Frank Rich: Dont Be Fooled: Donald Trump Will Never Walk Away From His Businesses

[babylonsister]

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/donald-trump-will-never-walk-away-from-his-businesses.html

November 30, 2016 1:24 p.m.
Don’t Be Fooled: Donald Trump Will Never Walk Away From His Businesses
By Frank Rich


With the potential conflicts of interest surrounding Donald Trump (and his family) inciting calls for everything from a congressional investigation to an Oval Office “corporate monitor,” Trump has announced that next month he’ll hold a press conference to explain how he’ll be “leaving” his “great business in total.” Do you expect to see any distance put between a Trump administration and the Trump Organization by Inauguration Day?

Are you kidding? Not by Inauguration Day, and not ever. Trump may reverse his stand on any issue in any given hour depending on whom he last talked to or which talking head he last caught on cable. But he does have one ideological imperative that has been and always will be sacrosanct: making money any way he can without regard for ethics, propriety, the suckers on the other end of his “deals,” or the rule of law. Trump University was merely a preview of the Trump White House’s coming attractions. He’ll leave his “great business in total” on that same day he releases his tax returns.

The Trump administration promises to be a kleptocracy that will make Harding’s look like an object lesson in good government by comparison. After all, Harding only countenanced the Teapot Dome scandal — in which the secretary of Interior took bribes from oil companies eager to plunder Navy petroleum reserves — rather than masterminding it. Trump, by contrast, arrives in office as the leader of a family syndicate with international financial interests and decades of training in buck-grubbing chicanery. We’re still almost two months away from Inauguration Day, and already the president-elect is formulating foreign policy predicated on promoting his foreign real-estate holdings. His daughter has used her new First Family status to hawk a cheesy product line, and his son-in-law has no interest in deaccessioning his own real-estate empire, which, per The Wall Street Journal, “has hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from domestic and foreign financial institutions” and also “markets condominiums to wealthy U.S. and foreign buyers.”

And let’s not even talk about the financial conflicts of interests of the billionaires and financiers soon to take roles throughout the Trump administration, as exemplified by the presumptive secretaries of Commerce and Treasury, Wilbur Ross and Steven Mnuchin. Even leaving aside the conflicts of interest with their own holdings, they will dismantle scores of regulations that have been enacted to protect consumers, mortgage holders, shareholders, and bank customers. The result will be an orgy of newly legalized larceny that will stagger the imaginations (and pocketbooks) of those generations of Americans too young to remember the Reagan era.

What’s almost poignant is the still-flickering hope that the press might play an effective watchdog role in policing any of this. Investigative journalism about Trump’s sordid business history didn’t turn the tide before Election Day, so why should it now? The voters rewarded him for his bad behavior. He has gotten away with keeping his tax returns secret. There’s no incentive for him or his family to alter their rapacious behavior. The Journal, in its excellent report on Jared Kushner’s business conflicts, writes that there could be legal issues if the son-in-law should rise to “a staff position in the Trump administration.” So what? The workaround is simple enough: Kushner is not named to a staff position and instead serves as an unofficial adviser. He will be free to do whatever he wants with impunity. God knows that Jeff Sessions’s Department of Justice will look the other way if Kushner, like his father before him, crosses any legal line.

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http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/donald-trump-will-never-walk-away-from-his-businesses.html

[spanone]

1. K&R...

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[pangaia]

3. Whats almost poignant is the still-flickering hope that the press

might play an effective watchdog role in policing any of this.

Yeah. Right. THAT'S about to happen, eh.

[Wellstone ruled]

4. Never expected any thing different from

Trump. This whole Election was a Reality TV Show and it is still going. Watch for a some type of Promo to hit the Networks,get your highlights of of my fabulous campaign,really really great price,making America Great again.

[Paladin]

5. Frank Rich nails it, yet again.

Barring some miraculous results from the vote recounts, we are so entirely fucked.

[kebob]

6. Too Many People Have ALREADY Been Fooled

62,686,000 to be exact.

[JI7]

8. not really. most voted for him because of the bigotry

And that's still there.

[Hekate]

7. KnR

[bucolic_frolic]

9. The press? Watchdog?

Seriously? The press, as a conjunct of corporations with corporate employees
and shareholders to please, does exactly what the majority of corporations
want to make money: light on environmental reporting, soft on corporate crime,
soft on CEOs, lax on workers' rights. They scratch each others' backs.

[Barack_America]

10. A transparent production for the Electoral College.

Nothing more.

[jaxind]

11. The Biggest Clue....

The biggest clue that Trump won't walk away from his businesses, is that he came out with a big announcement saying that he would! He seems to love to make these big, grandiose announcements (ex. saved Carrier jobs) just to make himself look good. It's the smart people (non-Fox viewers!) who know his schtick, and know that there's always something dubious behind these announcements that he makes just to make himself look good!

[BSdetect]

12. He does not need to walk away because who will stop him?

He will just tweet some absurd crap to divert attention and give fodder for the msm.

They lap it up.

[babylonsister]

13. I know some folks are trying to

stop him. We shall see. I want to see who is interested enough and principled enough to try even if the outcome is bleak.

[kentuck]

14. Then, he should never be President.

If he cannot walk away from his businesses. Surely no one in America, besides the Trump family, would think his business is more important than America?

[paigeatemyshoes]

15. I don't blame Trump, I blame the media for this.

Trump said the whole campaign his kids would run things. He never said he'd sell everything. When he used the words "blind trust" we knew it wasn't really a blind trust since his kids would be running the assets he owns, and obviously would know what he owns.

The media never pressed him on this as far as I saw. The media never talked about his potential conflicts of interest.

Then he wins the election and people expect him to do the right thing? Doubt it!