People seem to think an emergency is when government ethics matter the least, but it's often when they matter the most. Lives depend on the officials steering the government's pandemic response to put the public's interests first. But stories like this one keep coming out: https://twitter.com/schwartzbCNBC/status/1291083643478315008

In addition to concerns about who is getting our money, there are concerns about Chief of Staff Marc Short holding stock in companies affected by the pandemic response AND personally meeting with them! His office is leading the pandemic response! https://www.citizensforethics.org/press-release/crew-offers-new-evidence-of-misconduct-against-pence-chief-of-staff/

There are concerns about the administration's vaccine Czar, Moncef Slaoui, because, instead of making him a special government employee subject to the conflict of interest law, the administration EXEMPTED him from that law by hiring him as a contractor! https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/31/vaccine-project-contract-raises-transparency-questions-389822

And if THAT weren't enough, Trump appointed one of the White House's own lawyers as the Inspector General overseeing a massive chunk of the bailout funds... AND declared that the administration would not comply with a law requiring the IG to notify Congress directly of problems.

And what has the administration done to reassure us it cares about govt ethics, so we can know this is all on the up and up?
- violated an important ethics law, the Hatch Act
- violated the Hatch Act repeatedly
- told you to "go buy Ivanka's stuff"
- committed nepotism in the WH

- proposed holding the G7 Summit at one of Trump's private resorts
- discussed holding part of the RNC convention at the White House(!!)
- touted Trump's properties
- touted Trump's properties repeatedly
- appointed officials who violate ethics rules repeatedly

- set up a mysterious legal expense fund to funnel cash directly to WH officials without disclosing specific sources of these gifts to individuals like Stephen Miller
- filed erroneous & incomplete financial disclosure reports
- resisted releasing the names of bailout recipients

- fought tooth & nail against document requests from the public and from Congress
- brought foreign leaders and administration officials to Trump's resorts (for some publicly funded advertising!)
- refused to release its dubious contracts with individuals like vaccine Czar Slaoui

- refused to create federal records, as required by law, to document official actions
- tried to hide or destroy records
- used private emails and encrypted messaging apps for communications to avoid legally mandated automatic retention of government records

- retaliated against whistleblowers/witnesses
- investigated those who investigated Trump
- said "flipping almost ought to be illegal"
- extorted a foreign power to interfere in our elections
- publicly encouraged two other foreign powers to interfere in our election

- told China its concentration camps were fine, refused to respond to Russian bounties on US soldiers, covered up the Saudi murder of Khashoggi, while these regimes were either Trump's customers or his potential election-interference benefactors
- told us COVID "is what it is"

- lied about the pandemic response
- told roughly 20,000 documented false statements and outright lies
- failed to track the whereabouts of children it kidnapped
- attacked American businesses whose leaders displease Trump and promoted those whose leaders support him

- interfered in prosecutions to help Trump allies
- threatened to investigate those who offend Trump
- attacked the press with unprecedented vigor
- removed data from CDC's website
- told us to take the dangerous drug hydroxychloroquine
- mused that bleach 'n light might save us

- reassigned a key manager responsible for vaccine development because he exposed the dangers of hydroxychloroquine
- attacked government scientists for trying to save lives, triggering chanting by angry mobs & threats against them
- told officials to slow down the COVID testing

- downplayed the pandemic, called concerns about it a hoax
- told states to open before it was safe to do so, to promote Trump's political interests
- tried to influence the election by saying mail-in ballots are fine in a state with a Republic governor but not in blue states

So, yeah, call me skeptical. Lives hang in the balance. The U.S. response to the pandemic is one of the worst (if not the worst) among developed nations. Trump's lying about nearly everything (including last night's claim that "generals" told him the Beirut explosion was a bomb).

I am telling you: what you don't know may kill you, and what you do know is killing your fellow Americans. Ethics requirements are not mere matters of "protocol," as the White House liked to call them in the early days, or mere hall monitor's rules, as it likes to paint them now.

Ethics requirements are sometimes all that prevents the kind of self dealing that can kill tens of thousands or more of your fellow citizens! But your corrupt President and the corrupt administration he leads have shown nothing but enmity for them. Nothing. Nothing at all.