The Trump administration decided early on that many guidelines were either antiquated or punitive, and is belatedly discovering that they were there for its own protection.
DAVID A. GRAHAM FEB 28, 2018 POLITICSSoon after Donald Trump became president, he began running into a whole set of rules about how government works, like demands that he divest assets or put them in a blind trust, and rules about whether he could hire family members for top jobs. For Trump, who had just won the election while disregarding most of the rules of political campaigning, these rules seemed antiquated at best and punitive at worst.
The Trump team treated these rules and norms as artifacts of a hidebound and ineffective Washington, obstacles that had kept qualified, inventive people from the business sector out of public service on mere technicalities. The president-elect also clearly viewed the hue and cry of ethics experts—from Norm Eisen and Richard Painter to Walter Shaub—as efforts to delegitimize his presidency.
What the last few weeks, and especially the last few days, have brought home is that the rules exist in part to protect the people who are supposed to follow them. Just like your elementary-school teacher told you not to run in the hallways not because she was a martinet but because you’re liable to trip and hurt yourself, ethics rules and norms can help an administration protect itself and the country. This week, the cases of White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson show what happens when they aren’t followed.
On Tuesday, Politico was the first to report that Kushner would be losing his clearance to view top-secret information. (He can still view information classified secret, a lower level.) Kushner, who is the president’s son-in-law, has been operating on an interim security clearance since Trump took office, with various issues preventing his obtaining a permanent clearance, including complicated business ties and incomplete early disclosures. CNN reported last week that Kushner was unlikely to receive a permanent clearance until Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe is complete, which is a matter of months if not years. In the aftermath of the Rob Porter fiasco, the White House is cracking down on interim clearances. Until he was forced to step down as staff secretary amid domestic-abuse allegations, Porter was operating on an interim clearance, even though the FBI had already informed the White House he would not be recommended for clearance.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/the-rules-are-there-to-protect-you-not-hurt-you/554486/
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