January 11, 2017
NEW YORK \u2014 President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday he will continue to profit from his global business empire after he enters the White House this month \u2014 a precedent-breaking decision that the director of the Office of Government Ethics swiftly condemned as unpatriotic.
At a news conference announcing a much-anticipated plan for dealing with his sprawling company, Trump and his lawyer said the Trump Organization would be run by the president-elect’s adult sons and a longtime company executive, although the president-elect will retain an ownership stake in a trust that holds his business assets.
Sheri Dillon, an attorney with the firm Morgan Lewis & Bockius, said the company will pursue new deals in the U. S. but will not enter new foreign arrangements while Trump is in office.
The steps are to assure Americans that he is \u00ab\u00a0not exploiting the office of the presidency for his personal benefit,\u00a0\u00bb she said.
The decision to stop new ventures abroad was one of Mr. Trump’s few concessions to ethics experts who have warned that the real estate development and licensing company’s international footprint could expose him to conflicts of interest. They have warned that foreign governments might try to curry favor with him or influence U. S. policy by cutting deals with his company and speeding approval for his projects.
The concerns have thrust a typically obscure office into the limelight. The Office of Government Ethics, which advises incoming presidents and their administration officials but is not an enforcement agency, on Wednesday urged Trump to go much further to distance himself. OGE Director Walter Shaub said Trump should sell off his businesses and put the proceeds in a blind trust overseen by an independent manager.
\u00ab\u00a0I don’t think divestiture is too high a price to pay to be the president of the United States of America,\u00a0\u00bb said Mr. Shaub, during a blistering 15-minute critique.
Explaining why presidential appointees, nominees and presidents themselves typically sever all business ties, Shaub said:
\u00ab\u00a0Their basic patriotism usually prevails as they agree to set aside their personal interest to serve their country’s interests. \u00a0\u00bb
Shaub praised some of Trump’s Cabinet nominees for making a \u00ab\u00a0clean break\u00a0\u00bb from business entanglements, singling out Rex Tillerson, whose Senate confirmation hearing to become secretary of state was held Wednesday as Trump was speaking in New York.
The president-elect and his lawyer vigorously defended his plan, saying it would be impractical for Trump to sell off his company.
Doing so, Ms. Dillon said, would create its own ethical questions about whether he was receiving a fair price. And moving too quickly could create a \u00ab\u00a0fire sale\u00a0\u00bb environment that devalued the company to which he has dedicated his adult life.
\u00ab\u00a0President-elect Trump should not be expected to destroy the company he built,\u00a0\u00bb Dillon said.
The business arrangements, announced at Trump Tower in New York during Trump’s first news conference since July, appeared to walk back a broader promise he made last month in a Fox News interview and a tweet that the company would do \u00ab\u00a0no new deals\u00a0\u00bb while he is in office.
Along with Shaub \u2014 who was appointed to a five-year term by President Barack Obama in 2013 \u2014 Republican and Democratic government ethics counselors have urged Trump to take bigger steps.
\u00ab\u00a0Firewalls work in businesses, not in families,\u00a0\u00bb said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight. \u00ab\u00a0Trump’s plan doesn’t prevent his business interests from benefiting him or his family while he’s in office or interfering with his presidential duties. \u00a0\u00bb
Trump stressed that a president is not subject to the same conflict-of-interest provisions as Cabinet members and other government employees.
\u00ab\u00a0I could actually run my business and run government at the same time,\u00a0\u00bb he said. \u00ab\u00a0I don’t like the way that looks, but I would be able to do that if I wanted to. \u00a0\u00bb
Yet presidents have typically followed the same rules as their Cabinet members as a best practice.
President Jimmy Carter sold his Georgia peanut farm when he took office. Soon after he was inaugurated, Ronald Reagan cashed out his personal holdings \u2014 worth about $740,000 \u2014 and put the money in a blind trust.
Trump’s dealings are far more complex; he has struck deals involving hotels, office buildings, golf resorts and residential towers in about 20 countries.
Dillon said the company will add an ethics adviser to its management team who must approve deals that could raise concerns about conflicts. Trump’s transition team has not said whether he will appoint a White House ethics adviser as two previous presidents have done.
Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr. will run the company along with Allen Weisselberg, the current chief financial officer. Mr. Weisselberg began work with the Trump family decades ago under the president-elect’s father, Fred.
Dillon also addressed the \u00ab\u00a0emoluments clause\u00a0\u00bb of the U. S. Constitution. Some lawyers have claimed that foreign leaders who pay for rooms and services at his hotels across the globe would put the president-elect in violation.
She argued that \u00ab\u00a0fair-value exchange,\u00a0\u00bb such as paying for a hotel room, does not run afoul of the ban on foreign gifts or payments to the president.
Nonetheless, she said, the company plans to donate money spent by foreign governments at his hotels to the U. S. Treasury.
The president-elect’s new hotel in the nation’s capital, has already hosted diplomats from Bahrain and Azerbaijan.
___
Associated Press writers Jonathan Lemire in New York, Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Chad Day and Stephen Braun in Washington contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

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