The Filing and Review of the Attorney General's Financial Disclosure Report

GAO discussed the: (1) Attorney General's 1985 financial disclosure report; and (2) Department of Justice (DOJ) and Office of Government Ethics (OGE) reviews of that report. GAO noted that the Ethics in Government Act requires a filing official to fully disclose the underlying assets of any private investment arrangement which is not: (1) a qualified blind trust; (2) a qualified diversified trust; or (3) an excepted trust. GAO found that: (1) the Attorney General did not disclose the assets his investment-firm partnership held, purchased, or sold, or the income attributable to the specific assets of that partnership; (2) the Attorney General incorrectly characterized his financial relationship with the firm as a limited blind partnership, and reported the partnership itself as a single asset; (3) although DOJ and OGE questioned certain aspects of the disclosure report, they did not obtain the information necessary to identify the partnership's investments during their reviews; and (4) because of a DOJ investigation of the Attorney General's relationship with another firm, OGE had not certified his 1985 and 1986 financial disclosure reports.