US Politics Mega-thread - Page 6550

Walter Schaub Jr., the director of Office of Government Ethics (OGE) is currently speaking at the Brookings Institution following the press conference held earlier today by President-elect Donald Trump in which he announced his conflict-of-interest plan. Schaub is not buying it.

In a series of tweets, Eric Lipton of The New York Times details Schaub’s take on Trump’s current plan

Although several experts have noted that Trump’s business interests may create substantial conflict-of-interest issues for the President-elect and violate Constitution’s Emoluments Clause, Trump’s legal team has stated that he is going to voluntarily donate all profits from foreign government payments made to his hotels to the United States Treasury and thus put to bed any concerns over this issue.

As Schaub noted, liquidating some of his assets may not be too high a price in order to constitutionally accept his position as President.

Schuab, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, is serving a five-year term which expires in 2018. The Office of Government Ethics is an agency tasked with directing policies on how to prevent conflicts of interest in the executive branch.

On January 12 2017 07:02 Sermokala wrote:

He did make a claim and provide proof to why he says that its fake. You responded that he was useing the term "fake news" wrong. That means that the argument being discussed is what "fake news" is. Your definition of what fake news is doesn't work because you don't know if the news we're arguing about is false or true and you can't argue either way on that. Relying on unnamed sources doesn't translate an article into fake news but when you make an accusation based on that unnamed source it becomes fake news. Reporting on the existence of the documents isn't what CNN did. what CNN did was report on the content of the documents and what the briefing they were used for inferred.

If anyone is playing a shell game with the burden of proof about if its fake news or not its you.

On January 12 2017 07:11 xDaunt wrote:

This is why no one likes to argue with you. I've told you to stay away from the semantics argument countless times now, yet you keep coming back to it. If you think that CNN's report was made according to good journalistic practices, then feel free to explain to why. I think that you're avoiding the real merits here because you know that it's a loser of an issue for you.

On January 12 2017 07:24 Nevuk wrote:
https://twitter.com/EricLiptonNYT/status/819292285317873664
https://twitter.com/EricLiptonNYT/status/819292728194465793
https://twitter.com/EricLiptonNYT/status/819293570494513156
https://twitter.com/EricLiptonNYT/status/819294155964825613


Thought this was interesting. And actually worth talking about, as it isn't just a rehash of old "fake news" arguments.

http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/office-of-government-ethics-head-says-trump-conflict-of-interest-plan-fails/

On January 12 2017 07:25 kwizach wrote:

It's not my definition. It's how it's been widely understood before it started getting subverted and expanded by various parties more interested in discrediting others than in accurately describing what they were labeling. It's also what xDaunt himself recognized as the "true" definition of the label. The "case" xDaunt made to describe CNN's report as fake news did not correspond to the kind of evidence required to label it as fake news under the definition of the label he himself recognized as the true one (and he even hardly substantiated his claim using the expanded definition).

Also, to reply to your comments on the CNN article, no, CNN did not "make an accusation [about Trump] based on that unnamed source". What CNN did is report on what they were told by U.S. officials about the documents, on their existence and on the fact that the allegations they contain were unverified. They did not make claims on the veracity of the contents of the documents or report on the details of those memos, or accuse Trump of anything.


I know you've told me you don't want to discuss semantics. I explained why that's a cop-out to dodge your problematic use of the word "fake news", just like it would be a cop-out for someone to say they're uninterested in discussing semantics once people object to that person's use of "communist" to describe Obama. If you have nothing else to add on the use of the label "fake news", which is what I was addressing, you can stop replying to me.

On January 12 2017 07:37 LegalLord wrote:

You ever sold a multi-billion dollar company before?

On January 12 2017 07:32 GreenHorizons wrote:


But CNN did make a false claim about Trump. It's in their headline, which you don't seem to be acknowledging.

On January 12 2017 07:37 LegalLord wrote:

You ever sold a multi-billion dollar company before?

On January 12 2017 07:32 GreenHorizons wrote:


But CNN did make a false claim about Trump. It's in their headline, which you don't seem to be acknowledging.

On January 12 2017 07:42 LegalLord wrote:

Thought about the possibility that some people might be upset about him having substantial assets in case he happens to become president?

On January 12 2017 07:39 Doodsmack wrote:


That's only if you believe NBC over CNN right now. It seems this discussion is a mess unless we get more info.

On January 12 2017 07:29 GreenHorizons wrote:


"Donate all profits" lol. Besides his questionable past of claiming he was donating things that didn't quite happen, that's hilarious. So his properties could be entirely subsidized by foreign donations and his plan does nothing to stop it, only stop him from turning a profit (on top of the profit derived from the property increasing in value, while also depreciating the appreciating property).

Best of all, it's all legal. And we know if it isn't illegal then it's just noise.

A new memorandum prepared by three law professors, two of whom served as White House ethics attorneys, warns that President-elect Trump is virtually guaranteed to violate the Constitution while in office, due to his international business dealings. They argue that the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution prohibits the President from accepting gifts or benefits from foreign leaders, and that this is all but certain to occur during a Trump presidency.

During a press conference on Wednesday, Trump’s attorney, Sheri Dillion, disputed those claims.

“These people are wrong. This is not what the Constitution says, paying for a hotel is not a gift or present and has nothing to do with an office. It is not an Emolument,” she said.

The academic article was written by Prof. Norman L. Eisen, Chief White House Ethics Lawyer from 2009-2011, Prof. Richard W. Painter, who held the same position from 2005-2007, and Harvard Constitutional Law Professor Laurence H. Tribe, and was published by the Brookings Institution. It discusses the nature of the Emoluments Clause, its application to Trump’s business, and what can be done about it.

The Emoluments Clause says, “no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” The article discusses its history and how they believe it absolutely applies to the President, as well as other federal officials. It cites examples of how past Presidents Andrew Jackson, John Tyler, and Martin Van Buren asked Congress about keeping gifts that they received from foreign officials. In Jackson’s case, Congress said no to a gold medal from Simon Bolivar.

The reasoning behind the Emoluments Clause, the article says, is that a government official who accepts anything of value from another country “can be imperceptibly induced to compromise what the Constitution insists be his exclusive loyalty: the best interest of the United States of America.”

There is some debate over whether the Clause applies to the President, but Eisen, Painter, and Tribe write that “it would require extraordinary legal and linguistic gymnastics to explain how the President is excluded from the Emoluments Clause.” As LawNewz.com has reported, Seth Barrett Tillman of Maynooth University believes that the Clause does not apply to Presidents, and cites George Washington himself as an example of a President who took “diplomatic gifts” without consent of Congress.

Despite this, Eisen, Painter, and Tribe say that not only does the Emoluments Clause apply to the President, but that it “is an easy question.” They refer to a 2009 memo by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel that considered whether President Barack Obama‘s Nobel Peace Prize violated the Clause. While the OLC determined that it did not, the reason was due to the nature of the institution awarding the prize, and not because the Clause doesn’t apply to Presidents. In fact, the OLC memo recognizes that the “President surely ‘hold[s] an[] Office of Profit or Trust,'” as described in the Emoluments Clause.

“No prior president has come anywhere close to Mr. Trump in the scale of possible violations,” the article states. The reason, of course, is Trump’s international business empire, of which he will apparently remain owner while in office, even if he does intend to remove himself from business operations.

One of the biggest concerns appears to be Trump’s new hotel in Washington, D.C. If foreign leaders visit and choose to stay there, Trump benefits. Even if his children are running the show, money would still go to the President’s pockets. And while Trump may not be pushing foreign officials to stay at his hotel, a former Mexican ambassador has said that there will be a “temptation” for some to stay there just to tell Trump they’re at his hotel. The King of Bahrain has also decided to host a reception there, the article says.

There is also evidence that business ties can influence political decisions, and vice versa. The article cites an instance where Turkey’s President Erdoğan ordered that Trump’s name be taken down from Istanbul’s Trump Towers after Trump proposed a ban on Muslim immigration, but then backed off after Trump sided with Erdoğan in his handling of dissidents. As further evidence of the possibility of a future violation of the Emoluments Clause, the article cites a radio interview, where Trump addressed his relationship with Turkey by saying, ““I have a little conflict of interest because I have a major, major building in Istanbul.”

Due to these and other reasons, the professors argue that “it is a virtual certainty that [Trump’s business] would create the risk of divided or blurred loyalties that the Clause was enacted to prohibit.”

So what can be done about this? Well, to prevent any Constitutional violation, Trump and his children could divest themselves from the business, letting an “independent third party … turn the resulting assets over to a true blind trust.” That, the professors say, is “the only true solution.”

That being said, once Trump becomes President, there is always the option of impeachment. The article states that violating the Emoluments Clause would rise to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors” necessary for Congress to impeach.

Whether or not Congress agrees that violating the Emoluments Clause is an impeachable offense, or if Trump’s business even violates it at all, are questions that will very well be raised early and often in Trump’s presidency. What the answers will ultimately be, however, given the Republican-led House and Senate, are anyone’s guess.