1/ Federal law requires nearly all executive branch employees to submit financial disclosure forms. But some Trump staffers left their forms blank. propub.li/2NkN6dJ
2/ Like Benjamin Cassidy. Before working for the Dept of the Interior, he was a gun rights lobbyist. Cassidy collected a peak annual salary of $288,333 for his NRA lobbying work on Capitol Hill. But the public wouldn’t know it from his form. propub.li/2NkN6dJ 
3/ We asked the Interior about Cassidy’s failure to disclose his work history and finances. The agency responded with a bullet-pointed assessment that acknowledged ongoing problems while also noting that they “predated the current administration.”
documentcloud.org/documents/4560…
documentcloud.org/documents/4560…
4/ There's also Thomas Baptiste. He’s now an advisor to the Bureau of Land Management and he left his form completely blank... other than his name. It had no indication that it was reviewed or approved. propub.li/2NkN6dJ
5/ Where Baptiste previously worked:
-records manager for Trump’s presidential campaign
-project director at a consulting firm that works for conservative political clients
-at Tepeyac OB/GYN, which calls itself a “pro-life obstetrics and gynecology medical practice”
-records manager for Trump’s presidential campaign
-project director at a consulting firm that works for conservative political clients
-at Tepeyac OB/GYN, which calls itself a “pro-life obstetrics and gynecology medical practice”
6/ Kim Hintz, an Interior Department ethics staffer, found that Baptiste had “inadvertently omitted certain information.”
propub.li/2NkN6dJ
propub.li/2NkN6dJ
7/ Failing to properly check federal financial disclosures could result in substantive conflicts of interest going unnoticed, said Virginia Canter, a former Obama administration ethics attorney who now works for the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
8/ As @ProPublica has reported, failing to file the report correctly, or completely, can lead to serious consequences.
propub.li/2tO037U
propub.li/2tO037U
9/ Canter acknowledged that forms sometimes fall through the cracks, particularly given the volume of ethics issues arising in the Trump admin and the workload of ethics offices.
10/ Read the full story here: propub.li/2NkN6dJ
11/ And sign up for our weekly newsletter: propub.li/2tO48sR
