Besides being the current Republican Party nominee for president, Donald J. Trump is world-famous largely for his business success. He’s a billionaire—or so he claims, even though he still hasn’t disclosed his tax returns—and he reportedly owns and operates a whopping 500 companies.
When it comes down to it, his business success is considered by many to be his greatest asset. He touts his ability and skill to “get things done,” to work with and negotiate “tough, but fairly” with those he disagrees with such as China or Russia. He’s the “can do” candidate that has, like Mitt Romney before him, “signed the front of a check, not just the back.”
He claims that he’ll “Make America First Again,” but the truth may be that the size and international scope of Trump’s businesses place him in a historic ethical conflict of interest that may compromise and endanger the safety and interests of the American people.
Just for contrast, let’s look at some of the conflict of interest charges that the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee have lodged against Hillary Clinton. For example, there’s the claim that she took money from foreign kings:
The former chairman of the Wisconsin GOP appeared on the program after U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who declared for president several days before Clinton did. Paul told host Bob Schieffer that Clinton will have a problem with women voters because "she has taken money from countries that abuse the rights of women," and he referred to Saudi Arabia.
Schieffer later noted that Saudi Arabia had given money to Clinton’s foundation, and then while interviewing Priebus, said Clinton couldn’t use that money personally. Schieffer added:
"But it also occurs to me, a lot of your candidates and the Democrats as well, are going to be taking campaign contributions that we are never going to know where they come from -- but now you can give these unbelievable amounts of money without any accounting of where the money comes from."
Priebus replied with a claim about kings and cash:
"But the difference is, all those other entities -- Super PACs, parties, individual candidates -- they can't take money from kings of Saudi Arabia and Morocco and Oman and Yemen, and that's what Hillary Clinton did. And so she's going to have to account for this money."
Point of fact: While she was a senator and secretary of state, Hillary Clinton did not run the Clinton Foundation. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, did. Her daughter Chelsea works for the foundation, but Hillary Clinton did not personally profit from the foundation or engage in fundraising for it until after she left government service in 2013. She then resigned from the foundation before she announced her candidacy for president in 2015.
The Clinton Foundation is a charity, and the money pledged to it by countries all over the world is used to fight AIDS and hunger internationally, not line Bill and Hillary’s pockets. Saudi Arabia did give to the foundation but stopped while Clinton was in office as secretary of state, although some other countries did contribute for efforts such as earthquake relief in Haiti. They were allowed to do so following an agreement the foundation made with the Obama administration and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to limit foreign government donations while Hillary was secretary of state.
Most of the contributions were possible because of exceptions written into the foundation’s 2008 agreement, which included limits on foreign-government donations.
The agreement, reached before Clinton’s nomination amid concerns that countries could use foundation donations to gain favor with a Clinton-led State Department, allowed governments that had previously donated money to continue making contributions at similar levels.
Yes, some of these countries do have human rights and women’s rights issues. But what is the logic of not accepting donations to do positive work to fight AIDS and help earthquake survivors, simply because the money coming from Qatar or the United Arab Emirates? They’re doing good work here, so why not let them? Isn’t the goal to encourage better behavior from these countries?
So yes, the concerns raised here are legitimate and both the foundation and the State Department. took steps to limit the ability of foreign contributions to influence policy. These steps were also taken when it comes to Bill Clinton giving overseas speeches, which were pre-cleared by the ethics division of the State Department. Overall, the Clintons clearly made a good faith effort to avoid ethics issues, but that is not to say that their agreement didn’t need some tweaks—it did, and it does.
“In future requests, I would suggest including a statement listing whether or not any of the proposed sponsors of a speaking event have made a donation to the Clinton Foundation and, if so, the amount and date,” wrote Jim Thessin, then the State Department’s top ethics approver and No. 2 lawyer.
Both the department and the Clinton Foundation this week defended the pact that enabled Bill Clinton to conduct private business dealings while Hillary Clinton served in public office, saying it went beyond government ethics requirements. Hillary Clinton has said the couple was “dead broke” when they left the White House in 2001, but they quickly amassed tens of millions of dollars through investments, book royalties and paid speeches around the globe.
As you can see, even with an ethics review and an agreement to limit foreign government contributions (though they were still allowed if the country had previously given), these can be thorny issues to deal with—and we’re not talking about money that was, or is currently going to Hillary Clinton. We’re talking about a charity run by her family. And yes, Bill and Hillary are now wealthy as a result of their books and speeches—but isn’t that what we’re supposed to be praising Donald Trump for?
Exactly how much Trump gives to charity is unclear, but on the other hand, it’s clear he has his fingers dipped into profit pies all over the globe.
Mr. Trump lists 515 companies in which he is a trustee, president, chairman or member. Many are limited liability corporations attached to Mr. Trump’s real estate holdings, including properties in Panama, Istanbul, Mumbai, Puerto Rico and Dubai. Of the 515 entities, at least 391 bear his name.
So what happens when we think about how this type of situation would play out for Donald Trump, who isn’t running a charity, but instead 500 for-profit businesses?
CNNMoney interviewed ethics lawyers who worked for President George W. Bush, presidential candidates Bob Dole, John Kerry, John McCain and Mitt Romney, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. They all said that Trump would have more potential business conflicts than any former president.
Trump has not committed to selling his businesses, and instead he has said many times that his children and executives would manage them. "This is certainly going to present an unprecedented ethical dilemma if Trump wins," said Kenneth Gross, a partner at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, who provided legal assistance to several presidential candidates during their campaigns. "He can't just get amnesia. He's stuck with the knowledge of what he owns."
A President Trump would not be required by law to sell or divest from his private business holdings—that is only required of officials who have been appointed, not elected. This is why former Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson sold all of his stock in the company before becoming Treasury secretary in 2006.
But even if the law doesn’t require it, it’s been fairly common practice among presidential candidates to take this issue off the table.
Mitt Romney put his assets into a blind trust during the 2012 presidential campaign. So did Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. The late Jack Kemp left his seat on Oracle's board during the 1996 election. And Nelson Rockefeller offered to put his substantial holdings into a trust while being confirmed by the Senate to serve as Gerald Ford's vice president in 1974.
Even Jimmy Carter relinquished control of his peanut farm when he ran for president. But there was one elected official who didn’t fully divest himself. Guess how that turned out.
Dick Cheney, while serving as vice president, retained the $34 million in Halliburton stock options he was granted during his tenure as the company's CEO. Though he pledged to donate to charity any money he made off the options, they became a major political issue when the United States went to war in Iraq.
Cheney may have donated the money to charity, but does anyone truly believe that KBR and Halliburton becoming a major contractor that made $39 billion on the Iraq War was just a happy coincidence? And Cheney wasn’t a controlling interest party in the company, nor did either of his daughters Liz and Mary work for Halliburton.
But Trump is, and his children do. And he hasn’t said he would divest himself or offered to give all his profits to charity. Whatever his company has made once he’s no longer president, he’s going to keep. In fact, he has only suggested that he would create a trust and have his children run his businesses while he’s president. But there are big problems with that plan.
“If I win, even though I don’t have to do that I would probably put everything in trust,” he said on Friday, acknowledging the fact that legally, he doesn’t have to abandon his businesses if he doesn’t want to. “My children will run it along with my executives. It’s a big company. My children will run it along with my executives, and just do a good job running it.”
But here’s the problem: According to government ethics experts, Trump’s plan won’t actually absolve him of his nearly endless conflicts of interest.
The ethical problem with Trump's plan is, at its core, nepotism. Under most conflict of interest laws (laws that, again, don't apply to the president), the interests of your family -- your children, your siblings, your spouse -- count as your own. Under most conflict of interest laws, elected officials cannot participate in decisions where the outcome would impact the financial interests of their families. "There's always been a sense that something that benefits the interests of your children creates just as much of a conflict as something that benefits you," said Noah Bookbinder, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "So that doesn't really get him anywhere, as I see it."
Trump knows what he owns. How does he make decisions on the world stage, and renegotiate trade deals, when he knows those decisions will have an massive impact on the companies he and his children still profit from? We don’t even have to wait for the November election to see how this is a total clusterfuck on the horizon, as we learned this week that the woman who aided Melania Trump in plagiarizing Michelle Obama may have violated campaign laws in the process.
According to the Post, Meredith McIver, 65, is a full-time employee of the Trump Organization and not a paid campaign staffer. She took responsibility for lifting two passages from Michelle Obama’s 2008 convention speech for Melania Trump’s highly-anticipated Monday night speech.
“On the face of it, this looks like a corporate violation,” Lawrence Noble, general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, told the Post. That is “a violation of federal law. It can result in civil penalties to the corporation and the campaign.”
And even though this could have been done legally, it appears that didn’t happen.
Trump’s campaign can use his corporate employees for political work if they properly account for it and if the work is compensated by the campaign, not Trump’s corporate coffers.
It’s possible Trump’s organization is “paying in advance for the use of staff.”
Campaign records obtained by the Post don’t show any records of payment from the campaign to McIver.
The New York Daily News also reported McIver is a registered Democrat.
This is completely bush league. It’s pathetic mismanagement. Stealing someone else’s words is bad, but the repeated denials and lies from campaign manager Paul Manafort, and even an RNC official who got desperate enough to cite My Little Pony, were a complete horror show. And it was his business associates who did that, not the campaign. This is how Trump operates, how he does his business. He would have to completely sell all his assets, something he probably couldn’t do between now and the election, or else place it in a double-blind trust out of his control and the control of his family. But that, judging by how stubborn Trump has been whenever his businesses have been criticized about anything, isn’t going to happen.
And this is a business empire with more than 3,500 lawsuits against it.
Donald Trump is a fighter, famous for legal skirmishes over everything from his golf courses to his tax bills to Trump University. But until now, it hasn’t been clear precisely how litigious he is and what that might portend for a Trump presidency.
An exclusive USA TODAY analysis of legal filings across the United States finds that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and his businesses have been involved in at least 3,500 legal actions in federal and state courts during the past three decades. They range from skirmishes with casino patrons to million-dollar real estate suits to personal defamation lawsuits.
The sheer volume of lawsuits is unprecedented for a presidential nominee. No candidate of a major party has had anything approaching the number of Trump’s courtroom entanglements.
Hundreds of those suits are from contractors who he refused to pay after they did their work.
Donald Trump casts himself as a protector of workers and jobs, but a USA TODAY NETWORK investigation found hundreds of people – carpenters, dishwashers, painters, even his own lawyers – who say he didn’t pay them for their work.
During the Atlantic City casino boom in the 1980s, Philadelphia cabinet-builder Edward Friel Jr. landed a $400,000 contract to build the bases for slot machines, registration desks, bars and other cabinets at Harrah's at Trump Plaza.
The family cabinetry business, founded in the 1940s by Edward’s father, finished its work in 1984 and submitted its final bill to the general contractor for the Trump Organization, the resort’s builder.
Edward’s son, Paul, who was the firm’s accountant, still remembers the amount of that bill more than 30 years later: $83,600. The reason: the money never came. “That began the demise of the Edward J. Friel Company… which has been around since my grandfather,” he said.
Another fun fact: Trump and his kids have been named in a $250 million tax scam.
Four Donald Trump-licensed real-estate developments are at the center of a huge income tax evasion scheme, according to allegations in a lawsuit unsealed Thursday afternoon by a judge in Manhattan.
The presumptive Republican nominee is not personally accused. He is described as a “material witness” in the evasion of taxes on as much as $250 million in income. According to the court papers, that includes $100 million in profits and $65 million in real-estate transfer taxes from a Manhattan high rise project bearing his familiar name
And then there’s the out-and-out fraud he called Trump “University.”
Donald Trump “personally pocketed $5m” from his Trump University “scam”, New York’s attorney general said on Thursday.
“This never was a university. The fraud started with the name of the organization,” said Eric Schneiderman, who is suing Trump University in New York over allegations of fraud. “It really was a fraud from beginning to end.”
Schneiderman said Trump “bilked people out of millions of dollars” and promised to “make sure he pays it back”.
“Thousands of people paid millions of dollars believing that he would tell them his real estate secrets,” Schneiderman told ABC News’s Good Morning America. “And we know from his own sworn testimony … that he didn’t write the curriculum – none of them were his secrets.”
Additionally, Trump has been doing business in Russia since it was still the Soviet Union.
Trump has conveyed a different view, informed in part through his business ambitions. Since the 1980s, Trump and his family members have made numerous trips to Moscow in search of business opportunities, and they have relied on Russian investors to buy their properties around the world.
“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” Trump’s son, Donald Jr., told a real estate conference in 2008, according to an account posted on the website of eTurboNews, a trade publication. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”
“We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”
And that money is going to keep pouring in, managed by his children. Those children are also part of his campaign, while remaining his employees. We can take some comfort in the fact that under Obama, the U.S. has been spearheading sanctions that have been crippling the Russian economy in retaliation for their annexation of Crimea and the Ukraine as part of their opposition to the EU and the further expansion of NATO.
But if Trump becomes president, what is he going to put first: His interests—or our nation’s?
See that light? Yeah, that one over there. It’s not the end of a tunnel. It’s the Trump Train headed full steam ahead for a massive, epic ethics wreck.
Heaven help us.
Monday, Jul 25, 2016 · 2:01:14 AM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
Trump's issues with Russia were only one aspect of his potential problems that I touch on but Josh Marshall's must read piece from yesterday does a deep dive into it.
talkingpointsmemo.com/...
He points out that Trump has massively inucreased his debt load in the last year from $350 Million to $650 Million and with his past history of bankruptcies he can't get credit from most major bank and relies on cash infusions - such as a $50 Million from secret Russian investors with ties to Putin in his struggling Trump Soho project.
In turn, or maybe it's just dumb luck for the Russians, the only GOP policy plank that Trump chimed in on was the toughness of our stance to support the Ukraine against Russia.
And it's just happenstance that Putin has aligned all of Russia's state run media behind Trump, right? He couldn't be looking to get a big payday for his oligarch's decades long investment in Trump could he?
There is even a wild argument being made that it was the Russians who hacked the DNC servers to post their dirty laundry over internal comment's about Bernie Sanders. Crazy right? Yeah, but the Russians did hack the DNC.
inhomelandsecurity.com/...
In a major cybersecurity breach, Russian hackers broke into the networks of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and accessed a database containing research conducted on GOP presidential front runner Donald Trump.
The Washington Post first broke the news Tuesday. The Post also reported that the hackers compromised all email and even chat traffic within the DNC’s secured system.
Yet somehow right after this happens it's not Trump's info that ends up on Wikileaks, it's info that helps Trump by forcing Debbie Wasserman Schultz to basically bow out of her own convention then immediately announce she's resigning!
www.huffingtonpost.com/...
That's a little too much for luck, that's tradecraft IMO.
When I wrote this I was considering how much enmeshed foreign investments compromised him, but there may be an even bigger problem with how far Russia, and other countries, are willing to go to get their return on Investment they've made in Trump. And then what happens if they decide to turn off his money spigot if he "misbehaves?"