President-elect Donald Trump hinted Tuesday that he is likely to keep some ties to his businesses while serving in the oval office.
Vice-President-elect Mike Pence promised that there would be a “proper separation,” from Trump and his business empire before the president-elect took office. Trump chose to pass the control of his business onto his three children Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric via a “blind trust” — a financial arrangement in which a person in public office gives the administration of private business interests to an independent trust in order to prevent conflict of interest.
This move, however, has many questioning if Trump’s trust is blind at all, given that his children will be running his business and some say he plans to rely on them as advisors while in office.
Trump said the reason for bringing his children in to run his businesses was to extricate himself from his private business interests, but his move to bring Ivanka along to a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe raised many eyebrows. Given that one of Ivanka’s primary roles in the family business is the “global expansion of the company’s real estate interests,” it is not surprising that her presence at the meeting had some questioning Trump’s motives.
“The law is totally on my side, meaning, the president can’t have a conflict of interest,” Trump told the New York Times on Tuesday.
Currently, under Title 18 Section 208 of the U.S. code, Congress exempts the president and vice president from conflict-of-interest laws. Generally, public officials in the executive branch are subject to criminal prosecution if they substantially participate in matters in which they hold vested financial interests. Because Congress is weary of interfering with the constitutional duties of the president, it has not applied the same restrictions to the presidency. As a result, there is no legal precedent or requirement for the president-elect to extricate himself from his financial interests under conflict-of-interest laws.
Despite the Trump teams assertions that there would be separation from Trump and his business, a Trump spokesman said Tuesday that the team had yet to come to a definitive answer as to whether or not Trump would separate his business interests. “As soon as the lawyers have worked through that and gotten that figured out with all parties involved, then we’ll go ahead and get that out,” Trump spokesman Jason Miller said.
There are some glaring potential conflicts of interest with Trump’s business holdings worldwide: his real estate properties (hotels and condos) in the U.S. which are overseen by federal regulators, his large portfolio of international properties, and his licensing agreements with foreign businesses which have political ties abroad.
Trump has real-estate deals in eight of the 29 countries whose world leaders met with the president-elect since his victory, the Journal reports.
Since the election, Trump met with business leaders from India, Argentina and pro-Brexit political activists from Great Britian. Trump’s transition team has repeatedly said all visits were congratulatory and no business or political deals were struck or discussed during any of the meetings.
The concerns surrounding the potential conflict-of-interest Trump’s businesses pose come as other fears loom over the transition. Namely, his recent legal battles with Trump University, audits by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and his cabinet appointments.
Trump University agreed to a $25 million dollar settlement Friday to resolve lawsuits which alleged that the seminars provided by the university failed to deliver the education promised. The IRS found that the Trump Foundation was involved in self-dealing dating back to before 2015, the Journal reports. Trump’s cabinet appointments have been met with widespread scrutiny from the public, with some saying he is filling the White House with “alt-right” members.
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