#conflict-of-interest

#conflict-of-interest

On Oct. 2, the second day of the government shutdown, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrived at Mount Rushmore to shoot a television ad. Sitting on horseback in chaps and a cowboy hat, Noem addressed the camera with a stern message for immigrants: "Break our laws, we'll punish you." Noem has hailed the more than $200 million, taxpayer-funded ad campaign as a crucial tool to stem illegal immigration.

Tim Allan, who is one of Starmer's most senior aides, has a minority stake in Strand Partners, which critics claim could give rise to a perception of a conflict of interest. Allan does not gain any financial benefit from Strand while he is in No 10 but he has not sold his shares in the firm, whose clients include the British Horseracing Authority, the energy companies Ovo Energy and Cadent Gas, and Netflix.

I confirmed that I was supportive. I knew that the decision was for the secretary of state to take and I replied on the basis that the decision had been taken. In retrospect, it would have been better if I had not been given the note or confirmed that I was content with the appointment. This was an unfortunate error for which I express my sincere regret.

At least four U.S. members of Congress purchased stock in defense‐contracting companies between May and June 2025 while serving on congressional committees which oversee or fund the defense sector. All four trades were in companies that receive U.S. government contracts and whose share prices subsequently appreciated. While the law permits members of Congress to trade stocks, ethics watchdogs say these transactions raise serious appearance ‐of‐conflict concerns because the lawmakers may influence the very industry they are invested in.

The San Francisco Ethics Commission has now formally accused former Human Rights Commission Executive Director Sheryl Davis of a range of ethics violations that may also amount to illegal acts involving improper gifts and conflicts of interest. Embattled former city commissioner Sheryl Davis, whom former Mayor London Breed also tapped to lead her Dream Keeper Initiative, has been slapped with a 31-page charging document from the city's Ethics Commission.

"It's just a family tradition of public service," said Doane Liu, executive director of the Tourism Department, who is a longtime friend and former colleague of Tim McOsker - and Emmett McOsker's boss.

The proposal follows President Donald Trump's pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao and seeks to eliminate what Khanna calls "blatant corruption" at the intersection of politics and crypto. "The pardon of Zhao is corrupt," Khanna said on MSNBC. "You've got a foreign billionaire engaged in money laundering and financing terrorism, who supports the president's son's cryptocurrency firm, and then the president pardons him. This is corruption in plain sight."

When it comes to the appearance of conflict, I am not an ideal owner of The Post.

Companies that have recently donated to Labour were awarded contracts worth almost 138m during the party's first year in government, according to new research that raises fresh concerns about the relationship between political donations and public spending. A report by the thinktank Autonomy Institute has identified more than 100 companies that have given money to political parties and then won government contracts, under both Conservative and Labour administrations.

Former SF Sheriff's Office chief of staff Richard Jue got lucky with a diversion program sentence rather than having to stand trial for a March hit-and-run where he lied to investigators, and the Chronicle just obtained video of the crash. We learned in June that SF Sheriff Paul Yamamoto's chief of staff Richard Jue had hit another car and fled the scene while driving in an incident that had actually secretly occurred in March.

In 1996, journalist Mark Singer was assigned by The New Yorker, where he had worked for 20 years, to shadow Donald Trump for several months and produce an in-depth profile of the then media-savvy U.S. businessman. Singer wrote what became one of the magazine's legendary pieces a sharp portrait concluding that the tycoon had achieved the ultimate luxury: an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.

The San Jose Police Department pays $55,000 a month to rent an evidence warehouse on Monterey Road. The owner: a San Jose official who votes on police spending. District 6 Councilmember Michael Mulcahy is the managing partner of his private, family-owned real estate firm SDS NexGen Partners, which has leased the warehouse to the city since 2003, according to records obtained by San José Spotlight.

The company that won the $5.9 million contract, OpenGov, had significant ties to Lurie: Advisory board member Katherine August-deWilde is a major donor to and sits on the board of Tipping Point Community, the foundation where Lurie served as CEO until 2019 and board chair until 2023. She and her husband donated $60,000 to a pro-Lurie PAC in the 2024 election and $100,000 to Lurie's inauguration. Its co-founder and former chairman Joe Lonsdale and CEO Zac Bookman are both major donors to Tipping Point.

"Although vehemently denied by appellant and Victor Aenlle, the evidentiary record is highly suggestive that appellant Sheriff Corpus and Mr. Aenlle were in a romantic extra-marital relationship," Emerson wrote in the report. "Corpus elevated her own interest in the close personal relationship she held with Mr. Aenlle above her obligation to appoint, recruit, select, and/or retain based upon merit and in conformity with the principles of equal opportunity."

The answer, Emily, is hell yeah. It can be done. It is being done. There's a little something called the McDade Amendment, passed in 1998, that actually requires federal government lawyers to follow both the ethics rule of the state where they're licensed to practice and federal regulations. That means there are rules that actually prohibit DOJ attorneys from participating, for instance, in cases where they have a personal or political relationship (imagine!)

A New York Times investigation reveals that when Witkoff, a real estate developer and longtime friend of Trump, began his new position as a diplomat in the Middle East, his son Alex took over his company, the Witkoff Group. Since then, not only has the Witkoff Group continued to ink major deals with investors in the Gulf Arab states, but the elder Witkoff has not even fully divested from the company.

Jasmine Ray, a Stapleton resident who has previously written in to the Staten Island Advance/SILive.com, will soon release "Political Humanity," a self-published book detailing her alleged "hidden relationship" with Adams. "From the shadows of City Hall to the silence of closed-door meetings, Jasmine Ray reveals her untold role in the life of New York City's mayor, Eric Adams," according to Ray's website. "Their hidden relationship-marked by intimacy, sacrifice, and betrayal-mirrors the larger struggles of politics itself: the tension between personal humanity and public expectation."