Consumer Confidential: Trump's FTC consumer chief may be single most conflicted member of his administration

When a new consumer regulator gets appointed in Washington, Remington Gregg, as a lawyer with the advocacy group Public Citizen, routinely submits a request under the Freedom of Information Act for the appointee's financial disclosure statement. This can help spot any potential conflicts of interest.

Gregg told me he usually expects to find a handful of possible conflicts, especially under a business-friendly Republican administration. There might be four or five affiliations that raise questions about the appointee's fairness or impartiality.

When he recently received the disclosure statement of Andrew Smith, the new director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection, Gregg