President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday morning that he will be completely removing himself from his business empire in order to focus on running the country.
Trump took to Twitter and posted a series of tweets (that I’ve concatenated below) informing America of his separation plans.
I will be leaving my 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 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. Hence, legal documents are being crafted which take me completely out of business operations. The Presidency is a far more important task!
The President-elect also said that he “will be holding a major news conference in New York City with my children on December 15” to discuss details on his exit from the companies that he built.
Whether Trump is simply transferring operational control or transferring his ownership stake isn’t known. Trump had previously discussed using a blind trust when answering questions about conflicts of interest between his businesses and the Presidency.
A blind trust is a legal entity that would hold his ownership stake and be operated by a manager who would have total control of those assets.
A simple transfer of operational management to Trump’s children would do little to assuage concerns of the kinds of pay-to-play of which Hillary Clinton was accused.
Democrats have demanded hearings into possible conflicts-of-interest even before Trump gets into office.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee on Monday asked the committee’s chairman, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), to look into President-elect Donald Trump’s financial entanglements and make sure he’s not breaking the law.
“The scope of Mr. Trump’s conflicts of interest around the world is unprecedented,” the 17 Democrats on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee wrote. “Over the past two weeks, new revelations have raised serious concerns about the intermingling of Mr. Trump’s businesses and his responsibilities as president.”
How separated Trump will actually be from his businesses will become more clear at the press conference on the 15th.
If you want it straight from the horse’s mouth, here are the tweets in order:
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