General problem of conflicts of interest
There is long standing understanding of the problem of public officials having conflicts of interest and the need for prohibitions, disclosure and other ways for avoiding or lessening the problem. Managing Conflict of Interest in the Public Sector
Public officials are supposed to act for public purposes and not to benefit themselves personally.
If public officials have conflicts of interest, there is a risk that they will make decisions and take actions for their personal benefit in violation of what they are supposed to do.
Further, the mere existence of conflicts of interest engenders distrust of the public official, because the public cannot know with certainty that the public official is acting for public purposes and not for personal benefit. This distrust can metastasize to such an extent a public official does not have trust of the voters needed to make and carry out difficult decisions in his public office.
The best solution to the conflict of interest problem is for there not to be conflicts of interest, which can be done by prohibiting them or insulating them by the use of "blind trusts" so the public official does not know what will benefit himself personally.
Disclosure of conflicts of interest is also a tool, but it is not as good a tool as prohibition.
The worst case is where the public official has conflicts of interest and hides the conflicts of interest.
Exemption of President
18 U.S.C. Section 208 is the general Federal law prohibition on Federal officials having conflicts of interest.
Section 202, however, provides an exemption for the President, the Vice President, any Member of Congress, or a Federal Judge.
Until Donald Trump, U.S. Presidents have been sensitive to, and taken steps to avoid, their having conflicts of interest, and Presidential conflicts of interest have not presented a problem for the country before Donald Trump.
Trump controversially started out his Presidency with an attitude and actions that he legally could have any conflicts of interest he desired, and that he would in fact have and pursue personal benefits for himself and his family from an extensive set of conflicts of interest.
For news stories and commentary on this, see Brennan Center for Justice, "Strengthening Presidential Ethics Law", by Daniel I. Weiner, December 13, 2017;
Emory Corporate Governance and Accountability Review "Conflicts of Interest and the President: Reviewing the State of Law in the Face of a Trump Presidency" ; POLITICO "Trump owes ethics exemption to George H.W. Bush", by Josh Gerstein, November 23, 2016: and LAW & CRIME,
"Trump is Right, Conflict-of-Interest Rules Don’t Apply to Him",
by Rachel Stockman November 23, 2016
Past two years
The past two years have evidenced great untoward consequences for the country growing out of Trump's attitudes and actions to keep his conflicts of interest while President and pursue personal benefits for himself and his family from those conflicts of interest.
This has included instances of Trump hiding his conflicts of interest and lying.
Perhaps the leading, most egregious instance to date is the Trump Tower Moscow matter. This was hidden for two years, and information about it, and the consequences from it, are still unfolding.
While Trump had a legal right to pursue his business interests during the time he was running for President, this was a precursor "conflict of interest" that, in the course of two years, morphed into a huge trust problem for Trump and the country.
The precursor "conflict of interest" was that Trump as a candidate may have been secretly doing and saying things to curry favor with Putin in order to advance his Trump Tower Moscow project, and those things were damaging to the country while Trump was helped personally.
For example, Trump alone in the summer of 2016 was questioning national intelligence about Russian interference in the 2016 election. The country's intelligence apparatus is important for national security, and it is important that the country have a legitimate faith in the apparatus so that actions taken based on the apparatus have the support of the country. If Trump undermined that faith by what he said in the 2016 election in order to serve his private interests, that would be very bad for the country and it would engender huge distrust of Trump if this was found out after he became President.
To the extent Trump was currying favor with Putin before the election, after Trump won, he was potentially compromised and subject to blackmail by Putin by reason of what Trump did before the election.
This then gets immensely exacerbated if Trump got Cohen to lie to Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow project.
The upshot of the foregoing is huge damage to the country's trust in Trump, and, if Trump is willing to do the foregoing in service of his private interests and to protect himself, the distrust spills over to many other actions of Trump and what other things Trump may be willing to do to protect himself.
Currently, legitimate questions can arise as to whether Trump's summit with Kim this week is to further U.S. national interest or to distract from Mueller. If Trump is willing to get Cohen to lie to Congress, Trump himself may lie by saying he has removed the North Korea nuclear threat, when in fact it has not been removed.
Kim is presumably aware that Trump is weakened by widespread distrust of Trump in the United States and Kim potentially can take advantage of the distrust in whatever agreement is made at the summit.
During the past two years Trump has had many other conflicts of interest that are harmful to the country in the way described above.
Republican complicity
For two years the Republicans have enabled Trump's conflicts of interest and increased the problem for the country of Trump's conflict of interests.
The Democrats won the House of Representatives in the 2018 election and should endeavor to undue the damage that the Republicans have done in enabling Trump's conflicts of interest for two years.
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