The former head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics warns that President Donald Trump’s “wildly inappropriate” business dealings could drive the rest of the world to view the U.S. as a “kleptocracy.”Walter Shaub, who resigned as the agency’s top official earlier this month, said the White House is in the midst of an “ethics crisis” and accused Trump of using the presidency to run a “free advertising campaign” for his companies. “The fact that we’re having to ask questions about whether he’s intentionally using the presidency for profit is bad enough, because the appearance itself undermines confidence in government,” Shaub told The Guardian in an interview published Monday. “It certainly risks people starting to refer to us as a kleptocracy,” he continued. “That’s a term people throw around fairly freely when they’re talking about Russia, fairly or unfairly, and we run the risk of getting branded the same way. America really should stand for more than that.”

Source: Huffington Post July 31, 2017 16:43 UTC