As everyone knows, the last thing we need in Congress is ethics, so its members figure that ethics oversight is unnecessary.

That's why the Republicans tried to eliminate the Office of Congressional Ethics on the first day of the session - an epic fail, as the kids say.

And that is why Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) is threatening the country's top ethics watchdog for the sin of pointing out that Donald Trump is missing a baseline premise of responsible government by tearing down the firewall separating his new job from his insatiable greed.

For weeks, Walter Shaub of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) - an independent agency that oversees conflict-of-interest rules in the executive branch - has been a pebble in Trump's shoe, pointing out that the president-elect has enough baggage to sink a yacht and that he must liquidate his business interests or will be creating a massive ethical breach.

Shaub is just doing his job, only he's doing it more publicly than some Trump fanboys would prefer - notably Chaffetz, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee. So Chaffetz summoned Shaub to his office last week and publicly threatened to pull the plug on the OGE, because he says the agency's mission is "to provide clear ethics guidance, not engage in public relations."

Got that? At a time when even pols agree that Washington is a cesspool of corruption and self-dealing, the government's seminal ethics expert is being threatened for doing his job.

And the fact that this is OK with Congress tells you how far down the rabbit hole we have fallen, because here's a reminder of what's ahead:

Trump still hasn't turned his multi-billion-dollar interests over to a blind trust, there is no assurance that he prioritizes American interests over his corporate empire, and nothing prevents him from directing the decisions that guide that business.

Trump owns hotels throughout the U.S., he will appoint people who regulate the hotel industry, and they will make regulatory decisions that directly affect Trump's interests.

Trump will engage in trade negotiations with foreign governments while holding business interests in dozens of countries, so he can directly profit from those agreements.

This is more farcical than anything Mel Brooks ever thought up.

The last two White House ethics lawyers add that Trump will violate the Constitution the moment he takes the oath of office, and point out that Chaffetz is either too dim or too partisan to recognize the conflict.

"Shaub provided nonpartisan and wise advice," Richard Painter and Norman Eisen wrote in the Washington Post Wednesday. "Now, Shaub is being pilloried -- and may be at risk of losing his job -- for doing just that, and asserting correctly that Trump's approach doesn't meet the standards that every president in the last four decades has met."

Shaub does his job well. Since the election, he has repeatedly offered the transition team guidance with ethics laws. He even sent them an ethics manual. They reportedly ignored it.

Chaffetz, meanwhile, believes it is a "fishing expedition" for Congress to examine Trump's business entanglements. Instead, he will use his committee to dive back into an assessment of Hillary Clinton's emails, he said.

So as Trump and his party lay waste to ethical standards of government, a congressional toady who is supposed to serve as a watchdog on the executive branch has instead become its lapdog - not only defending a potentially corrupt administration from attacks, but going after a career bureaucrat doing his job.

Morning in Trump's America. Getting used to the new paradigm yet?

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