{"id":132124,"date":"2016-11-29T10:25:22","date_gmt":"2016-11-29T17:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/11\/29\/will-this-conflict-of-interest-bite-trump-on-the-butt.html"},"modified":"2016-12-15T22:10:27","modified_gmt":"2016-12-16T05:10:27","slug":"will-this-conflict-of-interest-bite-trump-on-the-butt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/11\/29\/will-this-conflict-of-interest-bite-trump-on-the-butt.html","title":{"rendered":"Will this conflict of interest bite Trump on the butt?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump insists that, as president, he can have no "conflict of interest." He means that legally, but he states it as though it applies ethically as well. Unfortunately for him, it may not apply contractually.<\/i><\/p>\n

Donald Trump's business is leasing the Post Office Pavilion in Washington as the Trump International Hotel (their new motto: "Be sure to stay here if you want the new President to pay any attention to you"). Now, in the least irksome of Trump worlds, this would simply be one of those weird "well, yeah, it's a conflict of interest ethically, but legally nobody can do anything about it" kind of a thing.<\/p>\n

But apparently, the GSA (which administers the property) and the city include some special boilerplate (but important) language in their lease agreements — an agreement that the Trump organization signed:<\/p>\n

'The Post Office Lease differs from many of Mr. Trump’s other business arrangements. That’s because, in writing the contract, the federal and D.C. governments determined, in advance, that elected officials could play no role in this lease arrangement. The contract language is clear: “No … elected official of the Government of the United States … shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom…”<\/i><\/p>\n

_The language could not be any more specific or clear. Donald Trump will breach the contract on Jan. 20, when, while continuing to benefit from the lease, he will become an “elected official of the Government of the United States.”<\/p>\n

[…] The clause is consistent with longstanding prohibition on entering into contracts with federal employees. The prohibition extends to any “business concern or other organization owned or substantially owned or controlled by one or more Government employees.” This “policy is intended to avoid any conflict of interest that might arise between the employees’ interests and their Government duties, and to avoid the appearance of favoritism or preferential treatment by the Government toward its employees.”'_<\/p>\n

The fundamental problem here is a classic conflict of interest. In essence, Donald Trump is both lessor (through the Trump Old Post Office LLC, he has a 60-year, $118M lease) and landlord (as the executive head of the US Government, which owns the property). How the GSA handles the property directly benefits Trump. What Trump asks for as a lessor he's also ultimately responsible for okaying as the executive management over the GSA.<\/p>\n

The challenge here is … who's going to do anything about it? The head of the GSA, which would normally be the organization to act, is appointed by the President. Congress might prod the GSA to act according to its own policies and contract document — but will it? The City of DC might act here, too — but Congress controls their budget and could, if they desired, remove any funding from any such prosecution. Does anyone else have any standing to get a contract (which will now be, in a sense, overseen on both sides by the same guy) enforced?<\/p>\n

There are words for governments where the leader can ignore the rules that everyone else follows, and doesn't even have to worry about the ones that do technically apply to him. or where the head of the state owns state property that profits him and his family. Let's see if those words apply come 20 January.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nGSA’s Trump Hotel Lease Debacle<\/a><\/span>
\nThe existing agreement presents unprecedented—and intolerable—conflicts of interest.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trump insists that, as president, he can have no "conflict of interest." He means that legally, but he states it as though it applies ethically as well. Unfortunately for him, it may not apply contractually. Donald Trump's business is leasing the Post Office Pavilion in Washington as the Trump International Hotel (their new motto: "Be … Continue reading “Will this conflict of interest bite Trump on the butt?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,374],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-money-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":132091,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/11\/22\/its-good-to-be-the-president.html","url_meta":{"origin":132124,"position":0},"title":"It's GOOD to be the President!","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 22-Nov-16 2:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Imagine it! When you're President of the United States, you never have any conflicts of interest!'\"The law's totally on my side. The president can't have a conflict of interest.\u201d Trump said in an interview with New York Times editors and writers, according to real-time reports from reporters on Twitter.Trump said\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132439,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/24\/interest-in-ending-the-conflict-over-conflicts-of-interest.html","url_meta":{"origin":132124,"position":1},"title":"Interest in ending the conflict over Conflicts of Interest","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 24-Dec-16 3:40pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Despite repeated denials that there are any such things, it seems Donald Trump and his family are taking a number of actions -- insufficient but a start -- to address the problems of family conflicts of interest, now that Donald will be the executive in charge of the Federal Government.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131539,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/14\/trump-doesnt-seem-to-understand-conflict-of-interest.html","url_meta":{"origin":132124,"position":2},"title":"Trump doesn't seem to understand "conflict of interest"","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 14-Sep-16 7:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear Donald: Giving your national and international assets to your kids doesn't mean you no longer have a conflict of interest in domestic and international policy you might pursue.I'm not sure which is worse: thinking that you know this, or thinking that you don't know this. Trump\u2019s Plan To Separate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132307,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/its-not-wrong-if-everyone-knows-youre-doing-it.html","url_meta":{"origin":132124,"position":3},"title":"It's not wrong if everyone knows you're doing it!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 15-Dec-16 8:11am","format":false,"excerpt":"Yeah, I saw this quote yesterday and couldn't quite believe it. It's from RNC spokescritter Sean Spicer, who's been working closely with the Trump transition team. 'Conflicts of interest arise when you\u2019re not \u2013 when you\u2019re sneaky about it, when you\u2019re shady about it, when you\u2019re not transparent about it.'No,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130790,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/06\/02\/donald-trump-has-figured-out-how-to-protect-his-business-interests.html","url_meta":{"origin":132124,"position":4},"title":"Donald Trump has figured out how to protect his business interests","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 2-Jun-16 11:05pm","format":false,"excerpt":"1. Run a crooked business.2. Claim that Mexico is an existential threat to the United States.3. Decry a Mexican-American judge who is involved in court cases against his businesses as having a clear conflict of interest because of his heritage.4. Suggest that if he's elected, he'll put a stop to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132440,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/24\/this-is-what-conflict-of-interest-looks-like.html","url_meta":{"origin":132124,"position":5},"title":"This is what Conflict of Interest looks like","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 24-Dec-16 3:28pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Trump's Virginia winery is requesting H2 foreign worker visas for seasonal vine trimming. Leaving aside the whole \"HIRE AMERICAN!\" thang, what we have here is a Donald Trump business is asking for a waiver from a federal government and an agency that will soon be under the overall executive oversight\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132336,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132124\/revisions\/132336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}