Walter M. Shaub Jr. is the senior director for ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan organization that supports strong enforcement of campaign finance laws, advocates for ethics reform, and fights partisan gerrymandering. Formerly he was the director of the US Office of Government Ethics. The views expressed here are solely those of the author.

(CNN) It's not clear if anyone noticed last week when deputy press secretary Raj Shah fired a distress flare from the deck of a White House that is sinking into a swamp as deep as the sea.

It was the day before Thanksgiving, and Shah had been asked why at least four former presidential appointees --reportedly among them, Donald Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon -- had failed to file their termination financial disclosure reports upon leaving federal service.

Perhaps things would have been different if the White House had set a better tone from the top and instilled a firm commitment to ethics. Had that been the case, the former appointees in question would have understood the importance of filing their disclosures to give the public insight into their compliance with conflict of interest laws and their financial dealings while wielding the power of high public office.

These former appointees might then have been willing to file their disclosures with little prompting. Failing that, and contrary to Shah's claims that the Trump administration has no ability to force former appointees to comply with ethics laws, Passantino and Schultz are not without tools for ensuring compliance.

Collecting financial disclosures is the most routine of the routine tasks ethics officials perform. Some experienced ethics officials in other agencies have managed to insert themselves into the out-processing procedures for departing officials, refusing to sign any exit forms before receiving these disclosures.

Shah's claim of powerlessness gives no indication that the White House ethics office has tried any of these measures to get its former appointees to comply. According to the McClatchy article, "Shah said the White House doesn't have an ability to force former staffers to comply with the law and referred questions to the individuals."

Approaches to managing ethics programs can vary somewhat from agency to agency, but what ethics officials don't do is try nothing, accept defeat and let a professional mouthpiece like Shah tell reporters to chase after the former appointees themselves in search of answers.

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In this context, Shah's response is as illuminating as it is seemingly befuddled. It's a bright red flare revealing the White House ethics office to be either inept or indifferent. That office's failure to fulfill as basic an ethics function as collecting financial disclosures indicates either alternative is possible, but my money is on malignant indifference to ethics.