David J. Apol

David John Apol is General Counsel at the United States Office of Government Ethics (OGE). He served as an acting director of the OGE between the resignation of Walter Shaub on July 19, 2017 and the appointment of Emory Rounds on July 13, 2018.

Career After graduating from law school, Apol interned with the Governor of Michigan before serving in the United States Army for four years.

While interning for the Governor, Apol reviewed financial disclosure reports, which would later earn him an appointment as Counsel for the Senate Ethics Committee from 1987 to 1992. who criticised that the Trump Administration would hold ethics as irrelevant. The appointment by President Trump disrupted the regular order of succession, as under agency rules adopted in 2015, Shaub's chief of staff, Shelley Finlayson, would have assumed the acting director role. Shaub criticized the appointment of Apol, saying "moves like [Apol's history of advocating for consultation with the White House prior to issuing policies] jeopardize O.G.E.'s independence."

Following the resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price over travel on private charter flights, Apol issued a letter to agency heads in October 2017 asking them to ensure their actions are "motivated by the public good and not by personal interests."

In February 2018, President Trump nominated Emory Rounds to become the permanent OGE director, and his appointment was confirmed on July 13. Apol returned to his previous position of General Counsel. and earned his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 1982. He is married to Catherine A. Novelli, who he met in law school. Novelli served as the Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment from 2014 to 2017. Together they have two children.