Forms and Financial Disclosure

What Do You Have to Fill Out?

Once the President has decided to nominate you for a post requiring Senate confirmation and you enter the clearance process, there's a battery of forms and questionnaires that you will have to fill out.  Here's a summary and links to some of the major forms:

The White House Personal Data Statement Questionnaire
A confidential document that the White House Counsel's Office uses to vet your background. The questionnaire inquires about your medical history, whether you ever hired a nanny and if so did you pay Social Security taxes, memberships, lawsuits, fines, and anything else that could prove embarrassing to the President.

The personal data statement for President-Elect Obama's transition is now available.

Standard Form 86

This form is the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's "Questionnaire for National Security Positions." By an executive order that President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued in the 1950s, all presidential nominees must fill this out. It asks about everything from mental health to the citizenship status of relatives born outside the United States, as well as police records and use of illegal drugs inn the past seven years.

Standard Form 278

The U.S. Office of Government Ethic's Executive Branch "Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Report" must be completed and updated twice a year by all presidential appointees. It requires nominees to disclose their assets and liabilities in broad categories.

 Other Key Forms

• A form consenting to the FBI background investigation.
• A separate form allowing the government to check your credit record.
• An authorization to see your medical records; they are not made public
• A “tax check waiver” allowing the IRS to check your tax returns for the past three years and let the White House know if you paid your taxes on time.