Andrew Ross Sorkin (New York Times, 11/28/16): “Some of your critics will deride the corporate monitor as mere window dressing.” And those critics would be right.
Donald Trump is about to become president and immediately begin violating the Constitution. The Constitution explicitly prohibits the president from taking payments and gifts from foreign governments. (Can we stop using the term “emolument“? No one has used it for a hundred years. We want to be clear on what the Constitution means.)
Donald Trump is right now and will continue to be taking payments and gifts from foreign governments in the form of benefits to his properties, unless he dumps the stuff. This is about as clear a violation of the constitutional provision imaginable, so why on Earth do we have Andrew Ross Sorkin (New York Times, 11/28/16) approvingly accepting Donald Trump’s nonsense claim in his letter to Mr. Trump?
You understand the conundrum. “In theory, I don’t have to do anything” to distance yourself from your business holdings, you told journalists at the New York Times last week, “but I would like to do something — I would like to try and formalize something.”
This is wrong. Trump absolutely does have to do something. It’s not a question of his being a nice guy. This is a constitutional provision. The Constitution sets the rules on who can be president and how they conduct themselves. Just as it says the president must be at least 35 years old and must be a native-born citizen, it also says the president can’t take payments from foreign governments.
Perhaps even more incredible than Sorkin’s misrepresentation of the Constitution, his plan is just a bad joke.
Voluntarily agree to hire what is known as a “corporate monitor,” an independent overseer with unfettered access to your organizations who will provide regular reports to the public about any possible instances of conflicts.
Okay, let’s get this one straight. Donald Trump can’t keep himself from tweeting out loony claims about massive vote fraud in the middle of the night. He routinely makes personal attacks on his critics without any evidence. This guy is going to defer to a “corporate monitor” in his actions as president?
So when President Erdogan in Turkey gives favorable treatment to Trump’s golf courses there, is the corporate monitor going to be able to know if this affects Donald Trump’s decision to look the other way as he locks up all his political opponents? If Scotland decides to ban the wind turbines near his resort, will the corporate monitor know if this affects his attitude towards Scottish independence? And, as a practical matter, do we really believe that Trump would be constantly checking in with his corporate monitor anyhow?
Sorkin’s proposal is a complete joke. If we give a damn about the Constitution, Donald Trump has to sell off his empire and place his assets in a blind trust, just like every other president has done for the last half century. (I explain how he could do this here.) If he chooses not to do this, then Trump is constitutionally unable to be president, just as if he was born in Kenya. It’s that simple.
Economist Dean Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. A version of this post originally appeared on CEPR’s blog Beat the Press (4/30/15).
You can send a message to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com, or write to public editor Liz Spayd at public@nytimes.com (Twitter:@NYTimes or @SpaydL). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.
Dean Baker is just making a mountain out of an emolument hill.
Lester: Hope you’re just making an easy joke & DON’T actually believe that it’s not big deal that Pres.-Elect Trump has INTERNATIONAL holdings that INEVITABLY will be impacted by U.S. governmental decisions. There’s NO DEBATE what the Constitution CLEARLY states that no president can get payment or gifts from FOREIGN governments. Unless youthhnk members of the 1% should be ABOVE the Constitution (as well as all the other laws they are rarely held to—like the rest of us “losers”)–then. Mr. Trump should take the SAME action as every OTHER prresident. He’s NOT a “special snowflake” who gets special treatment.
Didn’t a famous President once inform us that “When the President does it, that means it is not illegal”?
Yes indeed. Do you also remember what happened to Nixon?
I don’t believe that Trump will give up his empire. The man has spent his life building his empire and will find some way or loop hole which will allow him in some way to keep his empire.
I think this will be a major problem for him. Since he would be incapable of actually doing it his only recourse is to bury the issue (as Lester is doing above, making a joke [Ha Ha Lester we know your being paid for it so we don’t hold it against you]) This issues should therefore be hammered hard every day from every direction I only hope these sycophantic journalists are up to the task (which they are not obviously) so this will require a tweetswell from below I suppose.
If I am being paid for it, it is not to my knowledge.
But I sure wish I could find someone to pay me for stupid sarcastic jokes.
I’d be richer than Trump.
FAIR, where were you during the run up to the election when this was being discussed? Oh, I remember, you were attacking Clinton. Little late now to start harpingharping on Trump.
Lets be honest if Clinton had won the election news distributors would be attacking her. They have a sole aim to gain readers no matter how they do it. Trump is just the current topic that will cause people to read what they publish therefore that’s who they are attacking.
Trump should stop using all emollients, period!
especially of the orange kind…on his hair.
Doesn’t the Trump family face another issue? The President-elect has indicated that he may give it all to his children. If he gifts his assets to his children, wouldn’t they be subject to tax on the gift, thus he would have to declare the value of his assets, which he has so far avoided doing.
where does the New York Times find these writers, and I love how after they’ve reported on Trump’s taxes, his dodgy dealings, all of a sudden they feel they can trust him to do the right thing and have a cordial meeting with the guy who says wants to open up those libel laws to make it easier to sue the Times and Washington post when they write “hit pieces”, on him. Perhaps this is the NYT doing what they do best, which is rolling over to great power. shameful.
A lot of news outlets assumed that Clinton would win and very few publically endorsed Trump as in my opinion they, especially in the early parts of the campaign never expected him to contend with Clinton therefore they believed they could try and pull Trump apart with there reports in order to gain readers. However now I believe that because he did win the campaign like many others a large amount of news outlets have tried to be accepting of Trump due to the power and influence he could potentially have on there businesses.
Now time to hesitate. Time to liquidate. The assets that is .