US president-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday said he would leave his business empire behind to focus on his presidency.
However, the prospect that he could simply shift more control to three of his children looked too cozy to some business-ethics specialists, who said the arrangement could bring unprecedented conflicts of interest into the Oval Office.
Trump announced in a series of early morning tweets that he would leave his “great business,” adding: “While I am not mandated to do this under the law, I feel it is visually important, as president, to in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses.”
Photo: AP
Trump provided no details, though he said legal documents were being prepared. He previously had said he would leave his business operations to his three eldest children.
Asked if the tweets indicated plans to move the businesses to the children, Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said: “It appears that way.”
Ethics experts have pushed for Trump to fully exit the ownership of his businesses using a blind trust or equivalent arrangement.
“Otherwise he will have a personal financial interest in his businesses that will sometimes conflict with the public interest and constantly raise questions,” Norman Eisen, US President Barack Obama’s chief ethics lawyer, and Richard Painter, who held the same post for former US president George W. Bush, said in a joint statement.
Trump spent much of Wednesday conducting meetings in his Manhattan high-rise. His pick for secretary of state remains up in the air, though aides say he has narrowed his choices to four. One contender, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, dined with him on Tuesday.
Trump has moved forward with other Cabinet selections, choosing former Goldman Sachs executive Steven Mnuchin as secretary of the Treasury and billionaire investor Wilbur Ross for secretary of commerce.
Mnuchin led Trump’s finance operations during the presidential campaign, but he has no government experience. If confirmed by the Senate, he would play a central role in shaping Trump’s tax policies and infrastructure plans. He would also lead an agency tasked with implementing international economic sanctions.
Mnuchin would follow in the tradition of two previous Treasury secretaries who worked at Goldman Sachs. During the campaign, Trump repeatedly criticized Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton’s ties to Wall Street banks and hit her for paid speeches at Goldman Sachs.
Arriving at Trump Tower Wednesday, Mnuchin said the administration planned “the most significant middle income tax cut since Reagan.”
He also called for lowering corporate taxes to encourage companies to stay in the US.
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