One of the rallying cries for President-elect Trump was to drain the swamp of corruption. Compliance professionals could think of many things that could happen to remove conflicts or the appearance of conflicts.
Personally, as a compliance professional and a voter, I was disappointed to learn that Hillary Clinton did a poor job of walling off donations to the Clinton Foundation from her role as Secretary of State. If she had established a clear protocol, she could have easily dismissed the charges that donors were paying to gain access.
It is even more disappointing to hear President-elect Trump dismiss the concerns about conflicts between his sprawling business empire and his role as president. There are a little over two weeks until he steps into office and there has been little to show that he has taken material steps to remove the conflicts.
The latest muck in the swamp is Congress eviscerating the independent Office of Congressional Ethics.
Compliance professionals spend a great deal of energy to have independence for reviewing programs and conducting investigations. Direct contact with the board of directors allows compliance to avoid company executives from stifling a problem.
Under the ethics change pushed by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., the non-partisan Office of Congressional Ethics would fall under the control of the House Ethics Committee. That committee is composed of sitting members of Congress, five Republicans and five Democrats.
Given the new rules, any investigation can be shut down along party lines before a review has begun.
It’s not that the OCE was fully independent. It was not authorized to sanction members, officers or employees of the House. The Ethics Committee has exclusive authority to determine if a violation has occurred and what the sanction should be. The rule change allows an investigation to shut down before it gets any traction.
This is not a theoretical problem. Through the third quarter of 2016, the OCE started 35 reviews which led to 17 referrals to the House Ethics Committee for review for the 114th Congress.
It sounds like there is little draining of the swamp and more like the swamp is filling up.
Sources:
- House GOP votes to gut independent ethics office in Fox News
- House Republicans vote to rein in independent ethics office in the Washington Post
- With No Warning, House Republicans Vote to Gut Independent Ethics Office in the New York Times
- House Committee on Ethics
- Office of Congressional Ethics
Thankfully the OCE debacle ended quickly. It is a sad commentary, however, since in the private sector any board that proposed gutting compliance like this would be flayed alive by regulators and investor activists.
It was a stupid move by Republicans in a closed session on a vacation day. So bad that even conflicts-laded PE Trump chastised them.
Do you think perhaps the Republicans were planning ahead – thinking of ways to shield the conflicts-laden PE Trump from having his future actions/activities becoming the subject of the OCE and its investigative powers?
I think it was Congress not liking the breadth of power in the hands of the OCE. The valid concern is that it becomes a political tool instead of just uncovering the worst offenders.
The now defunct proposal eviscerated the OCE instead of addressing the independence concerns.