On Monday, President Trump removed the head of the Office of Government Ethics, David Huitema, who was confirmed by the Senate to lead the agency in November of last year. As an independent agency within the executive branch, OGE is charged with, as Huitema put it in an interview January, ensuring that “federal employees are making decisions based on national interest and policy priorities of the administration rather than any personal interest, especially financial interest.” Huitema had previously served as an ethics official within State Department.
The news came not in the form of any official communication from the White House, but from a statement on OGE’s website that reads: “OGE has been notified that the President is removing David Huitema as the Director of OGE. OGE is reverting to an Acting Director.” Directors of OGE are supposed to serve a five-year term, but serve “at the pleasure of the president,” meaning that they can be removed unilaterally.
Huitema’s ouster is not the first sign of Trump’s conflictual relationship with government officials charged with safeguarding the public interest since the start of his second term. In his first week back in office, the president also removed the inspectors general from more than a dozen different federal agencies, including the departments of State, Transportation, and Energy. Inspectors general are internal watchdogs at their particular agencies, investigating claims of fraud, waste, and abuse, and issuing reports with recommendations. Congressional leaders, including Republicans, protested that they were not given advance notice of the removals or a “substantive” rationale for them, potentially violating a law passed in 2022 requiring both.
Trump also found himself at odds with Huitema’s predecessor at the agency, Emory Rounds, during his first term. Rounds issued a warning in 2019 to the White House that it cannot unilaterally change ethics rules without the office’s approval, and threatened to hold up any ethics agreement with officials that did not meet the agreed-upon standards, stating that they were “commitments, not mere aspirations.” Rounds ended up rejecting the financial disclosure forms for two Trump officials during his first term: Wilbur Ross, secretary of commerce; and Scott Pruitt, his EPA Administrator.
The White House has yet to issue a statement on Huitema’s removal.
