Walter Shaub isn’t exactly a household name. Until now. Maybe. Perhaps.

Shaub has just quit as the head of the Office of Government Ethics. He is leaving his post six months before the end of his term. Why the early out?

It appears that Shaub has grown tired of battling with the president of the United States over the myriad ethical questions surrounding the president and his business interests around the world.

Shaub has been battling with Donald Trump over the president’s refusal to divest himself of the business interests, handing it all over to his sons while remaining as CEO of the empire.

The Hill reported: “Shaub told CBS News on Thursday evening that he doesn’t know whether Trump is profiting from his businesses, but that’s not the point.

“‘I can’t know what their intention is. I know that the effect is that there’s an appearance that the businesses are profiting from his occupying the presidency,’ he told CBS News correspondent Julianna Goldman during the first televised interview following his resignation.

“‘And appearance matters as much as reality, so even aside from whether or not that’s actually happening, we need to send a message to the world that the United States is going to have the gold standard for an ethics program in government, which is what we’ve always had,’ he continued.

Read the whole Hill article here.

Appearance matters as much as reality. Yes, and that is what Donald Trump doesn’t even begin to comprehend.

Comedians joke that the term “government ethics” has become a major-league oxymoron. The vastness of Donald Trump’s business empire has created an ethical morass for anyone charged with the task of trying to guide a presidential administration down a straight-and-narrow path.