Trump’s plan will take him out of management of his company, but Trump will not divest from his financial interests, as ethics experts have repeatedly urged him to do. Nor will his business be managed by independent trustees — instead his sons will be in charge.
Ultimately, his plan is one that ethics experts and the Office of Government Ethics say is woefully inadequate, and falls well short of the measures every other modern president has taken to ensure that they appear to be and in fact are working only in the interest of the public.
Trump, however, asked for kudos for doing anything at all. His general attitude toward the serious questions about his conflicts of interest is exemplified in this aside, where he bragged about being offered a billion-dollar deal in Dubai and turning it down, even though in his estimation, he didn’t have to.
“Now I have to say one other thing. Over the weekend, I was offered $2 billion to do a deal in Dubai with a very, very, very, amazing man, a great, great developer from the Middle East. Hussain — DAMAC — a friend of mine, great guy. And was offered $2 billion to do a deal in Dubai — a number of deals. And I turned it down. I didn’t have to turn it down, because as you know, I have a ‘no-conflict situation’ because I’m president”
This comment took barely 30 seconds, but it is emblematic of the issues presented by Trump’s business dealings — and his failure to actually separate himself from them.
No comments:
Post a Comment