{"id":96238,"date":"2017-04-01T06:42:50","date_gmt":"2017-04-01T10:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=96238"},"modified":"2017-04-01T06:43:13","modified_gmt":"2017-04-01T10:43:13","slug":"mnuchin-says-joke-about-lego-batman-movie-was-mistake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/04\/01\/mnuchin-says-joke-about-lego-batman-movie-was-mistake\/","title":{"rendered":"Mnuchin says joke about ‘Lego Batman Movie’ was mistake"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Treasury<\/a>
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin may be new to government, but he’s learning quickly that it’s not a good idea to make a joke that could run afoul of government ethics rules. (Photo: Derek Utley\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON\u2014Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin may be new to government, but he’s learning quickly that it’s not a good idea to make a joke that could run afoul of government ethics rules.<\/p>\n

In a letter Friday to the head of the Office of Government Ethics, Mnuchin says it was a mistake for him last week to jokingly urge parents to send their kids to see \u201cThe Lego Batman Movie.\u201d Mnuchin was an executive producer of the top-grossing movie, which is still in theatres.<\/p>\n

Mnuchin said his comment, which came at the end of an hour-long public interview sponsored by the news site Axios, was meant as a joke in response to a light-hearted question about what current movies he would recommend.<\/p>\n

At the event, Mnuchin had said, \u201cI’m not allowed to promote anything that I’m involved in. So I just want to have the legal disclosure, you’ve asked me the question, and I am not promoting any product. But you should send all your kids to ‘Lego Batman.’ \u201c<\/p>\n

In his letter Friday to Walter M. Shaub Jr., director of the Office of Government Ethics, Mnuchin said, \u201cI should not have made that statement. …. I fully appreciate the core ethics principle that public office is a public trust and that no employee may use his office for his own or others’ private gain. I want to reassure you that I will exercise greater caution to avoid any suggestion that I do not take these important rules seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

Treasury said in an accompanying statement that Mnuchin had made his comment in jest, and it was \u201cnot intended to be a product endorsement of any movie. We think that’s clear in context.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kellyanne Conway, a top White House adviser to President Donald Trump, was criticized for saying in a Feb. 9 television interview that people should \u201cgo buy Ivanka’s stuff,\u201d a day after Trump had attacked Nordstrom department stores for dropping his daughter’s line of clothes and accessories.<\/p>\n

Shaub wrote a letter criticizing the White House for not taking disciplinary action against Conway saying the lack of action \u201crisks undermining the ethics program.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON\u2014Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin may be new to government, but he’s learning quickly that it’s not a good idea to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":96239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,106],"tags":[14008],"class_list":["post-96238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","category-hollywood","tag-steven-mnuchin","mauthors-martin-crutsinger","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}