Days after his abrupt firing, the former director of the Office of Government Ethics said that although he was appointed by former President Biden, he was ready to work for the Trump administration.
David Huitema said he was ready to work for any administration during his five-year term.
“You kind of know going in that you’ll be serving across multiple administrations. So that was something I had considered,” said Huitema, who was nominated by Mr. Biden in September 2023 and sworn in on Dec. 16, 2024. “I was committed for the five years. I was committed to working in good faith with any administration, including this one. I thought we were off to a good start.”
screen grab of CBS News interview
The Office of Government Ethics collects confidential and public financial disclosures, as well as ethics agreements and other forms from government officials, including the president and his Cabinet. The office’s purpose is to prevent conflicts of interest.
Huitema said in an interview with CBS News that he was notified of his termination in a two-sentence email. The decision to oust him came two weeks after Mr. Trump removed at least 17 inspectors general from their roles as watchdogs.
Huitema said that means his firing “doesn’t appear to be personal. I’m in good company.”
“It really speaks, I think, an effort to, you know, kind of dismantle all of the institutions across the government that are set up, to serve as kind of an independent voice for integrity and for accountability,” Huitema said.
After firing Huitema, Mr. Trump appointed Doug Collins, a Republican former member of Congress and current Department of Veterans Affairs secretary, to be the acting director of OGE.
A group of eight former inspectors general fired filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging their terminations. They argue their firings violated federal laws meant to prevent interference with their oversight duties.
Huitema said he hasn’t decided if he’ll take legal action.
“This is all still so new and sudden for me. I really have no idea what’s coming next, and I’m just starting to kind of turn my mind in that direction,” Huitema said. “So I’m, I’m really not sure.”
Huitema recalled that the Office of Government Ethics was created by Congress after the Watergate scandal led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation. He said it was designed “to take a nonpartisan, non-politicized, matter-of-fact, by-the-book approach and be that voice of integrity where it’s needed.”
“I do think it’s true that, you know, my removal from this position flies in the face of that vision of Congress,” Huitema said.
Less than a year after Mr. Trump took office for his first term in 2017, Walter Shaub resigned as the head of OGE. Shaub said at the time that the presidential administration disregarded the “norms and ethical traditions of the executive branch that have made our ethics program the gold standard in the world.”
Is Huitema worried that guardrails designed to protect the government from conflicts of interest are poised to fail?
“I don’t know. And I guess I will be watching from the sidelines now,” Huitema said.
