Trump’s Plan to Avoid Conflicts of Interest

On Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump and his lawyers held a press conference outlining his plan for avoiding conflicts of interest arising between his role as the chief executive of the U.S. government and his global business interests. Since the announcement, much has been said about whether or not his plan will do enough to avoid improprieties that could arise from his taking actions as president that benefit his company, and as a result himself. To help clear the air, we’ve broken down his plan and provided both the general argument for and against his plan so you can weigh in:

The Plan

President-elect Trump will resign from all positions within his company, so he will no longer have oversight of the hotels, golf courses, and other ventures within the Trump Organization. The business’s assets will be placed into a trust, and two of his sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, will assume the responsibility of managing the organization. They won’t be allowed to communicate with their father about any of the business’s dealings, so by design, President Trump will only know about deals involving the business that bears his name if he hears about them through the news.

Trump’s daughter Ivanka will also be stepping away from the organization and subject to the same no-contact rules as her father (in addition to departing her own businesses), because her husband Jared Kushner will be serving as an advisor to Trump.

The Trump Organization will forego all new overseas deals to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Existing obligations (like servicing debt on loans) to foreign entities will be dealt with in the ordinary course of business, with no special considerations taken into account. For domestic operations, all new deals will be scrutinized by an ethics advisor within the Trump Organization and won’t progress without the advisor’s approval.

There’s also the issue of the Constitution’s emoluments clause — which forbids government officials from accepting gifts or pay from foreign governments without Congress’s consent — and whether or not foreign officials staying at a Trump hotel would violate it. While Trump and his lawyers contend that allowing foreign governments to pay for hotel rooms or other services at fair market value wouldn’t violate that clause, they plan to donate all profits on payments from foreign governments to the U.S. Treasury.

Argument For

This represents a good faith effort by Trump to separate himself and his duties as president from those of his business, as using a blind trust would be unworkable for a functioning business to exist within and his children will be able to run the organization without his input.

Those urging Trump to liquidate his assets are essentially asking him to sell his business at a steep discount, because few buyers are ready and able to shell out cash for such a large, expansive organization and the price would necessarily have to be slashed. Not only would that be unfair and unprecedented, it could discourage future individuals who’ve created successful businesses from running for president when we as a country need the best and brightest to want to serve in that role.

The emoluments clause exists, but a violation of it has never been litigated by the nation’s court system and as a result it’s not even clear that the "Office" it refers to could be interpreted as meaning the presidency. Getting a fair market value for hotel rooms or other services can’t be seen as unjust enrichment, and donating all profits to the U.S. Treasury to fund important operations like servicing the national debt is a good way of remedying any perceived impropriety.

Argument Against

President-elect Trump needs to fully divest himself from his businesses in order to avoid allegations of corruption that will undermine public confidence in his administration. Full divestiture would entail a complete liquidation of the Trump Organization’s assets, the proceeds of which could then be placed into a blind trust, which nearly all recent presidents have used (although President Obama did not).

Even with the safeguards the president-elect and his staff has proposed, there will be ample opportunity for corrupt influences, both foreign and domestic, to interact with Trump Organization’s more than 500 subsidiaries and other entities in to curry favor with the president. Not only that, but it will be nearly impossible to know whether existing deals or ventures within the organization that happened in the past came about in a corrupt manner. It also would be much better for an independent, outside ethics advisor to review the organization’s new domestic deals.

It will be unknowable whether President Trump abides by his own rule related to discussions with his sons about the operations of the Trump Organization, and that alone is cause for concern. And while a violation of the emoluments clause may have never been tried in court, passing the profits from hotel rooms used by foreign governments to the U.S. Treasury may not be enough to totally avoid a conflict of interest and deter corrupt influences from using that as a way to curry favor with Trump

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— Eric Revell

(Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore / Creative Commons)