Trump’s “500 Businesses” Would Pose Big Ethics Problem

Executive branch officials are prohibited from making money on their businesses while serving, but those rules don’t apply to the president and vice president, notes writer and editor David Goldman. In his article for CNN Money, he taps legal counsel to former presidents and candidates from both parties who agree that if Donald Trump were elected president, the potential conflicts of interest would be unprecedented. Bind trusts address investments but not ownership or control of businesses, Goldman says, and he posits some interesting hypotheticals, regarding such matters as trade deals, setting aside of national park lands and immigration, and how policies in these areas might affect various Trump enterprises. How consequential could this kind of conflict be? “The greatest tragedy in our country,” says a law professor who once served as President George W. Bush’s ethics counsel, “was caused by plantation owners’ conflicts of interest.”