Top Government Ethics Lawyer Repeatedly Did not Comply With Ethics Rules

• The chief branch’s top government ethics lawyer didn’t disclose all his funds on time, records show.
• The officer is accountable for signing off on financial disclosures and for setting rules on submit them.
• He said he made some mistakes and corrected them as soon as he realized. 

The highest attorney for the federal government’s executive branch ethics office did not file timely reports about his funds — an apparent violation of a transparency law, in keeping with records reviewed by Insider. 

The attorney, Office of Government Ethics General Counsel David Apol, missed deadlines to report no less than 12 different bond transactions since 2015. In two instances representing five transactions, he filed his federally mandated reports several months past deadline. 

Improperly reporting purchases and sales of bonds or stocks is a violation of the 2012 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or STOCK Act. Tardy disclosures are a standard problem within the legislative branch, where members of Congress and their senior staff often miss reporting deadlines.

In his government role, Apol has greater expertise with the law than most. His responsibilities include reviewing financial disclosures and writing ethics guidance for nearly 3 million federal employees, including those that work within the White House. 

“I made some mistakes filling out my forms and after I discovered them I corrected them,” Apol told Insider. 

Apol didn’t trade individual stocks over the reported period, so his holdings don’t raise questions on conflicts of interest — a difficulty that is been widespread in other corners of the manager branch through the Trump and Biden administrations, in keeping with recent Wall Street Journal reporting.

As an alternative, Apol’s trades involve several municipal bonds, in addition to diversified mutual funds. The bonds vary in value, with some ranging between $100,001 to $250,000. Officials are only required to report transactions in broad ranges. 

Apol paid a positive for a late disclosure in 2020, certified documents show. He wrote a note in his 2020 annual report saying that when he was reviewing his funds for the 12 months that he realized he had by chance omitted a bond purchase he was imagined to report greater than eight months earlier, in 2019. 

Apol said an asset manager conducts the bond transactions without his input after which sends him a monthly report that he then uses to publicly report his transactions.

Under STOCK Act rules, federal staff need to report their transactions 30 days to 45 days after they occur, depending on after they discover about them. They’re only required to pay a $200 positive if one other 30 days have passed with none reporting. Most of Apol’s late reports would not trigger a positive. 

One disclosure that did was from 2017, when Apol was acting director of the Office of Government Ethics through the Trump administration. The disclosure contained 4 transactions that were between three to 4 months overdue. Apol told Insider he paid a $200 positive. 

His 2022 annual report also contained a note saying that he had not noticed the sale and buy of two mutual funds that ought to have been included in his 2021 annual report. Such financial holdings are different from bonds in that they are only required to be reported annually, reasonably than soon after they occur. 

“When the referees themselves don’t follow the principles it sends a foul signal that the principles might probably not matter,” Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, told Insider. “People who find themselves in command of ethics enforcement needs to be the No. 1 champions of fully complying with the letter and spirit of the law and all relevant regulations.” 

The Office of Government Ethics would not comment on the reports.

“OGE is committed to transparency and citizen oversight of presidency,” the agency said in an announcement to Insider. “Nevertheless, OGE doesn’t reply to questions on specific individuals.” 

Apol oversaw essentially the most recent overhaul of the manager branch’s financial disclosure rules, which were released in 2018.

In a November 2022 public letter, Apol called the financial disclosure requirements “an important a part of the ethics program.” He vowed to make the disclosure system “more efficient, transparent, and simple for filers to make use of and the general public to access.” 

The present director of the roughly 80-person Office of Government Ethics is Emory Rounds III, and his five-year term expires next 12 months. Apol might be next in line to switch Rounds on the helm of the agency if President Joe Biden were to appoint him and the Senate confirms the nomination.  

Apol is a profession government worker who has spent greater than three many years at different government agencies, including as counselor for ethics on the Department of Labor through the George H.W. Bush administration. He first joined the Office of Government Ethics through the George W. Bush administration and was within the White House Counsel’s Office during Clinton administration. 

As OGE’s acting director, one in every of Apol’s responsibilities was to certify then-President Donald Trump’s financial disclosures. In 2018, Apol sent Trump’s disclosures to the Department of Justice over an omission within the then-president’s 2017 report.  

The Latest York Times reported in 2017 that Apol clashed with colleagues on the Office of Government Ethics about interpret conflict-of-interest laws. 

Proper filings of economic disclosures are an issue across government 

Insider and other news outlets have since last 12 months identified 77 members of Congress and counted at least 182 senior congressional staffers who were late reporting their stock transactions. 

Their excuses have ranged from oversights, to clerical errors, to inattentive accountants. 

While congressional rules stipulate STOCK Act offenders are imagined to pay a minimum $200 positive the primary time this happens — and incur higher fines if it continues — the consequences for violating the STOCK Act are generally minimal, inconsistently applied, and never publicly recorded, Insider has found through its “Conflicted Congress” investigation. 

The reporting requirements within the law are imagined to help the general public assess whether their representatives can profit financially from the votes they forged or the laws they introduce.

Insider found sweeping examples of members of Congress who bought and sold stocks in firms they’ll influence through laws or committee seats. For example, a growing variety of lawmakers are trading the stock of defense contractors while considering military spending proposals.

The difficulty goes even beyond the legislative branch. The Wall Street Journal reported that federal officials or their spouses have been trading stocks in firms their agencies oversee, and one other investigation revealed that federal judges traded stocks in firms over which they were hearing cases. 

Congress this 12 months discussed changes to the STOCK Act and the US House even held a hearing following the publication of “Conflicted Congress.” However the House promptly aborted a vote on a bill drafted by Committee on House Administration Chair Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California that contained what critics called a massive loophole and was written without the input of members who’d been pushing the thought for months.

It’s unlikely that either chamber will vote on a measure before the top of this Congress. Biden has effectively been silent on the stock-ban issue, to the frustration of good-government groups. 

Wanting an outright ban, the Committee on House Administration may determine to enhance ethics training for federal lawmakers. Reforms could also include higher enforcement or higher penalties, Scherb said.