ETHICS OFFICER voices concern over actions by ‘some’ in high government posts.

WASHINGTON — The federal government’s top ethics officer said that he’s “deeply concerned that the actions of some in government leadership have harmed perceptions about the importance of ethics.”

The remarks by David Apol, the acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, came in a memo sent last week to all federal agencies. In the memo, which was made public Tuesday, Apol encouraged the agency leaders to “re-double their commitments to ethics” in government.

President Donald Trump named Apol to the post in July, replacing Walter Shaub, who resigned before the end of his five-year term, which would have expired in January. Apol’s note does not include specifics about what actions by Trump administration employees have elevated his concerns. An agency spokesman declined to elaborate Tuesday.

The two-page memo was dated Thursday, six days after Tom Price, the secretary of health and human services, announced his resignation. Questions had surfaced about Price’s use of private and government planes after reports that he had taken more than two dozen private flights at taxpayer expense, as well as trips to Europe, Africa and Asia on military aircraft. The total cost of his travel was more than $1 million.

Inspectors general in at least three other agencies — the Interior and Treasury departments and the Environmental Protection Agency — then announced they were conducting their own investigations into plane travel and related matters.

Apol suggested that public confidence could be undermined if federal employees — and ethics officers at each agency charged with overseeing them — do not take steps to strengthen their commitment to ethical governance.

“As a leader in the United States government, the choices that you make and the work that you do will have profound effects upon our nation and its citizens,” Apol wrote.

The Office of Government Ethics has 80 full-time equivalent positions and an annual budget of $15 million. It oversees ethics compliance in 130 executive-branch agencies, covering 2.7 million civilian employees. It works with executive branch officials to resolve conflicts of interest, but it has a limited role in the finances of the president, to whom many federal ethics laws don’t apply.

Trump broke with the practice of his modern predecessors by maintaining a financial interest in his businesses through a trust. The Government Accountability Office, an agency in the federal legislative branch, said Tuesday that its officials had “not been asked to provide assistance” with his plan.

The Government Accountability Office on Tuesday unveiled a report on its outreach to Trump between his election and inauguration. According to the agency, ethics officials offered to work with Trump to help resolve potential financial conflicts of interest before he took office, but the president-elect didn’t take them up on their offer.

Information for this article was contributed by Eric Lipton of The New York Times and Ben Brody of Bloomberg News.