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Wayward5oul -> RE: Trump's conflicts of interest. Do they matter ? (12/23/2016 1:33:38 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Greta75
It's not about a huge pass or whatever.
Trump and his business is heavily intertwined. Unfortunately, he is in the hotel business. Any diplomats choosing to stay in Trump hotel will be seen as a conflict of interest.
This complication stems from the nature of his business. Maybe if he just own a supermarket chain or something, "maybe" there is less of a problem? Or if his supermarket business increase, then it's conflict of interest again? Using his Presidential to increase his business?
Are they suppose to ban foreign diplomats from using Trump hotel. It is natural diplomats will want to be in the President's good graces by doing something PR, like staying at the hotels he owns.
Everything about this situation is unique and very new. People can scream all the conflict of interest all they want. Are they saying business men can never be Presidents? Because this is what it is.
Imagine if Bill Gates was President. Then Microsoft is gonna keep getting more deals by foreign entities as well, might be a surge. Then people will be screaming conflict again.
No, it is not new, though Trump's case is unique, because of the extent of his holdings. Trump is not the first successful businessman that we have elected president. Other presidents that had businesses, however, chose to find a way to deal with that prior to being elected so that there would not be any conflict of interest.
But not Trump-he started 8 new companies in Saudi Arabia alone, after announcing his candidacy.
President Carter put his business in a trust, something which Trump constantly said he would do, but now that he is president he is saying he won't do.
Nixon sold his assets.
presidents in recent history have generally tried their best to adhere to the conflict of interest laws that govern their fellow executive branch colleagues, keeping plain vanilla portfolios during their time in office. “You do not want to hold financial interests that present a potential conflict of interest with your official duties,” says Kiernan.
For example, Bill Clinton used blind trusts while he was in office, as did George W. Bush. When Hillary Clinton launched her first presidential run in 2007, she went so far as to liquidating her blind trust to eliminate any investments that might create a problem down the road. Since then, she has kept the proceeds in bank accounts, treasury notes and mutual funds.
Outside of the blind trusts that held their investments, the Bushes and Clintons kept personal real estate, cash accounts, life insurance, bonds and mutual funds. The Obamas bucked the trend when they decided against using blind trusts, but their mix of bank accounts, treasury notes, index funds and college savings was unlikely to pose a direct conflict of interest.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferwang/2016/11/15/why-trump-wont-use-a-blind-trust-and-what-his-predecessors-did-with-their-assets/#530899687915
Its called setting priorities.
If you decide to run for president, you do so knowing that your businesses will be an issue. You make plans for that. If you are elected, you follow through. Period. None of this was info that he was not aware of prior to running. He knew this day was coming, and he made promises about how it was going to be handled. But instead of following through with that, he continued, throughout his candidacy, to create potential business conflicts in the Middle East. And has gone back on his word about how he will handle it all.
If you feel like your businesses are more important than the presidency, then you don't run for the office.
Being President of the United States is not a part time job. It requires his full attention and it requires that he not be in a position that he have to consider his own conflicts of interests when making decisions.
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