White House ethics experts respond to Donald Trump’s announcement

Donald Trump shared details about his plans for his business operations at a press conference on Wednesday, January 11. Following that event, two of the nation’s leading bipartisan experts on White House ethics responded to Trump’s announcement at the Brookings Institution.

Over the past months, as questions around potential conflicts of interest in a Trump White House have multiplied, Brookings has been proud to turn to its own Ambassador Norman Eisen for answers. Having served as President Obama’s “ethics czar” from 2009 to 2011, Eisen is one of the nation’s most well-known ethicists. He regularly collaborates with his counterpart from the George W. Bush administration, Professor Richard Painter, to provide bipartisan analysis on issues related to ethics. Painter is a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and a distinguished scholar of government ethics.

On January 11, Governance Studies at Brookings hosted a media roundtable featuring remarks from Director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics Walter M. Shaub, followed by Eisen and Painter’s reactions to and answers to questions regarding the content of Donald Trump’s press conference.