ABC News(NEW YORK) — President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday teased a “major news conference” in mid-December during which he said he will discuss how he plans to separate himself from his vast business empire and lead the country.
In multiple tweets, Trump said his children will appear with him at the news conference in New York City on Dec. 15.
I will 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 …
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2016
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 ….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2016
do this under the law, I feel it is visually important, as President, to in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2016
Hence, legal documents are being crafted which take me completely out of business operations. The Presidency is a far more important task!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2016
He has previously vowed to hand off his businesses to his three oldest children — Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric — once he assumes office, and has repeatedly asserted this constitutes an effective “blind trust.”
Trump, who announced Washington, D.C. lawyer Donald McGahn, an expert in campaign finance, as his White House counsel on Friday, said “legal documents are being crafted which take me out of business operations.”
Multiple legal and ethics experts have criticized Trump’s assertions that putting his children in charge of his businesses amounts to a blind trust, which is intended to remove any possibility of a conflict of interest by handing assets off to a completely independent stakeholder.
As president, Trump may be exempt from the main conflict-of-interest statute for federal officials, though continuing to mix his family’s work with official and political business would bring an unprecedented potential for appearances of impropriety and leave him open to the possibility of violating federal bribery law and an untested clause in the Constitution, according to constitutional law and ethics experts.
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