Transparancy, Rule of Law

TPM DC

Barack Obama just publicly announced a far-reaching set of ethics rules and other changes from prior practices for his White House staff:

• Over a hundred senior staffers making over $100,000 per year will have their pay frozen at current levels.


• There will be a two-year waiting period for any former lobbyists to work on issues for which they had previously done lobbying work.


• Extra openness will be practiced with any information that the Administration might want to keep secret.

This was perhaps the most striking quote: "Information will not be withheld just because I say so. It will be withheld because a separate authority believes my request is well grounded in the Constitution. Let me say it as simply as I can,

"transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency."

- Barack Obama

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flashback 3.24.2008: No. 1 Campaign issue in 2008


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2009.01.21 Transparancy & Open Government

- Presidential Memorandum For the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies.

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2009.01.26 TPM

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) is going to put Obama's openness and transparency claims to an early test -- by re-subpoenaing Karl Rove to testify about the U.S. attorney firings. Will Obama support Rove's executive privilege claims? Will Rove even bother asserting executive privilege with his patron out of the White House?

So many questions ... but we may get answers pretty soon. The subpoena summons Rove for next week, Feb. 2.