2016 Nov 21^st

Emily Stewart has an interesting piece in “The Street.” She describes the conflicts of interest Trump has in just one of his properties, his newly acquired Old Post Office building 60 year lease obtained from the U.S. General Services administration, the head of which he will now be in charge of appointing. He will want major tax credits for developing the building, which will come from the IRS and Treasury, the heads of which he will also appoint. He borrowed 170 million dollars from Deutsche Bank, which faces a 14 billion dollar suit from mortgage investigations by the Justice Department whose head he will also appoint.

Paul Ryan of Common Cause says, “We have landlord–tenant. We have taxpayer-tax collector. We have prosecutor–friend of the prosecuted. These are all of the conflicts that arise in just one relatively minor holding of President-elect Trump through the Trump Organization. We are looking at the potential of the greatest conflicts of interest of any White House of any president in this nation’s history.” The Trump Organization controls more than 500 organizations worldwide. Divestiture of these by Trump is a joke.

Ivanka, Trump’s daughter, appeared Sunday on “60 Minutes.” She took the occasion of her newfound celebrity (Why would they have had her as a guest if she weren’t the President elect’s daughter?) to hawk a ten thousand dollar gold bracelet that her company has for sale. Maybe it’s genetic.

Ivanka sitting in on Trump’s meeting with Indian businessmen who are cooperating on some Trump property construction could be an attempt to push some of the Trump Organization’s business interests toward his kids. The same might be the case when Trump admits daughter Ivanka to his first meeting with Shinzo Abe, the Prime Minister of Japan although that was more like a “meet and great” with no other purpose.

Trump is performing exactly as everyone expected he would perform; his cabinet picks have the American Nazi Party ecstatic and the ACLU appalled. His pick of Kansas congressman Kris Kobach who is pushing for the registration of Muslims is just the beginning. Eventually he’ll want to register everyone who isn’t blonde and put Anne Coulter in charge of the program.