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Article snippet: WASHINGTON — Walter M. Shaub’s term as the government’s top ethics watchdog does not expire until next January, but his corner office here, just a few blocks from the White House, looks unoccupied. No diplomas line the wood-paneled walls. No family photos or mementos. Just standard government-issue furniture, his humming computer and four large paintings. Mr. Shaub wanted to get rid of those, too, but his chief of staff warned that it might scare the 70 other employees in the Office of Government Ethics. “I wanted to not be so attached to this office that I’d be afraid to lose it,” Mr. Shaub said on Friday, surveying the room he packed up shortly before Inauguration Day. For a man and agency that have long labored in obscurity, that does not seem such a far-off possibility these days. Ethics have been thrust to the forefront in President Trump’s Washington, where the president’s own vast holdings and those of his asset-rich cabinet and advisers from businesses and lobbying firms have raised many accusations of conflicts of interest. Mr. Shaub, 46, has emerged as one of the few voices from within the government willing to second-guess the president and his advisers. At first quietly and then in a rare public speech here in January, Mr. Shaub tried to nudge Mr. Trump toward the only financial arrangement he felt was truly ethical — the total liquidation of his vast business and personal holdings. He failed. But that confrontation and a string of others in the mont... Link to the full article to read more