Old rules governing standards of ethical conduct in the Executive Office of the President are finally being removed from the books, some six years after their repeal.
Although the White House has been operating under the same standards of conduct as the rest of the executive branch since 1993, the old standards lingered in the records.
The President and his staff formerly followed their own ethics standards, laid out in the Code of Federal Regulations (3 CFR part 100). But the White House switched to the standards that govern all executive branch personnel (5 CFR parts 2634 and 2635) after the Office of Government Ethics published new standards for all federal personnel in 1992.
Under the old rules, the President was required to avoid any action that might make it seem like he:
- Used public office for private gain
- Gave preferential treatment to any person
- Lost complete independence or impartiality
- Affected adversely the confidence of the public in the integrity of the government
The official change was recorded in the Federal Register Tuesday.
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