During the presidential campaign, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) was one of the most passionate and eloquent defenders of House Republicans’ multipronged investigations of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s actions as secretary of state.
When some accused Republicans of clamoring for investigations of Clinton’s emails and family foundation just to undermine her campaign, Ryan reframed the inquiries as a matter of principle:
.. It probably won’t surprise you to hear that Ryan is not nearly as bullish on investigating Trump as he was Clinton. He has been repeatedly asked over the past week or two how he feels about Trump’s potential for conflicts of interest, and his answer has boiled down to: It’s not my problem.
.. When pressed on it again, Ryan said: “I have every bit of confidence he’s going to get himself right with moving from being the business guy that he is to the president he’s going to become.
Trump’s Business Empire Isn’t Just an Ethical Disaster
But it also presents a global security risk. A building branded with the name of an American president — any president, but perhaps especially Mr. Trump — would be a tempting target for terrorists and other enemies of the United States. Who is going to protect the buildings? Will the Trump organization hire a security firm to do the job, or will the American taxpayer be on the line for the bill? Will foreign governments offer to pay to secure the properties — a subsidy of the Trump organization that would probably violate the Emoluments Clause? If a terrorist attack, a botched security operation or some other tragedy happens on a Trump property, the United States could easily get drawn into a conflict abroad. And our adversaries know this. This is one of the most dangerous aspects of Mr. Trump’s conflict-of-interest problem.
.. If Mr. Trump owns his businesses while he is president, it will be a lot easier for plaintiffs’ lawyers to sue him on behalf of customers, counterparties, investors and others, and to require his testimony under oath.
.. As plaintiffs’ lawyers pile on, they will be egged on, and perhaps subsidized by, the president’s political opponents, as happened in the Paula Jones case against Bill Clinton. How can Mr. Trump focus on defending the country if he has to waste time defending himself in court?
.. Nobody in the American government, including the president, should ask a foreign diplomat about any aspect of Trump business, including such matters as, for example, unsightly windmills that are too close to Mr. Trump’s golf courses. Such conversations will inevitably suggest a link between official government action and benefits for the Trump businesses. In other words, a bribe.
.. This problem does not go away because someone else is managing the business. It is still his money, and if he is president, he can’t take it. The only remedy for a serious violation of the Emoluments Clause is impeachment.
.. How can we expect a Trump administration to rein in loose lending practices, particularly in the real estate sector, when the president himself owes hundreds of millions of dollars to banks? What will he do when a foreign dictator acts up in a country where there is a Trump hotel?
Ivanka Trump’s Presence at Meeting With Japan’s Leader Raises Questions
The potential for conflicts of interest between President-elect Donald J. Trump and his family’s business ventures emerged again Thursday evening, when a photograph was distributed that showed his daughter Ivanka at a meeting between Mr. Trump and the prime minister of Japan.
.. She serves as vice president of development and acquisitions for the Trump Organization, and the company’s website says one of her “primary focuses has been to bring the Trump Hotel brand to global markets.”
.. The Wall Street Journal, in an editorial on Friday, went so far as to urge Mr. Trump to sell off all his hotels, golf courses and other assets, and then take that cash and turn it over to a blind trust, as that would be the only way to avoid all possible conflicts.
Watchdogs question Trump’s plans to keep his empire in the family
“This is as intricate a government ethics problem as has ever existed, and I hope he’ll be getting a bunch of experts into a room to figure out how to deal with this.”
.. McGehee said she would advise Trump to “appoint an ethics czar, right now, from the get go, whose job would be to recommend a series of policies that are meant to restore public faith. He ran, obviously, against Washington. So if he’s going to take the reins of power … [he should] have an ethics czar.”
McGehee and others say installing Trump’s adult children as caretakers doesn’t eliminate conflict questions, since he’d still know what his interests were, and he’d presumably still be in contact with his children. What’s more, foreign governments and lenders could seek favor with the president through sweetheart deals with his kids.
.. “Once you don’t sell the businesses — and Trump has given no indication that he’s going to do so — I don’t think he can separate himself. The idea that he’s going to have his family run the businesses and that will address his conflict-of-interest problems is a joke,”
.. The biggest check on potential conflicts, according to ethics lawyers, is a clause of the Constitution that bans U.S. government officials, including the president, from accepting gifts or money from foreign governments without the consent of Congress.