A federal ethics watchdog is asking the White House to investigate an alleged violation of ethics rules by the White House staff member whose job is to ensure compliance with those rules.

The Daily Beast reported Thursday that the Office of Government Ethics referred the allegations against Stefan Passantino to White House Counsel Don McGahn.

Passantino, a deputy to McGahn, works for the White House as its agency ethics official who is tasked with ensuring compliance of conflict-of-interest provisions imposed by President Trump in January.

A group of Democratic senators — who brought the allegations to the ethics office's attention — contend that Passantino may have violated the conflict-of-interest rules by overseeing a ruling by the White House legal team that billionaire investor Carl Icahn, a friend of Trump's, was not subject to ethics regulations because he was only an informal adviser to the president.

The senators, including Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Elijah Cummings of Maryland, say Passantino's role in determining the applicability of ethics rules to Icahn may have violated ethics rules because he previously did legal work for Icahn.

The ethics rules prevent federal appointees from participating in "particular matters involving specific parties" that employed or paid for the services of those appointees in the previous two years.

White House spokesperson Kelly Love denied the allegations against Passantino in a statement to the Daily Beast. She said Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub and Senate Democrats were "once again distorting facts and attempting to tarnish the White House for purposes of a partisan agenda."