Paul Seamus Ryan of Common Cause told Right Turn: “Ivanka Trump sitting in on a meeting with the Japanese prime minister is just one of several recent examples of the President-elect and his family mixing personal business with United States diplomacy and foreign policy. This behavior presents an obvious and alarming conflict between the Trump family’s personal financial interests and Mr. Trump’s obligations to act solely in the public interest as President of the United States.” He argues, “Unless President-elect Trump puts his assets into a blind trust, and walls off his children and their personal business dealings from his Administration, his Presidency will be dogged by conflicts and corruption for the coming four years.”
Ivanka Trump, in addition to her role in her father’s business empire, is using her perch to advance her favorite issues. Yesterday she met with Al Gore, who in turn met with her father. She is reportedly moving to Washington, so one can expect that this stew of private business and government influence will only continue.
Ivanka can’t be an influential insider and an independent outsider. Trump can’t have anti-climate staffers and get credit for his climate-friendly daughter.Ivanka Trump apparently wants to champion issues in the name of her father (issues with which he apparently disagrees) all while serving as part of the seemingly porous barrier between the president and his business empire. The Gore meeting highlights that incongruity between the interests of Ivanka Trump and her father. But more importantly, it highlights the extent to which the president-elect’s transfer of his business interests to his kids simply kicks the conflict of interest down a branch on the family tree.
Maybe the prospect of liberal Ivanka Trump (with her pet causes, such as climate change and federal child-care leave) at her father’s ear will finally get Republicans interested in the galling impropriety of this arrangement. So far pressure is mainly coming from good government groups.
“Donald Trump has said that he does not need to place his assets in a blind trust because he will be running the government and his children will be running his business empire with a firewall between them,” Jordan Libowitz of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) told me. “If that were true, then having his daughter sit in a meeting with Japan’s Prime Minister raises serious questions about whether the Trump administration is working on behalf of the American people or the Trump Organization.” He added: “Just whose interests was she there to represent? Having the people running his business be a part of meetings with foreign leaders also raises the risk of violating the Constitution if the Trump Organization is doing business with foreign governments.” Like many ethics experts, Libowitz argued: “The only way for him to avoid these issues is to sell the company and place the proceeds in a blind trust, and, in both cases, do it outside the family.”
So far Republicans are mute, waiting ostensibly for Trump’s Dec. 15 news conference, where he is going to announce his “solution” to the myriad problems his business ties and those of his children pose. What will they do if he comes up with a phony “blind trust” that puts his businesses under the day-to-day management of his children, who then consult with him regularly on issues that involve those businesses?
Ethics expert and former ambassador Norman Eisen of the Brookings Institution says simply, “The Constitution will prohibit her father from receiving benefits from foreign governments come January 20. On the ethical front, it’s wrong for government officials to seek personal financial benefits for themselves and their families.”
The problem is compounded by Trump’s off-the-cuff informal interactions with foreign leaders, without the benefit of normal protocol and State Department assistance. “He should be fully briefed by the State Department before those communications, and he should be strategic as to how he handles the topics they talk about,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Friday. “We do want the president of the United States to establish relations with leaders around the world, but we want him to do it in the context of working with the State Department.” He continued: “This isn’t about him. This is the presidency of the United States that’s at stake. It’s about the national interest. He needs to yield to the advice of experts in the area.”
Actually, this does seem to be all about Trump — and his kids and their billions, their far-flung international business empire and their commingling of interests. If the presidency is important to him — and to the GOP — Trump will be compelled to liquidate his holdings and let the proceeds be managed by a financial institution or independent individual.
If, however, he continues, for example, to maintain foreign assets and remain in debt to foreign banks in blatant violation of the Constitution, Congress must determine what exactly he owns, conduct oversight hearings and enforce the Emoluments Clause, by impeachment proceedings if that is what it takes. (Call Ivanka Trump in for a hearing under oath, if need be, to ask what she is doing in meetings with foreign leaders. There is no daughter-father privilege, so she should be asked what they are discussing.) If Trump does not relent, the Republicans will be forced to defend this travesty in the 2018 elections.
As for the media, every administration official should be buried in Freedom of Information Act requests to determine what, if any, communications are going on between Trump execs (including the Trump kids) and government officials. Each and every interview with Trump, Vice President-elect Mike Pence and GOP congressional leaders should include questions on this topic. If they want to be party to corruption on a scale we have not seen in this country in the past hundred years or so, let them explain it to the voters.