I believe that Trump would choose his business empire over the presidency if he had to. Constitutionally he does have to, and its pretty clear. I think he expects to get away with continuing to run his business empire, but congress has the authority to make him choose. If they should exercise this authority I would not be surprised if he resigned. If he should try to keep operating his business empire as he shows every sign of doing, that would be a clearly impeachable offense, and congress should protect America by pushing through impeachment as soon as Trump violates his oath of office, which may happen within hours of him taking it. It is now up to congress to defend America from foreign influence as outlined in the constitution, and it is up to us to stop everything and pressure congress to do their job.
Now, this is the same congress that spent endless money and time going after Hillary for conflicts of interest. The emails that we heard of ad nauseum were important to people because they might provide proof of a conflict of interest related to a couple of contributions that were made to the Clinton Foundation. Now many Hillary supporters thought she was completely innocent, which is possible and quite likely, given that 18 months of investigations turned up no solid evidence, but the election is done, hence the argument is over, and I can accept as a Clinton supporter that this issue went in to the negative column for Hillary and likely cost her the election. We can conclude overall that Americans and especially congressional Republicans think that conflict of interest is a crucially important issue.
The Republican congress needs to be put under enormous pressure to own the principles they so strongly pretend to. The Democrats need to stop everything until their Republican counterparts go on the record demanding that Trump liquidate his assets or put them in a blind trust or similar instrument. They need to bring up this issue every time they are spoken to by the media. No corrupt business before the US government until Trump cleans it up. Everything Trump does as president will be tainted by corruption until he gets is business off his hands and anyone connected to him is divested of his business empire. Any congress members who participate in governing before this issue is resolved will be cosigning this arrangement.
We have a president elect who is already taking bribes from foreign leaders through his business empire. Regardless of all of Trump’s problems and whatever we disagree with him about or dislike about him, we should all agree that this is a massive breach of the constitution and a clear and present danger to our republic.
This is the most actionable item and might provide the best path to get Trump quickly off of the national stage. Many of us think he is odious for America and the whole world for a wide variety of reasons as do I, but most of those reasons do not rise to the level of impeachable offenses. The idea of a president taking bribes through his business does very clearly violate the constitution, and any but the most sycophantic Trump follower should understand why this is a problem for America. I don’t think Donald Trump expected to be president elect and need to be a full time president, and if he thought he had to give up his business empire I wouldn’t be surprised if he resigned before he had to be impeached.
We should not get sidetracked by Trump’s tweets or outrageous comments. These are weapons of mass distraction. Sell the business or get out. If people take enough of a stand, I think he will get out on his own. Outrage on this or any other issue is not going to make a difference. He feeds on outrage. We need action from congress.
There are congress people already taking action toward this end. We need to relentlessly support them and urge our representatives to support them. I wrote a diary about Katherine Clark and her bill related to this issue last week, which I was very happy to see get rec’d and forwarded
www.dailykos.com/…
Current law prohibits federal office holders from engaging in government business when they stand to gain profit. The President and Vice President are currently exempt from this statute. Clark’s Presidential Accountability Act removes this exemption and requires the President and Vice President to place their assets in a certified blind trust or disclose to the Office of Government Ethics and the public when they make a decision that affects their personal finances.
There is another bill up by Senator Ben Cardin regarding this issue. From Politico www.politico.com/...
Sen. Ben Cardin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, plans to introduce a resolution calling on President-elect Donald Trump to take the necessary financial steps to ensure that he is not violating any constitutional limits on a president's conflicts of interest.
Call and write your congress critters! Tell them to support these bills and write their own. They need to know that we are fired up about this.