Editorial: Wrong Foot

We don't find ourselves agreeing with Donald Trump on much, but he got it right last week calling out Republicans on their effort to micromanage the independent Congressional Ethics Office.

GOP leadership initially voted to amend new House rules to restructure the office by putting it under the oversight of the House Ethics Committee and limit its powers, a move critics said would gut the agency and put the “fox” in charge of the henhouse.

After complaints from constituents and the “drain the swamp” president-elect about leading off the new Congress by weakening an ethics watchdog, Republicans backed off.

But the Trump transition team is not right when it talks about, as it has in conference calls with reporters lately, the size of the Trump victory and how the media downplays it. The election swung on a relative handful of votes in key states and despite a popular vote overwhelmingly for his opponent. It is better to concede the division and try to heal than pretend it’s being overstated by the media the president-elect so loves to hate.

On that topic, we hope Trump sticks with his new timetable of a press conference this week on his financial holdings, his first since last summer.