Ex-Zuckerman Partner Known as ‘Mr. No’ in Ethics Czar Role
A former partner at Zuckerman Spaeder has a new job in Washington, D.C., where he is known as “Mr. No” and “the fun sponge” for his advice.
Norm Eisen is the White House ethics adviser, parsing more than 1,000 pages of government ethics rules and regulations, the Washington Post reports. His job, he reports, is “one emergency after the next.” His clients may range from White House employees who need to know whether they can accept a Starbucks card to advisers seeking his counsel on a waiver for an ex-lobbyist to join the government.
Eisen was a classmate of Obama’s at Harvard Law School. He founded Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in 2003 and made a career of representing those accused of ethical impropriety. He has taken a huge pay cut to work 16-hour days handling 15 to 20 emergency requests for advice each day, the story says.
The Post describes Eisen as “tall and lanky, with thick-rimmed glasses and curly black hair. He looks as though he has been typecast, colleagues said, for his role as a walking encyclopedia of ethical fine print.”
He is one of the authors of Obama’s executive order implementing ethics reforms, and was given additional vetting responsibilities after some nominees were criticized for tax problems and lobbying connections.
“Sometimes my job is to scare the bejesus out of everybody,” Eisen told the Post. “That’s part of my function. That’s what I do.”
