{"id":17193,"date":"2016-12-13T05:10:51","date_gmt":"2016-12-13T05:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=17193"},"modified":"2016-12-13T05:10:51","modified_gmt":"2016-12-13T05:10:51","slug":"trump-pushes-off-decision-on-business-conflicts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/trump-pushes-off-decision-on-business-conflicts.html","title":{"rendered":"Trump pushes off decision on business conflicts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Trump pushes off decision on business conflicts<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Trump pushes off decision on business conflicts<\/span>:-<\/strong> President-elect Donald Trump is delaying Thursday\u2019s announcement rolling out how he\u2019d disentangle himself from his business empire, giving his team more time to navigate his ethics entanglements and his critics more time to punish him as he struggles to do so.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump had previously said he would hold a \u201cmajor news conference\u201d on Dec. 15 \u201cto discuss the fact that I will be leaving my great business in total in order to fully focus on running the country.\u201d But Trump transition officials said Monday that the roll out will now take place next month, before Trump is sworn in on Jan. 20.<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201cminor delay,\u201d Trump strategist and former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said, will give the real estate mogul more time to work through an arrangement his team believes protects the incoming president from conflicts of interest as he transitions from running a sprawling business organization to running the federal government. The president-elect, his family and their lawyers have been working since November\u2019s election to sort through a complex set of legal mandates, tax questions and ethical constraints. Their goal is to allow Trump to maintain a stake in the company he\u2019s built over more than four decades while still turning over operational responsibilities to his three oldest adult children, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs we know, it\u2019s a very unconventional situation,\u201d Conway told CNN. \u201cNormally we have politicians moving from political job to political job. In this case, we have a very successful businessman, who\u2019s brilliant and a billionaire, who has assets and holdings all over the globe, and that needs to have a transfer of power through the proper channels.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But Trump retaining any stake in his company, given its global operations, promises to be controversial. Exactly how that arrangement would look is a work in progress. With additional time, Republicans say the Trump team will keep brainstorming on possible fixes. \u201cThis is one of these situations where it\u2019s so complicated and it\u2019s so big that people keep thinking of things,\u201d said a well-placed GOP source tracking the issue. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s an easy answer, but there may be a simple elegant idea not thought of yet.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The delay also gives Democrats and other Trump critics another opportunity to accuse the president-elect of attempting to use public office for personal enrichment. They argue those conflicts of interest are unavoidable unless Trump takes significant steps to distance himself from his own assets, and they\u2019ve criticized Trump relentlessly for his resistance to setting up their preferred anti-corruption safeguards.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDonald Trump is a corrupt liar,\u201d American Bridge President Jessica Mackler said in a statement. \u201cAnd after pledging to eliminate his ability to profit off the presidency, he’s now refusing to even talk about it. Trump knows his only option is to totally divest, but he can’t bring himself to do it, because he wants to profit off the presidency.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump doesn\u2019t appear headed toward a complete sell-off his businesses, despite the pleadings from Democrats and some Republicans who say he should follow recent presidential practice by putting his assets into a \u201ctrue blind trust\u201d run by an independent trustee with no ties to him or his family.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Trump\u2019s public remarks and recent tweets, he\u2019s indicated no interest in taking such an approach. In an interview Sunday with FOX News, Trump again stated that he planned to maintain ownership of his company while his executives and children take over the day-to-day operations. \u201cWell, essentially, I\u2019m not going to have anything to do with the management,\u201d Trump said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump insisted in the interview that the plan he was mapping out was designed to avoid conflicts of interest, and he tried to make his case by citing a potentially lucrative business opportunity presented to him last week that he decided against pursuing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am turning down billions of dollars of deals,\u201d Trump said, citing an unspecified offer involving, \u201cseven deals with one big player, great player, last week, because I thought it could be perceived as a conflict of interest.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of Trump\u2019s leading surrogates have also knocked down the notion that he needs to sell his business outright.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t take Trump as a name and a $10 billion system and hide it. It\u2019s just stupid,\u201d former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, an early Republican backer of the president-elect, said in an interview. He\u2019s urging Trump to turn over his company to his children while setting up an independent panel of three to five people who review its books monthly \u201cand make sure in no way it\u2019s being used to the advantage of Trump.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

On CNN, Conway on Monday called the change in schedule for the announcement a \u201cminor delay\u201d that accounts for the upcoming holidays and the need to keep working out a solution. \u201cThere\u2019s no reason to rush that if the procedures are not ready,\u201d she said. \u201cThe same questions that will be asked and the same answers that will be provided will just be delayed for a few weeks.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Asked by anchor Anderson Cooper whether Trump\u2019s delay signaled any intention of changing course from the plan for the president-elect to keep hold of the ownership of his company, Conway replied, \u201cAt the moment, it does not. What it does is make more clear how convoluted and complex you know many of these business holdings are.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody wants to make sure they get it right,\u201d she added. \u201cAnd to get it right you have to get proper legal counsel, accountants, lawyers, obviously other corporate officers involved, and his expectation remains that he will cede operational control of the Trump Organization to his adult children and other corporate officers whom he trusts and have worked for him for many years so that he can focus 100 percent of his time and attention to being president of the United States.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

During his transition, Trump has been less than absolute on many of the issues involving his business \u2014 and the potential domestic and international conflicts they bring.<\/span><\/p>\n

His company is still pursuing litigation that would expose Trump to depositions, document discovery and other steps that can embarrass a sitting president. He also signaled last week that he\u2019ll keep drawing a salary and maintain the executive producer credit line on the NBC reality show \u201cCelebrity Apprentice,\u201d which he previously hosted, helping make him a household name with a new generation of Americans.<\/span><\/p>\n

But on other occasions, Trump has shown he wants to avoid cross fire on matters stemming from his pre-political career. Last month, he agreed to settlements totaling $25 million in three separate lawsuits alleging fraud at his Trump University real estate seminars. Then last week, his transition team said Trump had, back in June, sold his entire stock portfolio, with an estimated worth of at least $22 million. Transition aides did not provide any documentation to explain or confirm the transactions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Politically, Trump appears to have some room to maneuver as he tries to sort out his business dealings. Republican leaders have said they\u2019ll give Trump the benefit of the doubt that he will be governing in the country\u2019s interest, as opposed to his own financial ones. On CNBC last week, House Speaker Paul Ryan said Trump\u2019s business interests were \u201cnot what I\u2019m concerned about in Congress.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a view other senior GOP lawmakers have expressed to POLITICO too.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not a defense contractor, he\u2019s not dealing with NASA, he\u2019s not dealing with the Justice Department, he\u2019s not dealing in health care,\u201d said Alabama GOP Sen. Richard Shelby, chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Development Committee. \u201cHe\u2019s in the hotel and entertainment business. I think there\u2019d be minimal conflicts, if any.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe only obligation he has is that under the law,\u201d explained Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the Utah Republican and chairman the committee charged with government oversight, including Trump administration, in the next Congress. \u201cThere are public perceptions that I\u2019m sure they\u2019re keenly aware of.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Trump Organization and the president-elect\u2019s adult children have maintained an active presence since the election waving the name of the next president, hawking the family\u2019s wines for the holidays, auctioning off a private coffee with Ivanka for charity and celebrating the No. 1 ranking of their Scottish links golf course with a \u201cTrump Wins Again!\u201d tweet.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since winning the White House, however, the Trump name also has new strings attached to it, including questions about how to handle security around the world on Trump-linked properties that become inviting terrorism targets.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf something happens on a Trump building outside the U.S. and people get hurt, that\u2019d make Benghazi look like nothing,\u201d warned Richard Painter, a former top ethics lawyer from George W. Bush\u2019s White House.<\/span><\/p>\n

Painter last Friday also joined more than a dozen public interest groups and several former GOP elected officials in a letter to Trump pleading with the president-elect to go beyond just handing organizational control of his business over to his children.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBy combining your presidency with your family business, you will create ongoing conflicts of interest and credibility problems for your presidency,\u201d wrote the group, which includes the Project on Government Oversight, Public Citizen and former New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman.<\/span><\/p>\n

Norm Eisen, former top ethics lawyer in Barack Obama\u2019s White House, said in a statement Monday that by delaying his announcement this week, Trump was sending a \u201cpositive sign\u201d that he still could sell off his company and move the assets into a blind trust. \u201cLet’s hope he takes the additional time to do the right thing,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:- http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2016\/12\/trump-to-delay-news-conference-announcing-business-plans-232535<\/span><\/div>\n

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