A year after Trump fired a top ethics watchdog, there’s still no leader; The Washington Post, May 19, 2026

Dan Diamond, The Washington Post ; A year after Trump fired a top ethics watchdog, there’s still no leader

"Senate Democrats are pressing the White House to explain its plan for the Office of Government Ethics, more than a year after President Donald Trump fired the office’s Senate-confirmed leader and five months after its most recent acting director stepped down.

The Office of Government Ethics, an independent agency, works to prevent financial conflicts of interest and other ethical violations across more than 100 government agencies. It has historically served as a watchdog on government ethical standards, offering guidance to federal officials — and even rebuking the White House, as the office’s past leader repeatedly did in the first Trump administration."

White House must comply with Presidential Records Act, judge rules; Politico, May 20, 2026

 JOSH GERSTEIN, Politico; White House must comply with Presidential Records Act, judge rules

"A federal judge has ordered aides to President Donald Trump to continue to observe the requirements of the Presidential Records Act, despite a Justice Department opinion that found the law unconstitutionally intrudes on presidential power.

In a ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Judge John Bates concluded that the 1978 statute is likely constitutional and granted a preliminary injunction that essentially nullifies the opinion issued last month by DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel."

Pope decries rise of AI-directed warfare, saying it leads to a spiral of annihilation; The Associated Press via NPR, May 15, 2026

The Associated Press via NPR; Pope decries rise of AI-directed warfare, saying it leads to a spiral of annihilation

"Pope Leo XIV on Thursday denounced how investments in artificial intelligence and high-tech weaponry were leading the world into a "spiral of annihilation," as he called for peace in the Middle East and Ukraine during a visit to Europe's largest university.

Leo's speech at Rome's La Sapienza University marked the first time a pope has visited the campus since Pope Benedict XVI called off a planned speech there in 2008 in the face of protests from faculty and students...

In his speech, Leo denounced how military spending had increased dramatically this year, especially in Europe, at the expense of education and healthcare, while "enriching elites who care nothing for the common good."

He called for better monitoring of how AI was being developed and used in military and civilian contexts "so that it does not absolve humans of responsibility for their choices and does not exacerbate the tragedy of conflicts."...

"What is happening in Ukraine, in Gaza and the Palestinian territories, in Lebanon, and in Iran illustrates the inhuman evolution of the relationship between war and new technologies in a spiral of annihilation," he said.

The pope said education and research must move instead in the opposite direction that values life "the lives of peoples who cry out for peace and justice!"

Leo has identified AI as one of the most critical matters facing humanity, especially its application in warfare and everyday life. They are themes he's expected to explore more fully in his first encyclical, due to be released in the coming weeks."

Lawyers raise ethical concerns over Pam Bondi’s conduct as Attorney General; WMNF, April 23, 2026

DARIA MIRONOVA , WMNF; Lawyers raise ethical concerns over Pam Bondi’s conduct as Attorney General

"Lawyers are raising serious concerns about what they allege is unethical conduct by Pam Bondi, former Florida Attorney General and until her recent dismissal, U.S. Attorney General, in a formal complaint to the Florida Bar and amid growing scrutiny within the legal community of alumni of her alma mater, Stetson Law School in Gulfport, Florida...

The outcome will not only address Bondi’s actions but also test whether the legal system will hold influential attorneys to the same standards as everyone else."

Congress is supposed to police its own ethics. Here’s why it falls short.; The Washington Post, April 23, 2026

 Karen Tumulty, The Washington Post; Congress is supposed to police its own ethics. Here’s why it falls short.

"The U.S. Constitution could hardly be clearer about how unethical behavior on the part of members of Congress should be handled.

“Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member,” Article 1, Section 5 stipulates.

In other words, it’s up to the House and the Senate to police themselves.

That system’s effectiveness and shortcomings have been on stark display the past few weeks, which have seen three members of the House resign, rather than face the possibility of being kicked out."

Technology Leadership Includes a Duty to Care for our Most Vulnerable Populations; Santa Clara University Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, April 20, 2026

Ann Skeet , Santa Clara University Markkula Center for Applied Ethics; Technology Leadership Includes a Duty to Care for our Most Vulnerable Populations

"Notably, what Meta did not say after the verdict was that it was sorry for the harms children experienced."

The Onion Has a New Plan to Take Over Infowars; The New York Times, April 21, 2026

 Benjamin Mullin and Elizabeth Williamson, The New York Times; The Onion Has a New Plan to Take Over Infowars 

"When Infowars, the website founded by the right-wing conspiracist Alex Jones, came up for sale two years ago, an unlikely suitor stepped up. The Onion, a satirical news outlet, planned to convert the site into a parody of itself.

That sale was scuttled by a bankruptcy court. Now, The Onion has re-emerged with a new plan: licensing the website from Gregory Milligan, the court-appointed manager of the site.

On Monday, Mr. Milligan asked Maya Guerra Gamble, a judge in Texas’ Travis County District Court overseeing the disposition of Infowars, to approve that licensing agreement in a court filing. Under the terms, The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, would pay $81,000 a month to license Infowars.com and its associated intellectual property — such as its name — for an initial six months, with an option to renew for another six months.

The licensing deal has been agreed to by The Onion and the court-appointed administrator. But it is not effective until Judge Guerra Gamble approves it, and Mr. Jones could appeal any ruling. That means the fate of Infowars remains in limbo until the court rules, probably sometime in the next two weeks. Mr. Jones continues to operate Infowars.com and host its weekday program, “The Alex Jones Show.”

Can AI judge journalism? A Thiel-backed startup says yes, even if it risks chilling whistleblowers; TechCrunch, April 15, 2026

Rebecca Bellan, TechCrunch ; Can AI judge journalism? A Thiel-backed startup says yes, even if it risks chilling whistleblowers

"After helping lead the lawsuit that bankrupted media firm Gawker, Aron D’Souza says he saw something broken in the American media system: People who felt harmed by coverage had little recourse to fight back.

His solution is software. D’Souza says his latest startup, Objection, aims to use AI to adjudicate the truth of journalism. And for the price of $2,000, anyone can pay to challenge a story, triggering a public investigation into its claims. (D’Souza is also the founder of the Enhanced Games, an Olympics-style competition that allows performance-enhancing drugs and is set to debut in Las Vegas next month.)

Objection launched on Wednesday with “multiple millions” in seed funding from Peter Thiel and Balaji Srinivasan, as well as VC firms Social Impact Capital and Off Piste Capital. 

Thiel, who funded the Gawker lawsuit partly in defense of the individual right to privacy, has long been critical of the media. D’Souza says his goal is to restore trust in the Fourth Estate, which he argues has collapsed over decades. Critics, including media lawyers, warn Objection could make it harder to publish the kind of reporting that holds powerful institutions to account, particularly if that reporting relies on confidential sources."

Trump Library Saga Takes Dark Turn: Where Did Millions in Funding Go?; The New Republic, April 20, 2026

Greg Sargent, The New Republic ; Trump Library Saga Takes Dark Turn: Where Did Millions in Funding Go?

Four huge media conglomerates forked over $63 million in “settlements” earmarked for Trump’s presidential library. Democrats are trying to track that money—and the latest developments don’t inspire confidence.

"Last year, four huge companies pledged tens of millions of dollars to help fund the creation of Donald Trump’s presidential library, a planned monstrosity in Miami that—in a perfect Trumpian twist—may also double as a hotel. The companies—ABC; Paramount; Meta; and X, formerly Twitter—entered into the agreements with Trump to settle legal cases he’d brought against them, which experts had dismissed as dubious.

Now there’s been an important new turn in this saga. The four companies have provided fresh information to Senate Democrats in written responses to their questions. For these Democrats, those responses—obtained by The New Republic—raise more questions than they answer. 

In these formal replies, all four companies confirmed that they did pledge that money to Trump’s library—itself a notable development. More importantly, however, the Democrats say the responses reveal that the money is still largely unaccounted for.

“Not one of these companies can say with any clarity where their multi-million-dollar donations to Donald Trump’s library slush fund are, or where they will go,” Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who’s taken the lead in tracking this money, tells me in a statement."

Bondi tried to kill ethics investigations. Now she'll face one. | Opinion; USA TODAY, April 7, 2026

Chris Brennan, USA TODAY ; Bondi tried to kill ethics investigations. Now she'll face one. | Opinion

A broad coalition of lawyers and legal groups will once again accuse Pam Bondi of misconduct for using her former position to serve only Trump and not the Americans she swore to serve.

"Bondi has another fight coming – a broad coalition of lawyers and legal groups is planning to refile an ethics complaint against her with The Florida Bar. The group will once again accuse her of misconduct for using her former position as the nation's top law enforcement official to serve only Trump and not the Americans she swore to serve...

Bondi, before she got fired, proposed a new federal regulation that would give the attorney general the power to hijack the processes that state bar associations use to investigate ethics complaints filed against Department of Justice lawyers. The 30-day period for public comment about that ended on April 6.

More than a million people left comments on the Federal Register, and it looks like the bulk of them opposed Bondi's proposed regulation. They don't want the DOJ to shield public servants from ethics complaints."

Napa Valley Schools Emphasize Honesty, Ethics in AI Policy; GovTech, April 2, 2026

 Atmika Iyer, The Modesto Bee, Calif. via GovTech; Napa Valley Schools Emphasize Honesty, Ethics in AI Policy

"10 principles for AI use in Napa schools

1. Teaching and learning: AI should be used to personalize and enhance the learning experience for each student and to support digital citizenship and literacy.

2. Staff usage: AI should be used as a tool to augment and support, rather than replace, staff in the performance of their duties and responsibilities.

3. Ethical use and transparency: AI should be used ethically and transparently by all staff and students, with careful consideration of potential biases, and in compliance with all applicable intellectual property and copyright laws.

4. Accountability and responsibility: AI should be used in a manner that ensures accountability by those who use it and that those who use it are responsible for such use, including when and how it is used.

5. Academic honesty: The district should allow artificial intelligence tools to be used only in ways that support learning — such as research, skill development, or teacher-approved assistance — and prohibit any use that replaces a student’s original thinking or results in cheating, plagiarism or other acts of academic dishonesty.

6. Equity and access: AI should be implemented in a manner that ensures equitable access and opportunity for all students, regardless of background or ability, and for all schools across the district.

7. Secure and private: The district should prioritize security and privacy when changing existing practices or adopting new practices regarding AI.

8. Professional development: The district should provide ongoing professional development for staff, with a particular focus on the ethical and responsible use of AI.

9. Community engagement: The district should engage with the community to share these principles, to educate the community on AI, and to discuss the permitted and prohibited uses of AI in the district.

10. Continuous improvement: The district should regularly evaluate the use of AI by students and staff, and adapt its policies, procedures and professional development to align with best practices and evolving technologies. The district reserves the right to remove access to previously approved AI platforms.

(Source: Napa Valley Unified School District’s Board Policy Manual)

In a bid to develop a set of guidelines for responsible use of technology, the district convened an AI council of 30 stakeholders including parents, teachers, students and staff in May 2025. The council met five times to review CSBA’s policy and make a recommendation to the board.

In addition, the council developed guidelines for AI use for all stakeholders. These will be shared in the 2026-2027 school year. Amid rapid technological developments, the district plans to update them regularly."

Exclusive: Trump's DOJ says he's not required to turn over official records; Axios, April 1, 2026

Alex Isenstadt , Axios; Exclusive: Trump's DOJ says he's not required to turn over official records

[Kip Currier: This is an appalling anti-democratic determination by Trump 2.0's DOJ. The post-Watergate Presidential Records Act of 1978 was enacted through bipartisan legislating, signed into law by President Jimmy Carter, to curb government corruption and promote transparency, in the wake of actions by Pres. Richard M. Nixon and his administration. The Act codifies that presidential records are the property of the federal government, not the President and the Executive Branch, and are public records.

Democratically-elected officials must be accountable to their citizenries. The Presidential Records Act represents a vital means, among others, for holding Presidents and their administrations accountable for their actions by ensuring preservation of and access to their records by present and future generations.]

"President Trump's Justice Department has concluded that a federal law requiring presidential records to be turned over to the government is unconstitutional, a senior White House official tells Axios.

Why it matters: The finding is an indication Trump will be reluctant to give all of his official records to the National Archives at the end of his term, as presidents have done for nearly a half-century under the Presidential Records Act of 1978.

The law, passed in the post-Watergate era as a hedge against government corruption, states that every official record regarding a president's decisions or policies belongs to the U.S. government, not the president."

Judge Orders Construction Stopped on Trump’s White House Ballroom; The New York Times, March 31, 2026

Zach Montague , The New York Times; Judge Orders Construction Stopped on Trump’s White House Ballroom

A federal judge required the president to seek lawmakers’ input and pursue traditional approvals before proceeding with the $400 million replacement for the East Wing.

"A federal judge ordered on Tuesday that construction be halted on President Trump’s proposed White House ballroom, to be built in place of the demolished East Wing, saying work must come to a stop until the project receives a go-ahead from Congress.

The decision delivered the first meaningful setback to the president’s increasingly audacious efforts to redesign the White House and Washington, D.C. It came after months of litigation in front of Judge Richard J. Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush, who had previously declined to step in.

In a 35-page opinion, Judge Leon wrote that Mr. Trump likely did not have the authority to act on his own, without consulting Congress, to replace entire sections of the White House — changes that could endure for generations."

Fiery House hearing ends in guilty ruling for Cherfilus-McCormick; Axios, March 27, 2026

Andrew Solender , Axios; Fiery House hearing ends in guilty ruling for Cherfilus-McCormick

"A bipartisan panel of House Ethics Committee members found Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick(D-Fla.) guilty of financial misconduct and other charges on summary judgment following a testy, hourslong hearing.

Why it matters: The Ethics Committee will meet in mid-April to decide on appropriate punitive action, which could include fines, censure or even expulsion.

• Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) has said he plans to force a vote on expelling Cherfilus-McCormickas so on as the Ethics Committee process wraps up.
• 
  
• House Democratic leadership has argued such a step should not be taken until Cherfilus-McCormick's criminal trial is resolved — though their members are growing increasingly uncomfortable with the situation.
• 
  
• Cherfilus-McCormick, for her part, has maintained her innocence and pleaded not guilty to the charges against her in her criminal campaign finance case."

Meta and YouTube Found Negligent in Landmark Social Media Addiction Case; The New York Times, March 25, 2026

Cecilia Kang, Ryan Mac and Eli Tan, The New York Times ; Meta and YouTube Found Negligent in Landmark Social Media Addiction Case

A jury found the companies negligent in their app designs, harming a young user with design features that were addictive and led to her mental health distress.

"The social media company Meta and the video streaming service YouTube harmed a young user with design features that were addictive and led to her mental health distress, a jury found on Wednesday, a landmark decision that could open social media companies to more lawsuits over users’ well-being.

Meta and YouTube must pay $3 million in compensatory damages for pain and suffering and other financial burdens. Meta is responsible for 70 percent of that cost and YouTube for the remainder.

The bellwether case, which was brought by a now 20-year-old woman identified as K.G.M., had accused social media companies of creating products as addictive as cigarettes or digital casinos. K.G.M. sued Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, and Google’s YouTube over features like infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations that she claimed led to anxiety and depression.

The jury of seven women and five men will deliberate further to decide what punitive damages the companies should pay for malice or fraud."

Who holds Congress accountable? A look at the invisible ethics system for lawmakers; PBS News, March 12, 2026

Lisa Desjardins, Kyle Midura , PBS News; Who holds Congress accountable? A look at the invisible ethics system for lawmakers

"Congress is charged with writing the laws that govern the rest of us, but who holds lawmakers accountable when they break the rules? We take a closer look at the number of sitting members of Congress facing active ethics investigations, and the largely invisible system designed to police them. Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins reports."

The Trump Administration Floats a New Way to Humiliate the Legal Profession; The New York Times, March 13, 2026

Deborah Pearlstein , The New York Times; The Trump Administration Floats a New Way to Humiliate the Legal Profession

"To fill those empty seats, the department has begun an increasingly desperate effort to recruit hires. (“Don’t be scared off by the transcript requirement,” a conservative law school reportedly told its students. “G.P.A. is not a strong factor.”) Even so, it seems too few lawyers are willing to take the chance. So the Trump administration last week offered up a different solution: a proposed rule that aims to shield Department of Justice lawyers from independent ethics investigations.

Such an arrangement would run afoul of a federal law known as the McDade Amendment, which says that government lawyers are subject to the ethics rules of the states in which they practice, “to the same extent and in the same manner” as every other lawyer licensed in the state. The proposed rule would be challenged in court immediately if it ever took effect. It shouldn’t get that far, however. It would do much more than potentially give department lawyers a free pass to lie on the president’s behalf. It would severely limit the courts’ ability to offer any kind of independent check on the executive branch.

Rules requiring lawyers to serve as honest officers of the court have been adopted by every state and the District of Columbia. They serve a host of purposes, starting with the basic right to fairness. These rules are also critical to the independence of the courts, which depend on access to reliable evidence and accurate representations by counsel.

Such rules serve an especially critical function in constitutional democracies, which distinguish themselves from authoritarian regimes in part by insisting that truth and falsehood exist separately from whatever the government may assert...

The move against state bars is of a piece with the administration’s broader strategy against universities, the media and law firms — any set of organizations capable of challenging the president’s power. And few things threaten it more than holding it to the truth."

Social Media Isn’t Just Speech. It’s Also a Defective, Hazardous Product.; The New York Times, March 14, 2026

Tim Wu, The New York Times ; Social Media Isn’t Just Speech. It’s Also a Defective, Hazardous Product.

"For two decades now, social media companies have been virtually untouchable, profitably floating above accusations that they normalize propaganda, addict children and degrade our character. Legally and politically, platforms like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube have been protected by an idea that they and others have promoted: that they are not just innovative technologies but also speech platforms, so that imposing any limits on them would amount to both censorship and a drag on technological progress.

That protection is finally starting to weaken, thanks to a growing realization that social media is also a matter of public health. Seen this way, social media appears as something less newfangled and more familiar: a defective, hazardous product. The current trial of Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube in Los Angeles Superior Court, in which a 20-year-old woman has accused the platforms of designing their products in ways that harmed her mental and physical health, is the clearest sign of this shift.

The case, in which closing arguments were made on Thursday, is the first of many lawsuits brought by thousands of young people, school districts and state attorneys general against companies like Meta, Google, Snap and TikTok. The plaintiffs in these cases do not accuse the companies merely of serving up bad content to young people; they argue that the very design of social media is intentionally engineered to create compulsions and habits of overuse, regardless of the content provided."

Autonomous AI Agents Have an Ethics Problem; Undark, March 5, 2026

ADAM SCHIAVI, Undark; Autonomous AI Agents Have an Ethics Problem

AI-powered digital assistants can do many complex tasks on their own. But who takes responsibility when they cause harm?

"As a bioethicist and specialist in neurointensive care, I deal directly with human moral agency and the essence of personhood when treating patients. As a researcher, I study the use of synthetic personas animating AI agents and their use as stand-ins of human counterparts. Here is the problem that I see: Granting AI personhood, even in limited capacity, risks formalizing the most dangerous escape hatch of the agentic era — what I will call responsibility laundering. This allows us to say, “It wasn’t me. The agent/bot/system did it.”

Personhood should not be about metaphysics or claims about an inner nature. It is a legal and ethical instrument that allocates rights and accountability. It is a social technology for assigning standing, duties, and limits on what can be done to an entity. If we grant personhood to systems that can act persuasively in public while remaining functionally unaccountable, we create a new class of actors whose harms are everyone’s problem but nobody’s fault.

There is a key concept here that we can use from my field, medicine. In clinical ethics, some decisions are justified yet still leave a “moral residue,” a kind of emotional echo or sense of responsibility that persists after the action because no options fully satisfy competing obligations. This residue accumulates over time, causing a “crescendo effect” that occurs even when conscientious clinicians are doing their best inside imperfect systems. That remainder matters because it reveals something basic about moral life, namely that ethics is not only about choosing; it is about owning what remains afterwards."

D.C. Bar Begins Disciplinary Proceedings Against Ed Martin; The New York Times, March 10, 2026

Devlin Barrett, The New York Times ; D.C. Bar Begins Disciplinary Proceedings Against Ed Martin

A new legal filing accused Mr. Martin, a senior Justice Department official, of an unethical pressure campaign against Georgetown University.

"The disciplinary body for lawyers in the District of Columbia has filed ethics charges against Ed Martin, a senior Justice Department official in the Trump administration, accusing him of misconduct in seeking to punish Georgetown University’s law school, according to a filing.

Mr. Martin, who has spearheaded efforts by President Trump to use the Justice Department to punish the president’s perceived enemies, faces two counts of misconduct. The filing, submitted on Friday before the D.C. Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility, is comparable to a civil lawsuit complaint in court and was signed by Hamilton P. Fox III, the disciplinary counsel for the D.C. bar.

Mr. Martin, who was forced to step down as the U.S. attorney in Washington because he did not have the Senate votes for confirmation, instead became the Justice Department’s pardon attorney. In that role, he has had far more access and influence in the White House than many of his predecessors.

The complaint is a significant escalation in the efforts to use state and local bars to punish lawyers in the Trump administration for purported violations of ethics rules in pursuit of the president’s aims. Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi proposed a new rule to try to stall or delay bar associations from conducting such investigations into lawyers at the department."