President Trump Conflict Of Interest: Is Donald Trump Even Attempting To Avoid Any Conflicts Of Interest As He Moves Into The White House?
A Trump conflict of interest is one of the principal concerns that most people have about a Donald Trump presidency. Whereas most presidents have in the past created blind trusts and other financial locked boxes to ensure a separation between their fortunes – if any – and their presidential duties and decisions, Donald Trump seems to of done almost nothing in this regard.
Financial Interests of Donald Trump
Conflict of interest issues could easily arise from any number of Donald Trump’s various financial investments around the world. But not only does Trump have massive investments in real estate in New York, Florida, Scotland, and elsewhere across the globe, he also has massive debts to individuals and organizations unknown.
Because Trump has chosen not to reveal his full and complete tax returns – as most other presidents have over the last 50 years – it’s difficult to be certain just what his real financial position is. Donald Trump claims to be a mega-billionaire, but whether this is actually true when taking into account his debts is unclear.
As reported by the Washington Post, there is reason to believe that Donald Trump may owe hundreds of millions of dollars to somewhat opaque and menacing Russian investors. Trump seems to have turned to these financing sources when American banks – quite reasonably turned off by Trump’s willingness to declare bankruptcy at the drop of a hat – became very reluctant to lend him and his company money.
Trump’s Top Adviser Son-In-Law Has A Potential $2.7 Billion Obamacare Conflict Of Interest. https://t.co/7vZCtG1n4W pic.twitter.com/cy6j5uaUZ7
— Tomthunkit™ (@TomthunkitsMind) December 30, 2016
The extent to which Donald Trump would be able to ignore such foreign obligations – and the impact that such obligations have on his company – when making policy decisions that in turn might affect Russian interests is very much open to debate. Trump has already made it quite clear on numerous occasions – both in speeches and in his tweets – that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is likely to be his best friend in the whole world once he’s installed in the White House.
But that’s hardly the limit of Trump’s potential conflicts of interest. Following his election as president, Trump also entertained a number of business partners from India, many of whom mentioned how valuable it would be to them to be able to say to prospective clients that they were business partners of the president of the United States. Donald Trump said and did nothing to discourage such statements and conclusions by his business partners.
Similarly, Trump later called the President of Argentina and – according to The Hill– is alleged to have asked the president there to smooth things over with a building project Trump was trying to get underway in Buenos Aires. If that’s not a conflict of interest, it’s difficult to think what might be.
It should be noted that both Donald Trump and Argentina’s President deny that such a suggestion was made at any point during their phone call. Of course, if the conversation did occur as reported, you would hardly expect them to admit it to the press.
Trump’s utter refusal to liquidate his assets and put them in a financial locked box under someone else’s care is also deeply troubling. While Trump claims that he’s going to place the control of the Trump Corporation in the hands of his adult children, whether this really counts as distancing himself from his business while President is questionable. Again, such a situation could inevitably lead to a Trump conflict of interest in the Donald Trump White House.
[Featured Image by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
