Donald Trump has already postponed his "Fake Media Awards" once so we’re all waiting with bated breath … to find out if he’ll postpone them again. The current plan is that on Wednesday Trump will repackage his usual anti-media ranting as “awards” to news organizations that report things he doesn’t like. It’s nearly Wednesday, and no word from the White House on the specifics of how the former reality show host will transform himself into an awards show host. And—surprise!—ethics experts say there could be problems.
The White House has not yet said what form the awards presentation, scheduled by Trump for Wednesday, may take. But Norman Eisen, the former special counsel for ethics for President Barack Obama, and Walter Shaub, the former head of the Office of Government Ethics, have both tweeted that if White House staff members were involved, they would be in violation of the executive branch’s Standards of Ethical Conduct, which ban employees from using their office for “the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise.”
Richard Painter, an ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, agreed, telling POLITICO that there were plenty of valid reasons for executive branch employees to use their position to criticize private enterprises — if a bus company were violating federal safety regulations, for instance — but that helping put on an event to bash the media would not qualify.
“There has to be a legitimate official government reason for the position you’re taking with the respect to the particular company,” Painter said. “But here the only reason is they don’t like the coverage of the president.”
Since ethics rules don’t apply to Trump—something no president was ever expected to take such advantage of—there wouldn’t be a problem if all the staff who help him on the “awards,” if they ever even happen, were from Trump’s campaign or the Republican National Committee. On the one hand, only a fool would believe Trump would take the time to do things ethically. On the other hand, this one would be just one more minor offense thrown on a towering, stinking pile of ethics violations Trump is already getting away with.