Donald Trump confirms he will violate Constitution his first day inoffice

During a Fox News Sunday interview, President-elect Donald Trump confirmed that while he plans for his adult children to handle management of his sprawling business when he’s in office, he doesn’t plan to relinquish ownership.

“When I ran, everybody knew that I was a very big owner of real estate all over the world,” Trump said in an attempt to explain away the conflict of interest concerns surrounding his impending presidency. “I’m not going to have anything to do with management of the company.”

But that arrangement would put Trump in violation of Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution, which bars office holders from accepting “any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.” Foreign governments are already booking events at Trump’s new D.C. hotel — a clear example of a foreign state providing Trump with an emolument (“a salary, fee, or profit from employment or office”) that could be intended to curry favor with the soon-to-be-president.

With regard to his plan for the Trump Organization, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace pushed back, asking Trump, “isn’t that a huge conflict of interest?” Trump responded with verbal somersaults.

“They’re going to run my company,” Trump said of his children. “But I’m not going to do deals. And I think — you know, I think that’s going to be good.”

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-ownership-of-trump-organization-emoluments-303b647061a1#.f4gy95g6z