This guide handles a government ethics matter from entry into public service through departure and afterward. It begins with the criminal conflict statute and the exemption structure that resolves most questions without divestiture, then the financial disclosure and ethics agreement process that determines what an official may work on for an entire tenure. It works through gifts, outside activities, misuse of position, and the impartiality rule that reaches relationships the criminal statute does not. It sets out the post-employment restrictions by tier, with the screening arrangements that permit a firm to keep the matter, and covers political activity, lobbying and foreign agent registration, and procurement integrity. Separate sections address the narrowing of the federal corruption statutes and what they now require, disqualification where an official adjudicates, state and local systems, enforcement architecture, and the documentation that protects officials who did the right thing.