Walter Shaub was appointed to a five-year term in 2013. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP U.S. ethics chief who pressured Trump resigns

Walter Shaub, the director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics who has criticized the way President Donald Trump has handled his business conflicts, announced on Thursday that he is resigning, effective July 19.

Shaub, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama to a five-year term in 2013, is joining the non-profit Campaign Legal Center as the senior director of ethics.


Shaub made headlines earlier this year when he publicly urged Trump to divest assets, and he called the president's decision to keep his stake in the Trump Organization and leave his sons to manage it a “wholly inadequate” arrangement. Besides Shaub's own statements, the OGE raised eyebrows when it used its Twitter account to push for Trump to divest his stake in the company.

His letter to Trump announcing his plans to resign, which Shaub also posted to Twitter, did not explain his decision to leave but praised his office's commitment to "protecting the principle that public service is a public trust, requiring employees to place loyalty to the Constitution, the laws, and ethical principles above private gain."

Shaub's term was not set to expire until early next year. He told The New York Times on Thursday that he felt that he would be better positioned to push for ethics reforms in the new role at the Campaign Legal Center.

“There isn’t much more I could accomplish at the Office of Government Ethics, given the current situation,” Shaud told the newspaper. “O.G.E.’s recent experiences have made it clear that the ethics program needs to be strengthened.”

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Shaub told the Times that he is resigning of his own accord, not under pressure from the White House.

Trump will now be expected to name a new head of the ethics office, subject to Senate confirmation.

The Office of Government Ethics has attracted an unusual amount of attention this year as the Trump administration’s business ties have come under scrutiny. Shaub, some ethics experts said Thursday, stood out for the public pressure he put on the White House to address those conflicts.

“Shaub has worked diligently to have Trump and people in his [administration] comply with the highest ethical standards and pushed the envelope, taking many difficult positions on critical ethics matters,” Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said by email.

Trump critics largely responded to Shaub’s announcement on Thursday by praising the outgoing OGE director for his stance toward the White House.

Norm Eisen, a former White House ethics lawyer under Obama, said Shaub did “an incredible job” using his platform at OGE to highlight the ways he thought the administration was failing to adhere to federal ethics rules and hold it accountable.

But given that the OGE lacks the power to enforce those rules, Eisen said, it makes sense for Shaub to leave government for an outside ethics group because his term was only months from expiring and future debates about Trump’s business conflicts may be worked out externally.

Eisen is part of a team of lawyers suing Trump over his conflicts of interest, alleging that the president is violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution because his businesses receive payments from foreign governments.

Former U.S. Ethics Chief to Trump: Ethics 'starts at the top'

“The most powerful impacts are now going to be made through litigation and other external accountability measures of the kind that outside watchdog groups specialize in,” Eisen said. “As an expert on these rules, Walter is going to see ways that he can be involved in court cases, can make legislative and policy proposals, and can educate the media and the general public about the problems.”

“In some ways he’s much freer to speak out now that he’s going to be outside of government than he could from the inside,” Eisen added.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, also praised Shaub in a statement Thursday and invited him to testify before Congress “about the lessons he has learned while leading OGE, including the need to implement substantive reforms to ensure government officials can never put private gain above the public that they serve.”

Shaub weighed in on the questions surrounding Trump's business conflicts later Thursday in an interview with CBS News, which asked him whether he believes "the president and his family are using the office to enrich themselves." Shaub said the answer is essentially immaterial.

"I can't know what their intention is," Shaub said. "I know that the effect is that there's an appearance that the businesses are profiting from his occupying the presidency. And appearance matters as much as reality."

"You can't be sure, and so it almost doesn't matter whether they are profiting or not," Shaub added. "America should have the right to know what the motivations of its leaders are, and they need to know that financial interests, personal financial interests, aren't among them."