Can we please dispense with this notion? I have been watching Sean Spicer spin his way through this morning’s press conference. He blithely dismissed a reporter’s question about Trump’s business interests contrasted with the duties of the presidency with that same misleading line: “The president can’t have a conflict of interest by law.” Trump has also trumpeted that line.
Yes, Sean and PEOTUS, he or she can. Just because there is no law barring the President from having a conflict of interest, does not mean that Presidential conflicts of interest don’t exist. I know the reason for this exemption is the idea that the President wields so much power that any action taken by him or her could be construed as a conflict of interest. And Congress believed (evidently wrongly) that the President would always act in the interest of the United States when confronted by any potential conflicts.
It appears the Trump team interprets this two ways. Both are equally dismaying. First is that Trump seems to believe that if it isn’t illegal, that must mean that he is free to pursue his business interests. And by a strange twist of logic, because anything he does could present a conflict of interest, then nothing he does is a conflict of interest—they just do not exist for the President of the United States because he is so powerful.
The second interpretation is just as bad. For the Trump team, “L’etat, c’est Trump.” Trump, ever the narcissist, may well believe that he is God’s gift to the United States, if not the world. He is the bestest, smartestest, powerfulest, everythingest person ever to exist, and he sees himself as the ultimatest, perfectest American.
If it’s good for Trump, then it must be good for the country, right? See? No conflicts of interest.