bonuses

On Trump’s “Gifts” To His Staff

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The latest hyperventilating outrage for the Trump Deranged to get furious over is this:

“President Donald Trump gave $45,000 cash gifts to his executive assistant Natalie Harp and two of his other young, loyal White House employees, according to financial disclosures released by the administration. On their disclosure forms, which were released publicly late last week, the three women described the payments as “Cash Gift for Holidays.” The gifts amount to about one-third of the $150,000 salaries they each earn from their White House positions, according to an annual report to Congress.”

The Washington Post predictably runs to NeverTrump Bush White House legal ethicist Richard Painter, who wanted to impeach Trump in 2016 before he took office. “Richard Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush and a critic of Trump,” the Post tells us, “said the payments appear to violate a federal statute that prohibits the supplementation of federal employees’ salaries from outside sources.” “He’s clearly trying to make it easier for them financially to work in government service at the White House,” Painter said. “You can’t do that.”

Wouldn’t you think a responsible and objective news source would begin by highlighting the opinion of a lawyer and ethicist who hadn’t already made it clear that one of his main goals in life is to “Get Trump”? If the gifts were the slam-dunk offense Painter says it is, shouldn’t it be easy to find other “experts” to weigh in on the matter? Eventually, the Post does bring another “expert” into the mix, but only after quoting Painter extensively. [Full Disclosure: the best legal ethics website that I have ever had the pleasure to visit was John Steele’s Legal Ethics Forum. It managed to stay non-partisan and therefore useful until Painter ruined it with his routine anti-Trump rants. Steele eventually gave up and let the website slide into misuse. The partisan ethics rot that killed that site has also seeped into the listserv of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers. I can’t blame Painter for the whole phenomenon, but he was one of its architects, and yes, I resent it.]

That second voice does not echo Painter’s predictable condemnation. Don Fox, the former acting director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) in the Obama administration, tells the Post:

“…it was not clear from the available facts that the payments violate the prohibition on supplementation. He said that would be the case if Trump made the gifts after one of the employees said they were leaving for the private sector because they couldn’t live on what they were making, and he gave them a supplement to level the disparity in salaries. There are rules that restrict employees from giving gifts to their superiors over concerns they could be abused to curry favor. But a large payment to a subordinate is “not a circumstance that OGE ever really envisioned,” Fox said. “This just doesn’t happen.”…Even in the absence of any violation, however, Fox said he still found the payments “troublesome” because they could leave the aides indebted to Trump. “I would feel somewhere between really uncomfortable and then beholden to the person who gave me such a large gift,” he said.

Oh-oh! There’s another one of those “democratic norms” that Trump keeps breaching!

The Post reveals,

Harp, Martin, Harris and Nauta all have ties to Trump dating from his first term, and they were all among a small inner circle of aides who worked for Trump in Florida in between his presidencies. Harp, Martin and Harris have limited work experience that isn’t tied to Trump…Harp gained national attention in 2019 for a LinkedIn post in which she credited a law Trump signed in 2018 expanding access to experimental treatments with saving her life following a Stage 2 bone cancer diagnosis. Medical experts have cast doubt on those claims. Harp spoke about the experience at the 2020 Republican National Convention. As an anchor with One America News, she frequently promoted Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election. She began working for Trump in 2022 after leaving the network.

Martin began working for the Trump White House as a press assistant in 2019 and continued to work as a press secretary for Trump after the inauguration of President Joe Biden. Harris began her career at the White House and was known as the “receptionist of the United States” during Trump’s first term.

Nauta is a Guam native who enlisted in the Navy in 2001. By 2021, he was promoted to the rank of senior chief culinary specialist, according to military records. Nauta was working in the White House at that time, and Trump promoted him to be his valet, according to court records. Valets are often known as “body men,” following politicians closely so that they can provide them with everything from snacks to schedules.

Here is the Federal law that Painter references, 18 U.S. Code § 209 – Salary of Government officials and employees payable only by United States, which states in relevant part,

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Ethics Hero: The New York Yankees

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

(Boy, do I hate having to post this.)

Aging Yankee starting pitcher CC Sabathia was ejected from his final start of the 2018 season for intentionally throwing at and hitting an opposing batter. This meant Sabathia would fall a couple of innings short of  pitching his 155th inning for the year, which would have triggered a half-million dollar bonus bonus. Not the CC needs the money: the not-quite-Hall of Fame caliber hurler has already earned about a quarter of a billion dollars plying his trade, and he’s still in his thirties.

Nonetheless, the Yankees decided that CC has been a loyal and exemplary employee, so they decided not to be technical about the bonus provision, and gave him the $500,000 anyway.

This is pure gratitude and generosity, and much as I detest the New York Yankees, attention must be paid. The Yankees have no reason to try to suck up to CC, who is already signed for next season and who is probably going to retire after it. They are simply signaling that they appreciate what Sabathia has done for them, the city and Yankee fans, and acknowledging that he lost those last few innings “protecting his team mates,” according to the ancient, often stupid, unwritten rules of baseball.

Still, a half-million bucks is one hell of a Christmas bonus.

 

Ethics Hero: Minnesota Twins Pitcher Phil Hughes

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Phil Hughes

This is the final day of the regular baseball season, and an appropriate time to salute a major league player who placed principle over cash….even if I disagree with him

Phil Hughes was a bargain pick-up during the off-season for the Twins, a failed pitching phenom for the Yankees widely viewed to be on a fast slope to oblivion. He surprised everyone with a wonderful season for the otherwise woeful Minnesota team this season, potentially setting the all-time strikeout-to-walk ratio record, and began his final start of the campaign needing to throw eight and a third innings to reach 210 and trigger a $500,000 bonus in his contract.He would have made it, too, pitching eight dominant innings against the Diamondbacks and allowing just one run.  Then there was a downpour, with Hughes needing one more out to get the  extra $500,000.

After more than an hour’s rain delay, the game was resumed, but as is the practice in baseball, Hughes did not return to pitch: too long a delay, his arm too cold, too much risk of injury, especially after throwing so many pitches.  Hughes accepted the bad luck without complaint or rancor, saying that “some things aren’t meant to be.” Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Indianapolis Big Tipper, “Miss Jo”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Big Tip

It has been a rotten week in every way. My good friend and mentor, legal ethics expert/ attorney/ professor/performer David Austern died, leaving me with memories of how much he meant to my life, and how inadequately I thanked him. My son has been off on his first extended road trip without us, giving his mother and I a preview of how much we will miss him as he prepares to leave the nest. And, of course, I simultaneously watched our government fulfill my most pessimistic predictions as it appeared to fairly shamelessly embrace lies and abuse of power as legitimate tools of governance, and lost  respect for many, many people I had once thought better of for not only excusing the inexcusable, but embracing a looming threat to democracy.

Depressing, discouraging, frightening, and rotten through and through.

I need a break.

I need hope.

Thank you, Miss Jo, whoever you are. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Dear AIG: I’m Not Going To Be Able To Keep Criticizing Occupy Wall Street For Destructive Class Warfare If You Act Like This”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Michael, who now leads the field in Comments of the Day, picks up another with his commentary on my post about AIG’s continuing habit of living large on taxpayer funds. Here are his reflections on the post  Dear AIG: I’m Not Going To Be Able To Keep Criticizing “Occupy Wall Street” For Destructive Class Warfare If You Act Like This:

“A company can allow any expenses they want. That being said, since they are now majority owned by the US government, we need to ask who is giving the go ahead to things like this? Why haven’t they been fired? The Wall Street culture is so entitled and so out of touch with the reality of the common Americans that it is almost beyond belief.

“The Occupy Wall Street group could have a lot of legitimate gripes, but they don’t seem to have anyone with half a brain in the group. Instead of hearing “I want them to take the money from rich people and give it to me” form a college aged girl wearing $500 worth of clothes or “I have gone to every protest I can find for the last 40 years” from the aging hippies, why not try one of the following angles: Continue reading →

Dear AIG: I’m Not Going To Be Able To Keep Criticizing “Occupy Wall Street” For Destructive Class Warfare If You Act Like This.

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Pelican Hill...where wealthy insurance executives can spend taxpayer funds like it was Monopoly money!

American International Group Inc. (AIG), the huge insurer—too big to fail!— that is now majority-owned by the U.S. after a 2008 bailout of $85 billion, has resumed its arrogant, irresponsible habit of living like sultans on the money of taxpayers, many of whom are getting kicked out of their homes and who can’t find jobs.

Back in October 0f 2008, the House Oversight Committee nearly had a collective stroke when it discovered that, just one week after the federal government bailed out AIG because it was too vital a part of the shaky world financial markets to let go belly-up as it richly deserved, company executives went on a wildly-expensive retreat to a luxury resort. The executives “spent nearly $500,000 on manicures, facials, pedicures, and massages,” among other things.  Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) was incredulous, and he wasn’t alone: Continue reading →

“Congratulations! Here’s a Bonus for Doing Such An Outstanding Job Investigating That Fiasco That Happened Because You Screwed-Up In The First Place!”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

"Iolanthe's" Lord Chancellor has nothing on me: his nightmare* was only "love unrequited." Mine is the SEC.

[  I read about the following outrage before going to bed last night, and vowed to write a post on it in the morning. It literally gave me nightmares and an upset stomach, so disrupting my repose that I gave up and headed to the keyboard. I am writing this at 4:30 AM. I have never written anything at 4:30 AM before, but I have learned something useful for future reference: I’m not in a good mood then.]

And here we have a prime example of why 1) many people don’t trust the Federal government and 2) why they are 100% right to feel this way.

I’ll take “Incompetence, Failure of Accountability and the Appearance of Impropriety” for a thousand, Alex!

SEC  Inspector General H. David Kotz has issued a thorough report on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, revealing that an employee who investigated Bernie Madoff in 2005 and 2006 and failed to notice that he was running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme was later rewarded by the agency with a cash bonus…for his fine work on the Madoff scandal after it was discovered, the lives ruined, the damage done. Continue reading →

Are Conviction Bonuses For Prosecutors Ethical?

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Next, how about a bonus for confessions?

Sometimes a story starts the ethics alarms ringing so loudly that it is hard to think about anything else. It is rare, however, to have this occur when it is not entirely clear what is so unethical. An unusual bonus arrangement in Colorado is in this category.

Carol Chambers, the District Attorney for Colorado’s Eighteenth Judicial District, offers financial incentives for felony prosecutors who meet her office’s goals for convictions.  Plea bargains and mistrials don’t count in the incentive program; they have to be trial convictions.  The bonuses average $1,100, and Chambers says she gives them out to encourage prosecutors to bring her district’s rates in line with other jurisdictions in the state. No other Colorado DA gives out bonuses, or bases evaluations on conviction rates. Continue reading →

The A.I.G. Bonus Payments…Again

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Here we go again.

A.I.G. is paying out another 100 million in “retention pay,” also known as eye-popping bonuses, which is certain provoke another round of cursing from the public and posturing by politicians. The question is whether it is unethical to pay these bonuses, and you’re not going to like the answer. I don’t like it much myself.

It is no. Continue reading →