The daily business briefing: January 12, 2017

Trump says he won't divest from business empire, prosecutors charge 6 VW executives, and more

Donald Trump stands with children Ivanka and Donald Jr.
(Image credit: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)

1. Trump to hand businesses over to sons, ethics chief not impressed

President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he would not divest from his business empire after he is sworn in, but would turn over management to his adult sons. "They're not going to discuss it with me," Trump said at a long-awaited news conference. He also said his company would not strike any new deals abroad while he's in office. The head of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub, criticized Trump's precedent-breaking plan to continue profiting from his business while president as "wholly inadequate," saying that it is "meaningless from a conflict of interest perspective" to stop running the business without selling and putting assets in a blind trust. "We can't risk the perception that government leaders would use their official positions for professional profit," he said.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.