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Kathleen Clark

Professor of Law

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Kathleen Clark works in the areas of legal ethics, government ethics, the law of whistleblowing and national security law. Her academic writing has been cited in hundreds of articles and books and has been excerpted in legal ethics textbooks. She has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, National Law Journal, Government Executive and The Hill, and her analysis has appeared in leading newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Financial Times, Time, Newsweek, National Reviewand Mother Jones.

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In the media

Suspend The Trump Organization From Doing Business With Government

The federal government should suspend the Trump Organization from doing business with agencies. The Trump family businesses should in fact be debarred, but the standard for suspension is lower, the case is more clear, and the permissible period for suspension is sufficient for the government to avoid the worst risks associated with doing additional business with the Trump family, writes Kathleen Clark.

Stories

Paper: Justice Department narrows interpretation of emoluments clause
Law

Paper: Justice Department narrows interpretation of emoluments clause

The U.S. Justice Department has narrowed its interpretation of the foreign emoluments clause, allowing foreign countries to court President Donald Trump through patronizing his hotels, condos and golf courses and through granting him trademarks, suggests a new article by ethics expert Kathleen Clark of Washington University in St. Louis.
Business & Entrepreneurship

IRS investigation spotlights need for Inspectors General

An executive branch Inspector General played a critical role in exposing the IRS’s practice of targeting Tea Party groups, says Kathleen Clark, JD, anti-corruption expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “As we see with the IRS controversy, an Inspector General investigation can cause heads to roll. Perhaps that’s why some government agencies have been without an Inspector General for a very long time – measured not in months, but in years.” Clark notes that the State Department has been without an Inspector General for more than five years.
Business & Entrepreneurship

President signs bill to limit STOCK Act’s web-based publication of employees’ financial information

On Monday, April 15, President Obama signed legislation rolling back the disclosure requirements of the STOCK (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) Act, which would have required creation of a searchable, sortable database for the annual financial interest forms of 28,000 executive branch employees as well as highly paid Congressional staff. These forms contain detailed information about employees’ assets, outside income and gifts. Former national security officials raised security concerns about this publication requirement. Current employees filed a lawsuit, resulting in a federal court ruling that publishing such information on the web would violate employees’ right to privacy. “Both the court and the National Academy of Public Administration recognized that federal employees have a legitimate right to privacy regarding their personal financial information,” says Kathleen Clark, JD, government ethics expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.
Business & Entrepreneurship

Senate votes to limit STOCK Act’s web-based publication of employees’ financial information

On Thursday, April 11, the Senate voted to roll back the STOCK (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) Act, limiting the web-based publication of government employees’ personal financial information. This action comes in response to a federal court ruling that such publication violated employees’ right to privacy and a critical report by the National Academy of Public Administration. “The court recognized that the federal employees have a legitimate right to privacy regarding their personal financial information and ruled that the federal government failed to identify a compelling government interest that would justify posting that personal information on the internet,” says Kathleen Clark, JD, government ethics expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.
Business & Entrepreneurship

Conflict of interest rules must extend to government contractors, says ethics expert

The American Bar Association’s House of Delegates recently adopted a resolution recommending that the federal government expand its protections against conflicts of interest among government contractors. The resolution was based in part on a report Kathleen Clark, JD, ethics expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, wrote for the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS).“In recent decades, the federal government has greatly expanded its use of contractors to perform services, and spends hundreds of billions on services every year,” Clark writes. “While an extensive array of ethics statutes and rules regulate government employees to ensure that they make decisions in the interest of the government rather than a private interest, only a few of these restrictions apply to contractor personnel.”
Business & Entrepreneurship

Law requiring Internet posting of executive branch employees’ financial information delayed

On Dec. 7, President Barack Obama signed legislation to delay implementation of the STOCK (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) Act, which would require Internet posting of the annual financial interest forms for 28,000 executive branch employees. A law, WUSTL Congressional ethics expert Kathleen Clark says, that will not prevent Congressional insider trading.
Business & Entrepreneurship

Ethics Q&A: Government should adopt standards for private contractors

In recent decades, the federal government has relied more and more on contractors, private businesses, to perform public services. The federal government issues more than $260 billion in government contracts each year, with few restrictions on the employees of those contractors. Government ethics expert Kathleen Clark, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, has written extensively about this issue, provides some suggestions in a Q&A.
Business & Entrepreneurship

Issa latest example in long history of using Congressional Record to introduce confidential information, ethics expert says

News reports indicate that Rep. Darrell Issa (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, dropped confidential information from a Justice Department wiretap application into the Congressional Record last week. “While the executive branch sometimes seeks civil or criminal penalties against those who reveal confidential information, it cannot seek such penalties against Issa because the speech or debate clause of the constitution protects members of Congress when they expose sensitive information in the Congressional Record,” says Kathleen Clark, JD, government ethics expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.
Business & Entrepreneurship

Government ethics expert comments on Holder contempt citation

p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Cambria;} .MsoChpDefault {font-family:Cambria;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in;margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} “The Republicans in the House of Representatives apparently believe that they can get some political traction in the ‘Fast and Furious’ controversy, and plan to increase the political pressure on the Obama administration to disclose additional information by holding Attorney General Eric Holder in criminal and civil contempt,” says Kathleen Clark, JD, government ethics expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “The criminal contempt is essentially symbolic,” Clark says. Clark notes that the federal prosecutor actually works for Holder, and almost certainly will not prosecute his boss.
Business & Entrepreneurship

Clark tapped to evaluate ethics restrictions on government contractors

The Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) has commissioned Kathleen Clark, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, to evaluate the extent of ethics restrictions on government contractor employees. An independent agency, ACUS functions as a government think tank and commissions legal experts to examine how federal agencies can improve operations.
Business & Entrepreneurship

WikiLeaks scandal leads to fear-mongering over information security

“The recent response of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget to the WikiLeaks document dump gives us a peek at the sometimes surreal standards for dealing with classified information and at the fear-mongering in which some government officials are engaging,” says Kathleen Clark, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. Clark teaches and writes about government ethics, national security law, legal ethics and whistleblowing.