Failure to turn over Whitaker's public financial disclosure forms angers critics

In a letter sent to the US Office of Government Ethics Friday, American Oversight, an outside watchdog group, said that the Department of Justice had not produced a copy of Whitaker's public financial disclosure reports, despite regulations requiring them to do so, and asked the ethics agency to investigate.

Whitaker, who served as chief of staff to the former attorney general up until his appointment to the top role earlier this month, would likely have had to file two sets of public financial disclosures since joining the Justice Department last year. According to federal ethics law, agencies must make those reports available to public requestors within 30 days of their filing -- a deadline that would have already passed for Whitaker.

"The idea that they wouldn't release this report promptly is mind-boggling," said Walter Shaub, the former director of the US Office of Government Ethics.

Shaub, a senior adviser to another ethics watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and a CNN contributor, said Monday that his own outside group had also requested Whitaker's financial disclosures nearly two weeks ago, and has been told their request is "processing."

"There's nothing to process," Shaub said. Federal regulation "doesn't allow for any redactions. They just simply have to release them. So the entire process consists of them hitting print to PDF and attaching that PDF to an email."

Shaub said the DOJ responses amounted to a "temporary denial," which he called illegal.

The Justice Department declined to comment for CNN's request about the status of Whitaker's forms.

CNN has also requested Whitaker's financial disclosure forms from the DOJ and a spokeswoman for the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said Monday that the minority was "in the process of trying to get" the forms.

American Oversight told CNN on Monday that it had not yet received a response to its letter from OGE.

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