# Office of Government Ethics The **U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE)** is the small agency that runs the executive branch's conflict-of-interest system — setting the ethics rules for executive-branch employees, reviewing the financial-disclosure reports of senior officials and nominees, and overseeing agency ethics programs. Created by the 1978 Ethics in Government Act (another post-Watergate reform), it is the body that, in normal times, vets whether a Cabinet nominee has divested conflicting assets and whether officials are recusing where required. Its director serves a fixed five-year term. For the KB, OGE matters because the second term is unusually rich in **conflict-of-interest questions** — a president with sprawling business and crypto interests, a Cabinet of billionaires, and advisers (like the [[DOGE]] cohort) with active government contracts. OGE is the agency that would, in principle, police that terrain. ## Leadership removal (2025) On **February 10, 2025**, Trump removed OGE Director **David Huitema** — a Biden appointee confirmed by the Senate just months earlier (50–46, November 2024) to a five-year term — notifying him by email through the Presidential Personnel Office. Trump named [[Veterans Affairs]] Secretary **[[Doug Collins]]** as interim head, an unusual move that placed a sitting Cabinet officer atop the ethics watchdog. The removal fit the broader pattern: the fixed-term, independence-protected heads of the accountability agencies ([[Inspectors General]], the [[Merit Systems Protection Board]], the [[Office of Special Counsel]], OGE) replaced or neutralized in the opening weeks, clearing the watchdogs before the conduct they would scrutinize. ## See Also - [[Inspectors General]] - [[Office of Special Counsel]] - [[Merit Systems Protection Board]] - [[Federal Agencies]]