So far, Trump has not disclosed how many waivers have been granted to appointees who are in violation of his order, even as his administration has tapped numerous lobbyists for posts.

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In contrast, the Obama administration regularly released copies of waivers that explained why it was in the public interest to hire appointees whose past lobbying work or employers put them in conflict with ethics rules.

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In April, the Office of Government Ethics issued a memo requesting that the White House and all federal agencies disclose details about such waivers by June 1. But Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, questioned whether the ethics office had legal jurisdiction to pursue such information and asked OGE to suspend its data collection.

Veteran ethics officials called the White House resistance unprecedented, and Democratic lawmakers objected to the move. OGE Director Walter M. Shaub Jr. issued a forceful nine-page letter defending the office's legal standing and asserting his intention to implement ethics rules “with independence, free from political pressure.”

In a letter Friday to Shaub, Mulvaney said that OMB never sought to impede the ethics office or other agencies “from acting as required by law.” His concern was “protecting the process,” Mulvaney added, not the substance of the request for information.

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“OMB shares the belief that the Executive Branch must uphold the highest ethical standards in accordance with the law,” Mulvaney wrote, adding that the budget office has not issued any ethics waivers.

Shaub said that he was glad to receive Mulvaney's latest response.