Category: Trump Conflicts of Interest

The 115th U.S. Congress Sworn In – Donald Trump to become POTUS on January 20th

The 115th U.S. Congress now led by Republicans were sworn in on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2016. The new U.S. Senators were sworn in by Vice President Joe Biden, along with the House members lead by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. This is now the beginning of a total Republican takeover of Washington D.C. to now include the Executive Branch, soon to be run by the new 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump, along with a solid majority of Republicans in both the House and Senate.
You would think that now it’s clear sailing for the Republicans as far as legislation powers go. In a sense, they do have the upper hand with a 52-48 advantage in the Senate and a 241-194 advantage in the House. The fact is that the U.S. Senate only needs 60 votes to approve bills, and you would think that the new Congress will have an easy time repealing Obamacare. Actually that is the furthest from the truth. In order to fully repeal the ‘Affordable Care Act’ known as Obamacare, the Republicans will have to acquire bipartisan support to get their major tasks fulfilled such as replacing Obamacare, or reforming of the immigration system. Even passing spending bills or raising the federal borrowing limit will require help from the Democrats to get things moving forward.
Nevertheless, the Republican agenda for January and February is to accomplish more in under 90 days then the Congress even attempted to handle the entire year of 2016. Their efforts will be bogged down at first, with the Democrats promising a fight with Senate confirmations, especially during the upcoming Senate confirmation hearings of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, picked by President-Elect Donald Trump as his Secretary of State, and Senator Jeff Sessions as his Attorney General. With Tillerson’s ties with Russia, both the Republicans and Democrats will vet Tillerson in his confirmation hearings, which may not turn out well. How will Tillerson handle Russia after receiving that countries ‘Order of Friendship’ award’ in 2013, now that he is supposed to represent the values of the United States in the political arena, not as a CEO of an oil business?

Why did Tillerson receive the reward? As reported in the Washington Post in an article by David Filipov on December 13, 2016,

“Tillerson won the award after signing deals with the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft, whose chief, Igor Sechin, is seen as Putin’s loyal lieutenant. The partnership had begun a drilling program in the Arctic’s Kara Sea, where Exxon made a find, and had agreed to explore shale oil areas of West Siberia and the deep waters of the Black Sea. But then U.S. sanctions against Russia over the annexation of Crimea kicked in, and the partnership was put on hold.”

If Tillerson is not confirmed, then who may be Donald Trump’s second choice? Maybe Donald Trump may call on Mitt Romney for his second choice as Secretary of State after Trump finally figures out how difficult it will be for him to get what he wants all the time in the  Congress.
In Donald Trumps world of today, he gets everything he wants. When he becomes the President of the United States (POTUS) on January 20th, he will not have a total say on everything that he wants. He will highly depend on the U.S. Congress to pass all the bills, led by newly elected Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who does not agree with everything the new President will want, along with Mitch McConnell, who also believes that Trump is already stepping over the line when it comes about speaking in favor of Russian President Putin. He will also be sidetracked many times, beginning with the onslaught by Democrats with all of the  ‘conflicts of interest’ charges that he will face.

The question is not only how will Trump handle the U.S. Congress and issues regarding the national front, but how he and his newly confirmed Secretary of State can handle problems throughout the world, beginning with issues from Syria, North Korea, China and Iran, not to mention ISIS.

There are even more questions. Where will Donald Trump get the money or the support from the new Congress to build the wall on the Mexican border? Does anyone actually believe he will be able to get the money from Mexico? What does he plan to replace ObamaCare with, how does he pay for it? What Executive orders does he plan to reverse on day one? Will he commit U.S. Troups to wars in the Mideast? Will he attack North Korea? Will he become good friends with Russia, On the home front, will he kill Medicare or Medicade? So many questions, and so far, no answers.

On day one, January 20th, President Trump will inherit ALL of the problems of this country. He will have to make decisions every day on national and foreign fronts. I will support him publically on this blog when he does the right thing, and I will flog him with my comments when he does the wrong thing.  His first 100 days in office will be the telling tale of his presidency, and I’m wishing him well, but I truly don’t expect him to survive the onslaught of problems he will inherit. He’s chosen many people in his cabinet with no experience and expects them to help him make decisions of great importance to our security and future as a free country.

Issues Rising from Trump Decisions as President-Elect

 

Not a good decision

As the editor of this blog, I am trying to keep my opinions nutural, but it seems that I’m going to have to have so much to write about.  A couple of things have happened today in the news that people need to know about. In keeping with the reason for writing this blog, the decisions made by Donald Trump, I would like to highlight two issues with more details that Donald Trump may not necessarily want you to know about. Many people know that they are happening  because they hear Trump news being reported every day. But not in this detail.

FIRST ISSUE

Bahrain National Day which is held each day on December 16th. Each year, The country celebrates their independence from Britain in 1971. As a country, Bahrain has a terrible human rights record and recently there was a brutal crackdown on an Arab Spring uprising where thousands of people lost their lives and many were jailed by their government.

There is a Bahrain Embassy in Washington DC. Each year a full celebration to celebrate Bahrain National Day takes place. The reception celebration is held at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. One year it was held at the Four Seasons Hotel.

This year, they have decided on a new venue. Instead of the Ritz, it will now the Bahrain Celebration will now be held at Trump’s D.C. Hotel, which is now raising ethical concerns. Details about this celebration to be held at one of Donald Trumps properties can be found in a POLITICO article,presented by Nolan D. McCaskill and Madeline Conway dated (11/29/16). Of course, why wouldn’t Bahrain not want to book their event anywhere except on a property owned by the President-Elect. I guess that the Bahrain formal orgainization does not want to meet President Elect Trump at the Ritz, and that could be understandable, not to mention that it may put a little cash in President-Elects pockets. Is there a conflict of interest here or not? Don’t you think they are trying to get in good with the President-Elect? Of course they are.

SECOND ISSUE

A day earlier on December 15, President Elect Trump had another tweet storm here are some of his tweets….

“to be holding a major news conference in New York City with my children on December 15 to discuss the fact that I will be leaving my great business in total in order to fully focus on running the country in order to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. While I am not mandated to …”

as stated on Donald Trumps Twitter feed account. He also states

” it is visually important, as President , that in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses. Hence, legal documents are being crafted which take me completely out of business operations. The Presidency is a far more important task!”

Originally, Donald Trump mentioned that he was going to allow his kids run his businesses once he becomes president.

There is an office called The United States Office of Government Ethics that sets rules of conflicts of interest in the Executive Branch. They responded to Donald Trump’s tweet today about the Twitter announcement with great excitement but also with great sarchasism.

So now the Twitter war begins….

The Office of Government Ethics tweeted in return..

“OGE is delighted that you’ve decided to divest your businesses. Right decision! Bravo! Only way to resolve these conflicts of interest is to divest. Good call! This divestiture does what handing over control could never have done. We can’t repeat enough how good this total divestiture will be ….”

BUT, here’s the problem.  Who is fooling who here… President Elect Donald Trump never said that he is going to divest his business interests. He never said that he will rescind ownership of anything. What he is actually talking about is just turning over control to his kids.

Now if he did the right thing, for example, announce his divestiture, then for sure that would be a great deal in neutralising his conflicts of interest. If he doesn’t divest himself, in essence, he will be taking a bribs, which what is indicated for the celebration at his hotel. He still is benefiting from his private businesses, monies that he receives specifically because he is going to be President.  That is the definition of ‘conflict of interest‘. It is specifically prohibited by the U.S. Constitution, even if you are president.   But he has made no statement that he will divest his businesses.  He does not plan to isolate himself in ANY way from his financial interests, except that he says his kids will run the businesses. You can read more on his businesses ties and his business empire that he has across the world right here.

To get right with the law, the president-elect intends to sell his assets, and put his funds of his assets in a Blind Trust  to get right with the law. But to date, neither he or his transition team is saying anything of the such.