Trump’s Conflicts Said To Be “Profound,” Unprecedented – And Legal

In a Fortune magazine article, Roger Parloff sorts out the conflicts-of-interest issue as it relates to president-elect Donald Trump, based on interviews with former ethics counsel for both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. The conclusion is that federal law dealing with conflicts of interest does not in fact apply to the president, nor for that matter to the vice-president or members of Congress. However, according to Bush’s former counsel, Richard Painter, “every other President in modern times has tried as best they could to act as if the law did apply to them.” In a separate article that appeared in The Washington Post, the two former ethics counsel contemplate Trump’s “blind trust” as it has been broached, with his children running his businesses. They call it “the opposite of a blind trust,” in that it requires the public to “blindly trust Trump and his family.” They also outline a trust arrangement that they say would be passable.