Office Of Government Ethics Director Blasts Trump Plan: 'Wholly Inadequate'

"The President can't have a conflict of interest"  the President Elect said today. If it means anything it is  that the President is exempt from the disclosure and divestiture requirements of the Ethics in Government Act.  Despite that exemption every President in the past forty years has divested himself of his assets, and has disclosed his tax returns.  Trump refuses to do either.  His sons will run his companies.

The President of course can have a conflict of interest. We have a criminal law called honest services fraud 18 U. S. C. §§1343, 1346, 1349.   “[H]onest services fraud” occurs when a public official deprives citizens of their “right” to the official’s honest service by accepting bribes or self-dealing.  Donald Trump is poised to violate that law every minute of every day.  Want to get on the good side of the President?  Rent the Presidential suite at his hotel down the street from the White House.  Let him know when you see him.
Today, a few hours after Trump announced his intentions at a press conference, Walter Shaub, Director of the independent Office of Government Ethics, spoke plainly.  He demanded that Trump sell his companies and put the proceeds in a blind trust. - gwc

Office Of Government Ethics Director Blasts Trump Plan: 'Wholly Inadequate'

In an extraordinary move, the director of the Office of Government Ethics publicly criticized Trump’s plan to separate his business interests from his presidential tenure, saying the plan Trump announced Wednesday at a news conference “doesn’t meet the standards” that other presidents, or even some of Trump’s nominees, had met.

"I wish circumstances were different and I didn't feel the need to make public remarks today,” Walter Shaub Jr. said Wednesday, according to the TRANSCRIPT of his speech at the Brookings Institution, reported the  Associated Press.