We begin today’s roundup with The New York Times and its editorial on Donald Trump’s massive conflicts of interest:
Mr. Trump has to know that divesting is more, much more, than “visually important.” Shortly after the election, his lawyer visited the Office of Government Ethics. The agency told the lawyer that keeping his businesses, while legal, would present Mr. Trump with multiple conflicts and create fodder for investigations that could cripple his administration. Its advice was to sell the businesses and not use family members as a fig leaf to hide continuing involvement.
It appears now that the only thing Mr. Trump absorbed from this advice was that it is legal for him to keep his holdings — holdings that exist in many countries and in many industries with foreign partners who are already currying favor with him. He’s noted that after years of ups and downs, his election victory is bringing big money into his businesses. And he seems not at all worried that these involvements could lead him to break the law, by accepting improper gifts or payments from foreign governments.
As of now, Mr. Trump aims to keep every asset in the family, to the great detriment of what he rightly identifies as the “far more important task” of his presidency.
Eric Levitz at New York Magazine:
On Wednesday, Donald Trump was supposed to clarify how he intends to extricate himself from the myriad conflicts of interest his company presents. But he postponed that press conference earlier this week. In its place, the president-elect tweeted his intention to cede managerial control of his company to his adult sons, Eric and Don Jr.
Then, he invited both of those sons to a policy meeting with the leading lights of Silicon Valley. On the very day he had previously promised to detail his plans for evading corruption. Which, to be fair, was clarifying. [...]
Counting the president-elect himself, 20 percent of those present were members of the Trump family. When Trump’s spokesman Sean Spicer was asked why Twitter had not been invited to the meeting Wednesday, he replied, “the conference table was only so big.” That Trump found room for four of his family members but not for one of America’s largest social-media platforms would be less concerning had Trump not said the following to those who were given seats at the table: “I’m here to help you folks do well … We’re going to be there for you.”