A peek into the White House swamp

The White House boasted that the release of financial disclosures for dozens of administration officials exemplified President Trump’s “commitment to ensure an ethical and transparent government.” The Friday night document dump did nothing of the sort.

The opaque, incomplete filings — which met the bare legal requirements for disclosures — merely raise more questions than they answer about the byzantine dealings of the richest White House in history.

Besides, Mr. Trump has no commitment to ethics or transparency. His failure to shed his business ties and release financial records makes him the most suspect, conflicted president in modern history. If the boss doesn’t care about accountability, why should anyone else?

Here’s a good reason: Unlike the president, for whom conflict of interest laws don’t apply, staff members could go to jail for actions that affect their financial interests.

The Office of Government Ethics spent months pushing Senate-confirmed nominees to resolve the potential conflicts in their disclosures, because they won’t get a hearing, and therefore their jobs, without it. But it has more limited power with Mr. Trump’s White House employees, who did not face a Senate vote. The ethics office reviews these disclosures and can raise red flags as a condition for certifying them. But the White House released them before the ethics office could do so, leaving many questions unanswered.

White House employees are required to file the disclosures within 30 days of taking their posts. Most of them blew that deadline, and many missed extended deadlines as well. So how did these officials manage their business dealings during the months they avoided disclosing them?

In 2011, Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, look a leave of absence as partner in the Wisconsin law firm of Michael Best & Friedrich. Why then was he paid more than $300,000 in bonuses and other payments in 2016, after he quit? Did Mr. Priebus’ big payday have anything to do with his new job in the Trump administration, and his firm’s boast to potential clients that it possesses the “connections to help you shape public policy?”

Kellyanne Conway’s filing indicates she still has a financial interest in her firm, the polling company/WomanTrend. Is she recusing herself from White House initiatives that could benefit her company and clients?

How has Kathleen “K. T.” McFarland, deputy national security adviser, managed the potential conflicts of interest presented by her stock holdings, including in Amazon, which is pitching government cybersecurity business?

There may be legitimate answers. But the White House has provided none and has no legal responsibility to do so.

Enforcing ethics is the responsibility of Donald McGahn, the White House counsel, and Stefan Passantino, the White House ethics officer. Mr. McGahn, a former Federal Election Commission chairman, was told by the Justice Department that Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, lied about his contacts with the Russian ambassador weeks before the administration did anything about it. Mr. Passantino made the decision not to censure Ms. Conway for hawking Ivanka Trump-branded bags and shoes.

Mr. Trump has boasted about bans on lobbying by executive branch officials, but the White House staff can be granted waivers from any ethical restrictions with no reason given and no disclosure of who gets them. The entire White House could be exempt and Americans would never know it.

If the administration were committed to “an ethical and transparent government,” Friday’s releases would be a first step in an extensive, public examination of these officials’ holdings, followed by steps to avoid potentially criminal conflicts. We’ll be watching — but we won’t hold our breath.

©2017 The New York Times News Service