Trump’s Pledge to Deal With Conflicts of Interest May Be an Empty Promise

It’s not very different from what he has already proposed.

Mike Segar/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Donald Trump pledged on Wednesday morning to divorce himself from his business operations that threaten to bring enormous conflicts of interest to the Oval Office. In a series of tweets, Trump promised a major press conference on December 15 at which he will reveal “legal documents” that will completely remove him from “business operations.” He provided no details. But his comments indicate he’s not looking at anything different from what he has already proposed—and government ethics experts have said that’s unlikely to address the huge problem at hand.

These experts have pointed out that Trump’s sprawling business empire poses numerous conflicts with his imminent role as president. These include a lease for a government-owned building (which houses Trump’s Washington, DC, hotel), numerous overseas investments in countries such as Turkey and the Philippines (where US foreign policy is under pressure), and massive loans from Deutsche Bank and the state-owned Bank of China.

Trump has previously addressed concerns about his many conflicts by saying his children will run his businesses once he moves into the White House. That is what his recent tweets suggest he will do. Kellyanne Conway, his campaign manager, said on Wednesday morning that his kids will be given more control of the family company. Yet ethics experts have repeatedly said a transfer of responsibility to his children will not alleviate the conflicts.

The issue is the ownership of the businesses, not Trump’s daily role in the operations, says Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer under George W. Bush and a leading critic of Trump’s conflict of interests. “He needs to divest ownership completely, or most all of the problems remain,” Painter says. In other words, as long as Trump maintains an ownership interest, the conflicts will remain. This would be especially true if family members were overseeing these assets. One family member—Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is married to his daughter Ivanka—may end up with a senior position in the White House.

With the exception of a few real estate partnerships, Trump has near-complete ownership of almost everything in his portfolio, from Trump Tower in New York City to his golf courses around the world. Even in the places where Trump is only licensing his name or managing a hotel for a third party, personal financial disclosures show that Trump usually has 99 percent ownership of the corporate entity that is being paid by the partner. Trump’s children own little of the family business empire. The one significant stake the Trump children seem to hold in Trump’s many business interests is a shared 22.75 percent stake in his Washington, DC, hotel. (Trump is the managing member and holds the controlling interest in the project.)

Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House’s oversight committee, released a statement on Wednesday echoing Painter’s assessment. He noted that Trump should divest himself from his ownership stake in his many companies, put his assets under the control of an independent CEO, and make public his tax returns and financial statements so separation between Trump and his assets can be confirmed.

“Experts on both sides of the aisle have warned that removing himself from his company’s business operations is not even close to removing himself from the financial benefits and other conflicts of interest they pose,” Cummings said. “The worst option—and the one he has offered publicly—would be to allow his children to run the company as they continue to offer political advice and obtain unprecedented access to governmental decision-making, and then return it to him after he is no longer president.”

Cummings has requested that the oversight committee’s chairman, Republican Jason Chaffetz, investigate Trump’s personal finances and how they might intersect with the public interest. Despite pre-election promises to do so, Chaffetz has remained silent on the matter.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate