Norman Eisen
![](https://images.forwardcdn.com/image/970x/center/images/cropped/web-eisen-1508876302.jpg)
The Former Ethics Czar Fighting White House Corruption
In the past year, Norman Eisen, 56, has quickly become Washington, D.C.’s ethics watchdog — vigilantly watching every move in the White House, ensuring that no wrongdoing goes uncovered.
Born into a Jewish family in Los Angeles, Eisen, who keeps kosher, investigated anti-Semitism and civil rights violations for the Anti-Defamation League before enrolling at Harvard Law School — where he met a fellow student named Barack Obama.
During the first few years of the Obama presidency, Eisen served as the White House’s chief ethics lawyer, earning a reputation as “Mr. No” for his rigid approach to ethics. He then became ambassador to the Czech Republic, where his mother, a Holocaust survivor, had been born.
Now, as the board chair of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog organization that he founded, Eisen is ensuring that the country follows the Constitution’s emoluments clause.
Since November 2016, when the president-elect refused to untangle himself from his properties, hotels and golf courses, Eisen has become the go-to expert on all matters of government corruption and impropriety, such as the pardoning of Joseph Arpaio.
He has become a regular news and television commentator and has been cited thousands of times whenever the Trump administration crosses the lines between personal business and politics. He is also the lead attorney on two major corruption cases against the president. Every seemingly small indiscretion, he argues, represents “a critical systems failure in the Trump presidency — one that strikes at the heart of our democracy.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
![](https://forward.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/image.png?_t=1722445328)
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO