Trump is headed toward an ethics train wreck

[Bill USA]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/01/12/trump-is-headed-toward-an-ethics-train-wreck/?tid=hybrid_experimentrandom_2_na&utm_term=.bfee29bde80d

President-elect Donald Trump’s showy press conference on Wednesday did not put concerns about his conflicts of ethics and potential violations of the emoluments clause to rest. Far from it. Informed observers could quickly ascertain that this was a hoax, not a good-faith attempt to resolve serious ethical problems.

On Wednesday afternoon, Walter M. Shaub Jr., director of the Office of Government Ethics, made clear that Trump had failed to even come close to removing ethical violations that will go to the heart of his ability to govern. Shaub has taken heat for tweets trying to cajole Trump into taking appropriate steps to rectify his ethical problems. But Shaub’s tweets and his willingness to step forward to deliver a tutorial on ethics for the benefit of Trump and the country were gutsy acts of a public servant who sees a gross departure from bipartisan precedent on ethics; perhaps he will goad members of Congress into performing their constitutional obligations.

Shaub cited Trump’s own secretary of state nominee, Rex W. Tillerson, to highlight Trump’s ethical shortcomings. “Mr. Tillerson is making a clean break from Exxon. He’s also forfeiting bonus payments worth millions,” Shaub said. “As a result of OGE’s work, he’s now free of financial conflicts of interest. His ethics agreement serves as a sterling model for what we’d like to see with other nominees. He clearly recognizes that public service sometimes comes at a cost. The greater the authority entrusted in a government official, the greater the potential for conflicts of interest. That’s why the cost is often greater the higher up you go.”

Trump, however, has done nothing approaching this, Shaub pointed out. He dismantled the facade of a “blind trust”:

Stepping back from running his business is meaningless from a conflict of interest perspective. The Presidency is a full-time job and he would’ve had to step back anyway. The idea of setting up a trust to hold his operating businesses adds nothing to the equation. This is not a blind trust — it’s not even close. I think Politico called this a “half-blind” trust, but it’s not even halfway blind. The only thing this has in common with a blind trust is the label “trust.” His sons are still running the businesses, and, of course, he knows what he owns. His own attorney said today that he can’t “un-know” that he owns Trump Tower. The same is true of his other holdings. The idea of limiting direct communication about the business is wholly inadequate. That’s not how a blind trust works. There’s not supposed to be any information at all.

Shaub rapped Trump’s paid lawyer. “The president-elect’s attorney justified the decision not to use a blind trust by saying that you can’t put operating businesses in a blind trust. She’s right about that. That’s why the decision to set up this strange new kind of trust is so perplexing,” he said. “The attorney also said she feared the public might question the legitimacy of the sale price if he divested his assets. I wish she had spoken with those of us in the government who do this for a living. We would have reassured her that presidential nominees in every administration agree to sell illiquid assets all the time.”

(more)

[ciaobaby]

1. Great - but who will do anything about it ?

[Hortensis]

2. It won't be just us. The Republican Party has huge,

deep divisions within it. And this will be a constant generator of unnecessary scandals and controversies that will weaken all factions politically, driving them at each others' throats.

[ciaobaby]

4. One can hope

However, seeing how they all fell in line after he was elected, I am not to sure.
He is bully and a brute and they have been bullied into submission, at least most of them.

[Hortensis]

5. There are huge ideological divisions. They'll pull together

sometimes and have some victories, some big ones, but a huge weakness of extremists of all types is their intransigence and inability to cooperate for long, if at all, with others. Just look at the totally unnecessary ideological collision Bill USA's post on Planned Parenthood describes.

And, yes, right now Trump is able to use "his" thug press to threaten congressmen who step out of line, but how long will that last? Bannon, for instance, isn't really Trump's man, he's just harnessing Trump's power. And most congressmen are really only answerable to the wealthy interests who will fund their reelection, not to their constituents, so Trump will only prevail where his interests run in tandem with the plutocrats', and even the they are in competition with each other for power and have different agendas. For instance, some are aligned with Christian reconstructionists and some are adamantly not, ultimately implacable enemies trying to use each other.

How many in the Koch alliance alone, several hundred strong, really think destroying universal public education would be good for business? Now that it might actually seem to be horribly, conceivably possible?

[greymattermom]

7. What they are proposing makes no sense at all

Destroy public education and increase the H1B salary to 100K. So, who will do the work if Americans aren't educated in STEM fields? Can everything be done in India? Then the US and India will change places in the world.

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Interesting times to come.

[Orangepeel]

6. Teapot onion dome