Norm Eisen and Richard Painter have urged Donald Trump to make significant changes to his financial arrangements. | AP Photo Trump's top conflict critics take over watchdog group

A pair of outspoken bipartisan voices critical of President-elect Donald Trump’s business conflicts are joining forces atop a leading government watchdog group, part of an overhaul in the top ranks of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington that includes the departure from the board of self-described Hillary Clinton enforcer David Brock.

Norm Eisen, a former senior Obama White House ethics lawyer who co-founded CREW in 2003, said in a prepared statement that he’s returning to the nonprofit as chairman of its board “to help lead its work in the battle against corruption — and for accountability — in Washington.” Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer for George W. Bush, will be CREW’s vice chairman.


Brock, meantime, is stepping down from CREW’s board to focus on political work at the opposition research super PAC American Bridge, which just announced plans to launch a new “war room” dedicated to digging up dirt on Trump, from highlighting his business conflicts to instant fact checking. Brock, one of the main outside attack dogs for Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign, still plans to raise funds for CREW and will serve as an adviser to the group.

In recent months, Eisen and Painter have been quoted widely urging Trump to make significant changes to his financial arrangements, warning that otherwise he could face a scandal-laden administration. The two former White House lawyers partnered up in a mid-September op-ed in The Washington Post suggesting a Trump presidency would face significant ethical compromises, and they’ve since gone on to warn that the Republican businessman-turned-politician could find himself in violation of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause, which bars U.S. government employees from accepting payment by foreign countries or the companies they own.

Eisen and Painter have been urging Trump to sell his business outright and move the assets into a “blind trust,” like other recent presidents, where he’d have no clear insight into his investments and could make governing decisions without any concerns about potential conflicts. Trump has said he will unveil the plans for his vast business interests during his presidency — handing over operational control to three of his adult children and a team of executives — at a Dec. 15 news conference.