Stephen D. Potts

Stephen D. Potts, Chairman of the Ethics Resource Center since 2004, will join the Office of Counsel in July 2007 as an Associate Counsel to the President. Fred Fielding, whom Potts has "known for many years", served as ERC's Vice Chair before his appointment as White House Counsel in January 2007.

Potts "performed public service under four presidents," starting with President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps from 1954 to 1957. Potts "served as Director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, an independent office reporting directly to the President, under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton between 1990 and 2000."

Potts "served as vice president of Cherokee Life Insurance in Nashville, TN, 1959 - 1961, and as an associate attorney with the law firm of Farris, Evans and Evans in Knoxville, TN, 1957 - 1959. He has served in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's Corps in the Defense Appellate Division at the Department of Defense in Washington, DC, 1955 - 1957."

Potts, a partner with the law firm of Shaw, Pittman, Potts and Trowbridge in Washington, DC, from 1961 to 1990,, "recently completed service on a special panel appointed by the Smithsonian Institution's Board of Regents to examine the activities of former Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence Small and recommend appropriate changes in Smithsonian policies and procedures."

Potts graduated from Vanderbilt University (A.B., 1952; LL.B., 1954) and served in the U.S. Army, 1954 - 1957.

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Bush's White House Staff

External articles

 * Dana Ward, "Office of Government Ethics Director Stephen D. Potts," (Played by: Andress D. Walker), Pitzer College, undated.
 * "NIH Blue Ribbon Panel on Conflict of Interest Policies. A Working Group of the Advisory Committee to the Director, NIH," National Institutes of Health, March 2004.
 * Press Release: "Smithsonian Board of Regents Announces Creation of Three-person Independent Review Committee," Smithsonian, March 19, 2007.
 * James V. Grimaldi and Jacqueline Trescott, "Former IG Says Small Asked Her To Drop Audit. Smithsonian Secretary's Expenses Questioned in Senate," Washington Post, March 20, 2007.
 * Alexis Simendinger, "WH Counsel Expands Legal Team," The Gate/National Journal, June 8, 2007.
 * Peter Baker, "Besieged White House Reinforces Counsel's Office," Washington Post, June 9, 2007.
 * Laurence Arnold, "Smithsonian Panel Slams Ex-Leader's Compensation, Servile Board," Bloomberg News, June 20, 2007.