Not sure

Mitt Romney has been paying a columnist to help him/his administration out. The Boston Herald fired him. On the one hand, the description of the work Chieppo did for them sounds innocent, helping them write memos and their own op-eds. On the other hand, he worked for the administration and wrote on them, at the very least an appearance of a conflict of interest. I think my conclusion is if his columns ended with a note that he works on the side for the administration that that would suffice, that's pretty much what my company does with its research reports, noting at the end possible sources of conflicts, but there may be more to the story than I know.