By Matthew Yglesias:
Julianna Goldman reported Monday evening for CBS that the Trump-Pence transition team “has asked the White House to explore the possibility of getting his children the top secret security clearances” in light of their role as advisers to their father.
The request is somewhat unusual since “nepotism rules prevent the president-elect from hiring his kids to work in the White House.” But you don’t need to be a government employee to have a top secret clearance, and the kids would presumably be willing to offer dad their thoughts on trade negotiations with China and the course of the war in Syria on a pro bono basis.
The only problem is this greatly exacerbates the massive conflict of interest problem surrounding the Trump Organization.
Trump’s proposed fake solution to the problem is to say that the management of his businesses will be handled by his kids, who will operate them through a fake blind trust. As dodgy as that arrangement would be under any circumstances, having his kids serve as senior advisers completely undermines any possible benefit. Imagine a normal president with a normal asset portfolio that he really does put in a blind trust, but then he taps the guy running the trust to be Treasury secretary — it doesn’t make any sense.
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