It’s also unprecedented.
What
is astounding about this is that few seem to care—not the 59 million
Americans who voted him into office because they wanted an outsider who
has never been involved in politics to run the national government, and
certainly not the new GOP Congress that will, instead, continue to
investigate potential conflicts of interest of the Democratic
presidential candidate who lost the 2016 election.
In one of the most shocking U.S. elections in modern political history, Donald Trump has defeated Hillary Clinton.
Trump’s conflicts of interest range from small matters like his investment in a controversial oil and gas pipeline in North Dakota that he may ultimately have to rule on, to large trade issues with China that will affect Bank of China ties to his business organizations that will be managed by his three children.
Presidents are largely exempt from
oversight from Congress on matters of financial conflict of interest,
and the GOP Congress wouldn’t launch investigations of him regardless.
The FBI tilted in his favor in the run-up to the presidential election,
so it’s unlikely it will take an interest in this subject either. There
isn’t anyone left on the playing field in Washington to investigate any
of his potential conflicts of interest.
Trump
didn’t release his tax returns during the presidential campaign, and he
has shown no inclination to be any more transparent about potential
financial conflicts of interest once he becomes president. Despite
intense media pressure on Trump to be more forthcoming about his
business dealings and how they might intersect with the White House,
Trump has simply stonewalled. That isn’t likely to change.
Past
presidents have placed their financial holdings in blind trusts and
released their tax returns each year to show good faith to the American
public. Trump has said he’ll simply allow his children to continue to
run his varied financial interests while he’s president, and isn’t
likely to allow anyone to scrutinize the inner workings of his many and
varied businesses while he’s president.
His campaign personal disclosure form
lists more than 500 legal business entities, as well as 21 large
financial properties that he says are worth more than $50 million each.
Many of the decisions he makes as president will undoubtedly affect
those small and large financial interests, yet there is no mechanism
that can compel him to be more transparent about how those interests
might overlap—and there are no federal investigative bodies either in
Congress or his own administration to conduct any meaningful oversight.
The media will continue to investigate, of course, but Trump has
convinced much of America that the media can’t be trusted.
Take just two examples of how this might work once he’s in office. Trump is a small investor in Energy Transfer Partners,
which is one of the business interests behind the Dakota Access
Pipeline that has spurred dozens of protests. The decision on the Dakota
pipeline could very likely be made from the Oval Office, in favor of
his investing partners. It is an obvious and clear financial conflict of
interest, but Trump has shown no indication that he will avoid such
conflicts—and there is no public call for him to divest his political
decisions from such financial interests.
At a larger scale, the state-run Bank of China has a financial interest or stake
in at least two of Trump’s large real estate properties. During the
campaign, Trump said he would consider trade sanctions on China in an
effort to promote American business interests. Should he follow through
on those campaign threats, triggering reciprocal actions by the Chinese
government, those Bank of China loans to his business interests will be
squarely in the crosshairs.
No
one—other than the media—has made an issue out of Trump’s potential
financial conflicts of interest as president. And in yet another level
of bizarre political irony, one of the central elements of Trump’s
presidential campaign was a populist demand from his followers to put
Clinton in jail for perceived conflicts of interest between the Clinton
foundation and her time as secretary of State. “Lock her up” was a
central theme of the Trump campaign, one that he often repeated from the
podium. But do such potential financial conflicts interest extend to
Trump when he becomes president? Apparently not.
The
sheer irony of all of this doesn’t stop at the White House, either. The
loudest, most vociferous cheerleader at many of those Trump
rallies—where his populist movement was demanding that Clinton go to
jail for any financial conflict of interest transgressions while she was
serving as secretary of State—was former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Like Trump, he was a willing and eager political cheerleader for this
demand that Clinton be investigated and jailed. Both he and Trump have
said they would still consider appointing a special prosecutor to pursue
Clinton.
Giuliani is now the
leading candidate to become secretary of State in the Trump
administration. He has any number of business ties that might come under
intense scrutiny should he, in fact, be named to that position.
Giuliani
has dismissed the questions of any potential conflicts of interest that
might intersect with the State Department. “I have friends all over the
world,” he told the New York Times. He’s said his financial dealings, which ranged from contracts with the government of Qatar
and the huge Canadian company behind the Keystone XL pipeline to paid
speeches to groups with financial interests in countries that he would
deal with as secretary of State, aren’t the same as the charges that he
and Trump leveled during their “lock her up” campaign tour.
And
yet it is precisely the same thing. The question, at least for the
foreseeable future, is whether anyone beyond the media will ever show
any interest in the subject. Congress hasn’t shown any interest. The FBI
isn’t likely to look into it. Trump isn’t compelled by ethics laws to
list potential conflicts of interest when he becomes president. So who’s
left to conduct oversight?
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