Obama’s Ethical Merry-go-round

Perhaps it would be more apt to have the headline read Obama’s Mythical Ethical Merry-go-round.  President Obama, as illustrated in the Right to Work Committee’s new Obama Administration Personnel Alert Series, again reversed his promised ethics rules.  On May 3^rd, Obama granted yet another ethics exception to fellow Chicagoan and Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett.  The exception can be found on the White House Facebook page.  Ironically, Jarrett bragged about Obama’s new ethics rules in this Obama Transition Team video (watch video below).  Now, she and Obama are breaking these very same rules. 

Just a quick post to advise that we granted an authorization under Section 3 of [i.e., exemption from]  the President’s Ethics Executive Order to Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett to lead the White House’s effort to support Chicago’s bid to secure the 2016 Olympics.

The President promised during the campaign that staff would not work on contracts or regulations directly related to their former employers.  We have captured that promise in Paragraph 2 of our revolving door rules, which applies to non-lobbyists.