Amid concerns over conflicts, real-estate company is forgoing some deals
.. the steps Mr. Trump has taken to separate his presidency from his business interests—including turning over management to his children and transferring his ownership to trusts—have been inadequate, largely because he remains the beneficiaries of those trusts... They also point out the potential conflicts in Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, where he frequently hosts foreign dignitaries and where the membership fee was raised to $200,000 earlier this year... “But the concern is he could do favors for people in office with the expectation that he would receive a benefit sometime in the future.”.. An analysis by The Wall Street Journal last year of candidate Trump’s financial disclosures concluded his company had pretax profits of about $160 million a year... Typically, in overseas deals, high-end hotels and golf courses are owned by local investors and licensed and managed by the Trump Organization.
With Trump Appointees, a Raft of Potential Conflicts and ‘No Transparency’
President Trump is populating the White House and federal agencies with former lobbyists, lawyers and consultants who in many cases are helping to craft new policies for the same industries in which they recently earned a paycheck.
.. In at least two cases, the appointments may have already led to violations of the administration’s own ethics rules. But evaluating if and when such violations have occurred has become almost impossible because the Trump administration is secretly issuing waivers to the rules.
Michael Catanzaro .. was working as a lobbyist for major industry clients such as Devon Energy of Oklahoma, an oil and gas company, and Talen Energy of Pennsylvania, a coal-burning electric utility, as they fought Obama-era environmental regulations, including the landmark Clean Power Plan.
.. Chad Wolf, who spent the past several years lobbying to secure funding for the Transportation Security Administration to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a new carry-on luggage screening device.
two officials joined the agency from the K Street lobbying corridor .. where they fought some of the Obama administration’s signature labor rules, including a policy requiring financial advisers to act in a client’s best interest
.. the president eliminated an ethics provision that prohibits lobbyists from joining agencies they lobbied in the prior two years.
.. Mr. Trump’s appointees are also far wealthier and have more complex financial holdings and private-sector ties
.. comply with federal ethics laws, such as a prohibition on using a government post to personally profit.
.. made it easier for former lobbyists in the government to get waivers that would let them take up matters that could benefit former clients.
.. sharing them is no longer required.
.. D. J. Gribbin, the council’s infrastructure specialist, previously worked for Macquarie, a bank that specializes in infrastructure deals
.. Shakira Knight .. as a lobbyist for Fidelity
.. she was registered to work on retirement issues, including the so-called fiduciary rule
.. under Mr. Trump’s executive order, Ms. Knight should probably be barred for two years from participating in decisions that would affect the fiduciary rule.
Geoffrey Burr .. who was a lobbyist for the Associated Builders and Contractors, which pressed the agency on its overtime pay rule, wage requirements for government contracts and an additional half-dozen or so other regulations
.. Mr. Burr would probably not have been able to join the Labor Department.
.. Such potential conflicts are showing up across the federal government.
.. Executives at Anagogic Corp .. CT scans, which are already used broadly in the medical field and on checked baggage. The company now wants the T.S.A. to use them in the nation’s 2,400 airport checkpoint security lanes, a move that could be worth at least $500 million in equipment sales.
.. Mr. Wolf’s Twitter account on Friday still identified him as a lobbyist and displayed posts from last year urging the T.S.A. to buy the devices.
.. A T.S.A. spokesman agreed to arrange an interview with Mr. Wolf — who worked at the agency during the Bush administration before becoming a lobbyist — but canceled it when told about the topic in detail.
.. Lance Leggitt, who serves as chief of staff to Tom Price, the health and human services secretary, worked last year as a lobbyist for 10 different health care companies
.. Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration, received more than $350,000 in payments in 2014 and 2015 from nearly a dozen different pharmaceutical companies
treatments .. carry list prices of more than $250,000 a year.
.. We know people coming in who have conflicts, and we cannot see what restrictions they are under, if any.”
.. Even if the rules are enforced, so many senior officials will be required to recuse themselves that “they will have a hard time getting their job done.”
How the U.S. ethics chief took on Trump and became a reluctant Washington hero
“He’s very nonconfrontational,” said Amy Comstock Rick, a former director of the ethics office. “Which is different from avoiding confrontation. He will certainly do what he needs to do or stand up for something he believes in.”
.. The ethics office “has to be led by people who are very, very cautious with their public messages but very aggressive privately,” said Paul C. Light, a professor of public service at New York University. “I think keeping a low profile and grinding away on the work is what’s important. … I’m glad he put OGE on the map. You’ve just got to be very careful about who’s looking at that map.”
.. Trump has pointed out correctly that the conflict-of-interest law does not apply to the president. So it must be okay.
.. Shaub cited the Bible, Antonin Scalia and other authorities to make the case that presidents should act as if the conflict-of-interest law did apply to them. Previous presidents have done so, he said.
“Should a president hold himself to a lower standard than his own appointees?” he asked. Then, without taking questions, Shaub gathered up his papers and disappeared again.
Revised Trust Allows Donald Trump to Withdraw Funds Without Public Disclosure
President Donald Trump can draw money from his business empire as its trustees see fit without disclosing it publicly, according to a revised version of his trust, a change that ethics experts say blurs the lines between the Trump Organization and his administration.
.. But the president’s son Eric, who serves as an adviser to the trust though not a trustee, told Forbes in an interview last month that he would provide periodic updates to his father on “the bottom line, profitability reports and stuff like that.”
When the president announced his plan to place his assets in a trust in January, he said his sons would run his business and that “they’re not going to discuss it with me.”
.. Mar-a-Lago in recent months doubled its initiation fee to $200,000, and Mr. Trump plans to bring Chinese leader Xi Jinping there for meetings this weekend.
.. Mr. Trump said during the campaign he was worth $10 billion; A financial disclosure he released during the presidential campaign showed he held assets valued between $1.5 billion and $2.1 billion
.. A Wall Street Journal analysis of the president’s finances last year showed Mr. Trump assets were relatively illiquid.
.. Mr. Spicer said the president had donated his first-quarter salary—$78,333—to the National Park Service, fulfilling thus far a campaign pledge not to accept a paycheck as president. Mr. Trump has proposed slashing 1,500 times that amount from the agency’s funding for offices including the National Park Service.