One Dem Tries To Remind Trump Transition That Ethics Still Exist

Last updated: 2024/12/19 at 8:15 AM

While it is likely to fall on deaf ears, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) reached out to the Donald Trump transition team this week to request that they do something, anything to prevent Elon Musk from using his role in the transition and the administration to further enrich himself.

“Putting Mr. Musk in a position to influence billions of dollars of government contracts and regulatory enforcement without a stringent conflict of interest agreement in place is an invitation for corruption on a scale not seen in our lifetimes,” Warren wrote in a letter Monday obtained by the Washington Post. “As your Transition Team Ethics Plan makes clear, the role of government is not to line the pockets of the wealthiest Americans; a strong, enforceable ethics plan for the world’s richest man is a necessary first step for delivering on that promise.”

Warren reportedly requested that Trump establish some clear conflict-of-interest rules for the world’s richest man as he heads up a new, so-called department in the Trump administration, the Department of Government Efficiency. She noted that other members of the Trump-Vance 2025 Transition Team are beholden to ethics rules to “avoid both actual and apparent conflicts of interest” — including rules that prevent transition team members from running any “particular matters involving specific parties that affect” their interests.

Warren reportedly asked Trump a series of questions about whether Musk will be held accountable to any ethics or rules to help separate his supposed DOGE work from his business interests, or if he intends to recuse himself from anything.

“Moving forward, will he recuse himself from matters affecting Tesla, Space X, X, or any other company he owns or in which he has a substantial investment?” Warren asked, according to the Post. “Currently, the American public has no way of knowing whether the advice that he is whispering to you in secret is good for the country — or merely good for his own bottom line.”

While the letter will likely be shrugged off by the Trump team — the spokeswoman for the transition, Karoline Leavitt, responded to the Post’s inquiry about the letter by calling Warren “Pocahontas” — making a fuss about such inquiries is a critical role of a functioning opposition party, one that Democrats will look for ways to embody in the coming weeks and months.