Ethics in Government

April 20, 2023 | The American Prospect

Hannah Story Brown

Op-Ed ClimateCongressional OversightCorporate CrackdownEthics in Government

Exxon’s Unethical Supreme Court Play

As the revelations of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s flagrant corruption continue to unspool, scrutiny of the weak ethics rules binding the Court has intensified. The Senate Judiciary Committee is supposed to oversee the Court, but it has proven itself not remotely up to the task of rooting out judicial corruption. And amid this disturbing situation, a Supreme Court conference this Friday provides an opening for Court conservatives to try to game their few ethical limits in plain sight.

April 18, 2023 | The New Republic

Hannah Story Brown

Op-Ed

2020 Election/TransitionClimateDepartment of JusticeEthics in GovernmentGovernanceRevolving Door

The Ghost of a Trump Appointee Is Haunting Merrick Garland’s Justice Department

Tracing Clark’s lingering impact on ongoing litigation makes clear that the legacy of Trump’s Justice Department still haunts our governance and that failing to treat his cronies like the menace they are is worsening outcomes across the country. In some cases, Attorney General Merrick Garland is still carrying forward with the arguments Clark helped shape. In others, the Justice Department and its client agencies are at a critical juncture of having to decide whether to break from past positions or maintain continuity with positions they adopted during the Trump administration.

April 12, 2023 | Revolving Door Project Newsletter

Hannah Story Brown

Newsletter

Congressional OversightCorporate CrackdownEthics in Government

This Era of Elite Impunity Must End

What is it called when one of the nine most powerful judges in the U.S.—a man whose title is literally Justice—has routinely accepted secret private jet rides and luxury yacht vacations from a billionaire right-wing mega-donor for over two decades? What does it mean that this was not disclosed, in violation of the Ethics in Government Act? If the ruling class wants the public to believe that the rule of law means anything to them, then the answer must be “breaking the law,” necessitating investigations, trials, and professional consequences.

April 06, 2023

Toni Aguilar Rosenthal

Blog Post Ethics in GovernmentFederal ReserveFinancial RegulationGovernance

We Have Always Been Right About Jerome Powell

Despite years of our best advice, and indeed the better judgments of Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other progressives in Congress, government watchdogs like Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) and others, nearly one year ago President Joe Biden disappointed his responsibility to the public and to his own economic agenda by renominating Donald Trump’s hand picked head of the Fed: Jerome Powell. Biden bafflingly stuck by Powell despite his years of betraying labor unions, environmental groups and frontline communities, and the middle class. As a result, broad coalitions of folks concerned about the climate crisis, about the long term safety and stability of our financial system, about attacks on labor and the working class, about housing insecurity and the long term impacts of the pandemic, mobilized against Powell’s renomination because his storied track record of, well, making each of these things (and more!) worse.

March 15, 2023

Timi Iwayemi

Press Release CryptocurrencyEthics in GovernmentFederal ReserveFinancial RegulationFintech

RELEASE: Michael Barr's Fintech Partnerships May Cloud Judgment Of SVB Autopsy

As of now, Barr is assigned to investigate supervisory failures that occurred under his watch featuring a bank that catered in particular to the crypto and fintech industries which Barr was so active in immediately prior to revolving back into government. Barr is a walking conflict of interest. His central role in the investigation is damning