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Why Donald Trump Should Put His Assets in a Blind Trust
Since his election two weeks ago a couple of stories have come to light of what we might call errors of judgment on Trump’s part regarding the relationship between his business assets and his new duties as President. First, there was the presence of his daughter Ivanka at a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Ivanka, you will recall, is being placed in charge of Trump’s businesses alongside her brothers Eric and Donald Jr. In that capacity her presence at this meeting was highly inappropriate. There are also reports that Mr. Trump used a congratulatory call with the President of Argentina to push for building permits for an office complex his company is currently constructing. Mr. Trump and Mr. Macri are apparently old friends and colleagues so I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt here, yet the optics aren’t that great. This is especially troublesome because of three words: The Clinton Foundation.
Conservatives and Republicans rightly excoriated the Clintons for the corrupt relationship that the State Department enjoyed with The Clinton Foundation during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure at Foggy Bottom. Donald Trump himself, rightly, made a big deal of this during the campaign. He needs to remove himself from the appearance of corruption so that his administration isn’t hamstrung by constant accusations of corruption from a hostile media.
Furthermore, as the Cato Institute points out, these small lapses in judgment by Mr. Trump become much more legally serious once he becomes President Trump:
In the text, the Emoluments Clause prohibits any Person holding “any Office of Profit or Trust” under the Constitution from accepting “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” Immediately, it is clear that the text limits the clause to gifts from foreign governments and the officials.
The original public meaning of the clause also confirms this interpretation. Foreign kings and princes once gave lavish presents to American officials, for example, a diamond-studded snuff box given to Benjamin Franklin (then ambassador to France) by Louis XVI. The Framers were concerned that these gifts would corrupt our officials, and so they prohibited them.
The next relevant consideration is whether, if Trump’s businesses receive a “gift” from a foreign government, Trump himself may be violating the Emoluments Clause. There is certainly an argument for this, since he benefits from the gift, even if only by increasing the value of his brand and stock holdings.
Finally, what sort of things would be a “gift” from a foreign state? According to one report, Trump has already asked Mauricio Macri, the Argentine president, whether he would help with permitting issues that are holding up the construction of a major office building in Buenos Aires.
If such a deal was made, would the permit be a “gift” from a foreign state? Very likely. Valuable gifts from members of foreign governments need not come in the form of diamond-studded snuff boxes, they can certainly be building permits worth several millions of dollars.
Given how much Trump values his business empire and reputation the temptation to utilize his public position, even innocently, to affect this private empire will be immense. He should remove that temptation.
Furthermore, Mr. Trump has shown that he values the counsel of those close to him and above all that of his children. He should not deprive himself of the advice of a gifted woman like Ivanka or close confidants like Eric and Donald Jr. Their positions at the head of the Trump Empire would require that they be excluded from his Presidential inner circle. Mr. Trump deserves the counselors he wants to help him achieve the goals he has laid out.
Mr. Trump should put his assets in a blind trust for the duration of his administration. For the good of his businesses, for the good of the country and for the good of himself.
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How would that help? Ok, so Trump and his family have no direct or even indirect control over the business. Trump still knows what hotels and properties he owns, and how his decisions and policies will affect them.
Blind trusts are for stocks and bonds holdings where you can plausibly be unaware of what trades have been made since entering the trust. They don’t work for a privately held multi-national like Trumps.
What is your solution to the potential for massive corruption that this opens our government to?
He should do something to separate himself from his business, but let’s not pretend it’ll prevent the accusations. Cheney was accused of sending business to his friends at Halliburton even though he used a real blind trust.
All the more reason to be as ethical as possible.
Personally speaking I was hoping you had one. There does not appear to be any simple solution to this. TKC1101’s proposition of a Special Master has some merit, an independent observer reporting to a House committee would be a good start. Properly structured this could perhaps create a great deal of transparency, that would settle many doubts.
My solution is a blind trust. If that requires him to liquidate his assets then so be it – that is the price of ascending to the most powerful position on the planet.
Those businesses employ thousands of your fellow American citizens who have put their lives and sweat into making them successful. We owe it to them to keep them running with the best management possible . To put them in jeopardy to please a bunch of lawyers, crapweasel journalists and political nightcrawlers is the height of entitled arrogance.
You have convinced me. The needs of the Washington jackwagons are not worth a tinkers dam.
This has nothing to do with pleasing lawyers or journalists and everything to do with maintaining the ethical standards by which our government is run.
Say he doesn’t divest himself of this conflict of interest – will you hold him accountable for any corruption?
It is frightening to me that people think demanding ethical standards of our leaders is “the height of entitled arrogance”.
Oh and he could sell the businesses as going concerns to other businesses or businessmen without jeapordizing jobs. I’m surprised a businessman like you wouldn’t have figured that out.
Sure , and parents can sell their kids when they need to. Let me make a bold statement. A conflict of interest is the issue. What would happen if the businesses are run and manage to avoid a conflict?
Your prevention assumes a crime. It violates our entire legal philosophy. It is like impounding a car in case the owner might break the speed limit.
Please cite the statute that requires a blind trust. Or any other Orwellian legal theories.
What an absurd analogy – does that mean Trump murdered a “child” when he allowed numerous businesses to go bankrupt?
Did I use the word “must” somewhere in my piece? Required? If so let me know and I’ll fix it.
My presumption assumes nothing other than what would be the most ethical way to handle things. Already there is strong evidence that he has abused his position:
I think it’s in the best interests of Trump’s presidency and our nation for him to avoid the temptation for corruption.
Being President is a privilege granted by the American people, that office requires duty and sacrifice from the man who occupies it. He works for us now – and eliminating ethical conflicts is the least we can ask of a man we have granted such immense power.
Your remedy does not do that. It may put a going concern at risk in the case there is unethical behavior. Thee are other ways to watch for potential behavior that have less disruption.
Maybe this is how we get president Pence.
I have not read all the comments, but what I can say is that while I empathize with those who want Trump to somehow put everything in blind trusts etc., I would think caution is in order so that we do not prevent wealthy people from going into politics.
Personally, I am less worried about Trump doing harm to America by asking for building permits than I was when,as some say, the Clintons took cash to let various government dealing happen like the uranium, arms to middle east countries, Haitti, etc.
Therefore, I ask. What is the greater danger: Trump making some profit due to his standing as president through his business holdings, or making it so that anyone who wants to run for president has to give up their entire life’s business career. Okay, that is a little exaggerated, but the point remains. Some have even gone so far as to suggest Trump liquidate all his assets. Some suggest blind trusts which is probably the “best” idea and one that wouldn’t actually make someone loose their career.
However, will Trump’s holdings be able to survive without his families name? If Trump isn’t the one, or at least his children, who people do business with, will his companies be as strong as they would if Trump’s children run the businesses.
How much more expensive do want to make Trump’s presidential bid to be. How much should it cost to become president?
Well did we give Clinton the presumption of innocence? The whole reason to eliminate possible conflict is to avoid the need for any legal adjudication in the first place isn’t it? If you don’t then you can hardly complain when allegations and investigations start flying. Will Sessions appoint a special prosecutor when the time comes to investigate allegations of Trump corruption? If yes, then I say let it play out that way.
Isn’t the potential problem that Trump will profit by trading government favors in exchange for favors to his business? If a foreign government can gain access to the state department by donating to a charity, why cant they get it by giving a building permit to Trump Inc? I would like to point out that as of now it isn’t actually clear if Clinton violated any laws, but there certainly is a lot of appearance of impropriety. We have a similar situation building and the only difference I see is partisan affiliation.
It’s not to please them. It’s to satisfy ethics requirements. It’s not for their sake, its for the sake of honest government.
God help us.
No it doesn’t. It assumes there may be conflicts of interest and seeks to avoid them.
Again, how would that help? as an earlier comment pointed out, Cheney left Haliburton before assuming the Vice Presidency, we still spent 8 years hearing about it.
The whole blind trust thing hasn’t really been assessed in terms of the complications it presents. This opinion piece is pretty good.
Maybe?
Well, yeah, but that was from the left and they’re crazy. I’m betting that most of them didn’t even know what Haliburton was. To them it was just some boogeyman that got rich by starting wars, and then funneled the money to Chaney. I think that @jamielockett has raised an important issue that we should discuss seriously, but I object to applying the standard of “the Democrats did it,” because when the Democrats did it we reacted and I would like to think that we were being principled and not just hypocrites.
The main point is that Trump doesn’t need it or rather that he would be much too expensive to do anything that harms America if he could actually be convinced to do so.
I am not worried about Trump changing foreign policy on significant interests like which countries are supporters of terrorists just for a 100million dollars. It would not be profitable for him since the risk of being convicted of a crime is not a risk someone with billions of dollars would take for 1 years worth of profits. Also, Trump seems to want to help America. This makes me think that there is a good chance that he would ignore attempts to buy favors that would harm America.
Thus, I am willing to bet that Trump will not be corrupt beyond the level of petty favors, and that isn’t something that a blind trust can solve.
Your level of blind faith is staggering.
I say blind faith, because all the evidence we have — his business history, how he tends to screw the people he does business with, his history of bankruptcies, the fact that he brags about bribing politicians, the fraud of Trump University, his foundation’s flagrant violation of self-dealing prohibitions, his use of campaign donor funds to feed his own companies, and his willingness to just make up facts — all point to the a tendency toward massive corruption.
This isn’t being suggested because it would appease the media; it’s being suggested because it’s the right thing to do.
Good post, Jamie. It is a serious dilemma. We live in a time where the ethical takes a back seat to the practical, and that’s unfortunate. Trump must do something; I’m not satisfied with the blind trust approach, but I am clueless about what could be done.
The Office of the Presidency of the United States is the most powerful position on earth. Those aspiring to it must sometimes sacrifice great things. Mr. Trump has already proven that he struggles to separate his public and private interests – he must remove that temptation for the good of the country, and his administration.
I ask people to consider this: If George Soros had won the election would you be as sanguine about him running his business and activist empire while being president?
Yeah, but aren’t most of his scandals on the level of petty. I mean paying something from a charity or stiffing someone a little (if both are true and intentional by Trump), aren’t they kinda unimportant compared to the country.
If Trump encourages diplomats to stay at Trump hotels, that would be wrong, yes, but not the end of the country.
The question is whether Trump will sell pardons, sacrifice national security for a quick buck, etc. I think that Trump compared to Clinton was no choice.