Why would people be so interested in government ethics? It’s an exceptionally dry area in one of the driest fields of expertise in the world. The government spends just $15 million a year. And hopefully that link will be up and running by the time you read this, because taxpayers have been taking a keen interest in government ethics, to the point where the Office of Government Ethics can’t keep its website up.
Before you ask, no, it’s not trolls. It’s just sheer volume:
OGE admin: "We're just overwhelmed with traffic right now." In 2016 they had 300k page requests. In first 40 days of this year, *5 million*.
— Eric Geller (@ericgeller) February 9, 2017
The OGE recently tweeted about exceptional volume on phones, in email, and on their website:
1/OGE’s website, phone system and email system are receiving an extraordinary volume of contacts from citizens about recent events.
— U.S. Office of Government Ethics (@OfficeGovEthics) February 9, 2017
It’s worth nothing the OGE is a preventative organization that works in the executive branch. They try to spot potential ethics violations and step in before they become a problem. They’re the people who set the ethics rules, who look closely at potential problems and tell members of the executive branch how to clear those up, so the President can get his job done without worrying about. The current OGE is Obama appointee Walter Shaub, who got the job in 2013 and will hold it for a five year term until 2018. As for why taxpayers would suddenly be reaching out to a small sleepy government office that deals with internal matters, that’s speculation we’ll leave up to the reader.
(via Gizmodo)