 have finalized their required paperwork.
That means these billionaires are dragging their feet on how they’ll resolve their financial conflicts of interest and guarantee to Americans that they won’t be looking to profit from their public roles. (Sound familiar?)
... the paperwork for two of President-elect Donald Trump's billionaire nominees with hearings scheduled for this week -- namely, Education Secretary-designate Betsy DeVos (up Tuesday) and Commerce Secretary-designate Wilbur Ross (up Wednesday) -- were notably missing from the ethics office's website as of Monday afternoon. [...]
A Senate source indicated that [education nominee Betsy] DeVos' initial hearing date had to be rescheduled because her paperwork "was nowhere near ready," and [commerce nominee Wilbur] Ross had been sluggish in completing his financial disclosure report.
Remember when Republicans were claiming DeVos’ hearing had been rescheduled simply because the Senate’s calendar was so crowded? Ha.
And despite—or because of?—this credibility gap, Republicans have gone to war with the head of the Office of Government Ethics because he stubbornly insists on doing his job and pointing out that Trump’s so-called ethics plan is not ethical, and Trump’s nominees are seriously behind on even producing ethics plans to begin with.
It should not be difficult: If you want to be a Cabinet secretary, you should have a plan—a believable plan—explaining how you will serve the public good rather than your own bank account. But just as Donald Trump is refusing to do that for himself, he’s surrounding himself with fellow billionaires who are dragging their feet on it, too.