If only the pesky press would leave him alone, Donald Trump is sure no one else would care about possible conflicts of interest with his business.
"Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world," Trump tweeted Monday night. "Only the crooked media makes this a big deal!" Earlier in the day, Kellyanne Conway, his campaign manager, told reporters she is "very confident" that since the election, Trump has not broken any laws with his business practices. "He has many lawyers, accountants, and advisers who tell him what he must do and what he can't do," she said. "He's a businessman; he is also working to transition." Conway added that we are in "unprecedented times."
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Although Trump has said he will put his organization into a blind trust, "turning the business over to the kids will free up his time but it does nothing to resolve conflicts of interest," Kenneth Gross, an ethics and political law expert who has advised several presidents, told CNBC. "A creator of a blind trust is tagged with the knowledge of the assets put into the trust, and in terms of conflicts his children's interests are co-extensive with his self-interest." The editorial board of the New York Post, which endorsed Trump during the Republican primary, is calling on Trump to find someone else to run his company, since a blind trust "run by his children won't pass the sniff test. After all, if the election had gone the other way, we'd right now be furiously denouncing the idea of letting Chelsea run the Clinton Foundation."
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