How Will President Trump Deal with Conflict of Interests Without a Blind Trust?

How Will President Trump Deal With Conflicts of Interest Without a Blind Trust?

Donald Trump is the only Presidential nominee in the last 40 years to have the presumption not to make his taxes public.  He has also said that he would not put his ownership of the Trump Organization into a blind trust during his potential presidency.   The blind trust is not required by law for elected officials, but it serves to guard against charges of conflicts of interest. It also guards against the President being unable to sign bills, say on taxes, or in this case, on real estate investments, that would affect his core business. Also, there are government regulations that could affect building safety, planning for climate change and sea level rise, increasing the energy efficiency of buildings, etc., that would affect the Trump Organization businesses. As President, Trump would have to excuse himself from considering such issues, which, presumably would have to be guided by the Vice President. As we will show, considering the vast diversity of his holdings, almost everything would reflect on one of his businesses.

Having argued above why an ordinary President would use a blind trust, we now point out why it would be largely ineffective in President Trump’s case. I don’t recall any previous President who would have held the amount or diversity of wealth and investments that a President Trump would have.  In any case, I don’t think it would matter if he did have a blind trust. He shared the running of his business with his three older children, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump, who are Executive Vice Presidents. Since he appears to communicate with them every day, it is unlikely that a trust would really remain blind. Also, Trump has been in the real estate and building business his entire life. It is unlikely that he would not immediately realize how any tax changes, investment laws, real estate or building regulations, etc., would not immediately affect his Trump Organization and its investments.

Our ever informative Wikipedia describes the Trump Organization as having “involvements in 515 subsidiaries and entities with 264 of them bearing Trump’s name, and another 54 including his initials”. They also state that “The Trump Organization spans a wide variety of industries including real estate, construction, hospitality, entertainment, book and magazine publishing, media, model management, retail, financial services, board game development, food and beverages, business education, online travel, airlines, helicopter air services”.   I leave off beauty pageants, which he has dropped. It is quite obvious that essentially all areas of legislation and government regulation would involve one or several of his businesses, and should disqualify him by conflict of interest from proposing or signing most legislation, or government regulations, without having his ownership of the Trump Organization in a blind trust. Yet, if the success of his Trump Organization rests on his having his name involved to guarantee the attractiveness of his businesses or their successes, that would be gone if he is no longer actively associated in them.

While other past candidates have even put their holdings in a blind trust while they ran for President, Trump has said in a debate that he would not do so, even if elected President, but leave his company to be managed by his children and other executives.

 

About Dennis SILVERMAN

I am a retired Professor of Physics and Astronomy at U C Irvine. For two decades I have been active in learning about energy and the environment, and in reporting on those topics for a decade. For the last four years I have added science policy. Lately, I have been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic of our times.
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