So Turkey is putting that pressure on Trump?
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88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
President-Elect Trump Postpones Business Conflicts Announcement
December 12, 20166:43 PM ET
JASON SLOTKIN DOMENICO MONTANARO
President-elect Donald Trump's organization holds the lease on, and has opened a hotel in, a prominent building in Washington, D.C., one of many business interests that could lead to conflicts with his role as president.
Jon Elswick/AP
Donald Trump has canceled a planned news conference for Thursday intended to address potential business conflicts he may face as president.
"The announcement will be in January," Trump transition adviser Sean Spicer told NPR.
As Bloomberg News, which broke the story,reports:
"Trump had planned to make the announcement Dec. 15 but wants more time because he's been occupied with filling out his cabinet and top administration posts, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. He's preparing to reveal his choice for secretary of state as soon as Tuesday, they said.
"The president-elect has consulted various legal specialists as well as Don McGahn, his pick for White House counsel, about how to deal with his organization, the officials said. A new date for the announcement hasn't been set, but it will be before his inauguration on Jan. 20, they said.
"Trump has about $3.6 billion of assets and $630 million of debt held in more than 500 companies, according to a July analysis by Bloomberg. His golf developments, tenant rosters, loans and licensing arrangements tie him to businesses and governments in 20 countries. Those ties risk hobbling his presidency with questions about motives for his policy and may raise constitutional issues."
President-Elect Trump Postpones Business Conflicts Announcement
I'll just leave this here.
December 12, 20166:43 PM ET
JASON SLOTKIN DOMENICO MONTANARO
President-elect Donald Trump's organization holds the lease on, and has opened a hotel in, a prominent building in Washington, D.C., one of many business interests that could lead to conflicts with his role as president.
Jon Elswick/AP
Donald Trump has canceled a planned news conference for Thursday intended to address potential business conflicts he may face as president.
"The announcement will be in January," Trump transition adviser Sean Spicer told NPR.
As Bloomberg News, which broke the story,reports:
"Trump had planned to make the announcement Dec. 15 but wants more time because he's been occupied with filling out his cabinet and top administration posts, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. He's preparing to reveal his choice for secretary of state as soon as Tuesday, they said.
"The president-elect has consulted various legal specialists as well as Don McGahn, his pick for White House counsel, about how to deal with his organization, the officials said. A new date for the announcement hasn't been set, but it will be before his inauguration on Jan. 20, they said.
"Trump has about $3.6 billion of assets and $630 million of debt held in more than 500 companies, according to a July analysis by Bloomberg. His golf developments, tenant rosters, loans and licensing arrangements tie him to businesses and governments in 20 countries. Those ties risk hobbling his presidency with questions about motives for his policy and may raise constitutional issues."
President-Elect Trump Postpones Business Conflicts Announcement
I'll just leave this here.
I cant imagine that it was unless you think the average voter rides the shortbus. Any time there are business deals overseas it could conflict with "national interests". It was inherent to and intrinsic in Trump as a businessman running for office. I just dont think people cared and/or didnt mind if the "national interests" changed a little where there were additional business opportunities for US countries that Trump has access to. It was the only thing that could remotely be spun as to Trump having foreign policy/business experience that could translate into skills as a public servant.
Dusty Bake Activate
Fukk your corny debates
If you really think the average voter went into the booth with full kmowledge of Trump's shady overseas business ties and their potential national security implications I don't know what to tell you.
Erdogan already pulling his card.
Certainly not full knowledge but with basic comprehension. Its no mystery to anyone that he has foreign dealings and its a logical extension to say that they wouldnt always align with national policy.
Plus, you could have made this thread when the Eichenwald article you linked dropped since it details Erdogan and Turkey in it. Seems like Eichenwald just has his panties in a bundle because he may have more vindication in what he previously wrote.
Ill wait for the news tomorrow but im not necessarily sitting on pins and needles
Ill wait for the news tomorrow but im not necessarily sitting on pins and needles
Dusty Bake Activate
Fukk your corny debates
Yeah, yeah the president has contractual business obligations that can't be rescinded immediately in several nations, some of whom have interests that are detrimental to the US and essentially have blackmail power over him, Erdogan is about to shut down Trump towers in Istanbul unless he does favors like extraditing Gulen but it's no big deal. We get it.
Not saying its not a big deal, I just want to actually know what is dropping tomorrow before i make a true judgment on its seriousness
southpawstyle
Superstar
There's a difference between an abstract idea of "foreign dealings" and specific information regarding Trump's association with countries like Turkey and Russia. A lot of people who voted for him brushed off the idea of Trump's business dealings being a problem, but would they feel the same if they knew the extent of his dealings in Russia? What would those same people say if Obama had business ties to Russia?
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Trump pushes off decision on business conflicts
The president-elect is delaying the announcement of his plans to disentangle himself from his business empire.
By DARREN SAMUELSOHN and SHANE GOLDMACHER
12/12/16 09:30 PM EST
Updated 12/12/16 09:30 PM EST
President-elect Donald Trump is delaying Thursday’s announcement rolling out how he’d disentangle himself from his business empire, giving his team more time to navigate his ethics entanglements and his critics more time to punish him as he struggles to do so.
Trump had previously said he would hold a “major news conference” on Dec. 15 “to discuss the fact that I will be leaving my great business in total in order to fully focus on running the country.” But Trump transition officials said Monday that the roll out will now take place next month, before Trump is sworn in on Jan. 20.
The “minor delay,” Trump strategist and former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said, will give the real estate mogul more time to work through an arrangement his team believes protects the incoming president from conflicts of interest as he transitions from running a sprawling business organization to running the federal government. The president-elect, his family and their lawyers have been working since November’s election to sort through a complex set of legal mandates, tax questions and ethical constraints. Their goal is to allow Trump to maintain a stake in the company he’s built over more than four decades while still turning over operational responsibilities to his three oldest adult children, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric.
“As we know, it’s a very unconventional situation,” Conway told CNN. “Normally we have politicians moving from political job to political job. In this case, we have a very successful businessman, who’s brilliant and a billionaire, who has assets and holdings all over the globe, and that needs to have a transfer of power through the proper channels.”
But Trump retaining any stake in his company, given its global operations, promises to be controversial. Exactly how that arrangement would look is a work in progress. With additional time, Republicans say the Trump team will keep brainstorming on possible fixes. “This is one of these situations where it’s so complicated and it’s so big that people keep thinking of things,” said a well-placed GOP source tracking the issue. “I don’t think there’s an easy answer, but there may be a simple elegant idea not thought of yet.”
The delay also gives Democrats and other Trump critics another opportunity to accuse the president-elect of attempting to use public office for personal enrichment. They argue those conflicts of interest are unavoidable unless Trump takes significant steps to distance himself from his own assets, and they’ve criticized Trump relentlessly for his resistance to setting up their preferred anti-corruption safeguards.
MONEY
Traders scheme to cash in on Trump tweets
By BEN WHITE and PATRICK TEMPLE-WEST
“Donald Trump is a corrupt liar,” American Bridge President Jessica Mackler said in a statement. “And after pledging to eliminate his ability to profit off the presidency, he's now refusing to even talk about it. Trump knows his only option is to totally divest, but he can't bring himself to do it, because he wants to profit off the presidency.”
Trump doesn’t appear headed toward a complete selling off his businesses, despite the pleadings from Democrats and some Republicans who say he should follow recent presidential practice by putting his assets into a “true blind trust” run by an independent trustee with no ties to him or his family.
In Trump’s public remarks and recent tweets, he’s indicated no interest in taking such an approach. In an interview Sunday with FOX News, Trump stated again that he planned to maintain ownership of his company while his executives and children take over the day-to-day operations. “Well, essentially, I’m not going to have anything to do with the management,” Trump said.
Trump insisted in the interview that the plan he was mapping out was designed to avoid conflicts of interest, and he tried to make his case by citing a potentially lucrative business opportunity presented to him last week that he decided against pursuing.
“I am turning down billions of dollars of deals,” Trump said, citing an unspecified offer involving, “seven deals with one big player, great player, last week, because I thought it could be perceived as a conflict of interest.”
Many of Trump’s leading surrogates have also knocked down the notion that he needs to sell his business outright.
“You can’t take Trump as a name and a $10 billion system and hide it. It’s just stupid,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, an early Republican backer of the president-elect, said in an interview. He's urging Trump to turn over his company to his children while setting up an independent panel of three to five people who review its books monthly “and make sure in no way it’s being used to the advantage of Trump.”
On CNN, Conway on Monday called the change in schedule for the announcement a “minor delay” that accounts for the upcoming holidays and the need to keep working out a solution. “There’s no reason to rush that if the procedures are not ready,” she said. “The same questions that will be asked and the same answers that will be provided will just be delayed for a few weeks.”
PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION
Trump battles for legitimacy
By LOUIS NELSON
Asked by anchor Anderson Cooper whether Trump’s delay signaled any intention of changing course from the plan for the president-elect to keep hold of the ownership of his company, Conway replied, “At the moment, it does not. What it does is make more clear how convoluted and complex you know many of these business holdings are.”
“Everybody wants to make sure they get it right,” she added. “And to get it right you have to get proper legal counsel, accountants, lawyers, obviously other corporate officers involved, and his expectation remains that he will cede operational control of the Trump Organization to his adult children and other corporate officers whom he trusts and have worked for him for many years so that he can focus 100 percent of his time and attention to being president of the United States.”
During his transition, Trump has been less than absolute on many of the issues involving his business – and the potential domestic and international conflicts they bring.
His company is still pursuing litigation that would expose Trump to depositions, document discovery and other steps that can embarrass a sitting president. He also signaled last week that he’ll keep drawing a salary and maintain the executive producer credit line on the NBC reality show “Celebrity Apprentice,” which he previously hosted, helping make him a household name with a new generation of Americans.
But on other occasions, Trump has shown he wants to avoid crossfire on matters stemming from his pre-political career. Last month, he settled for $25 million on three separate lawsuits alleging fraud at his Trump University real estate seminars. Then last week, his transition team said Trump had, back in June, sold his entire stock portfolio, with an estimated worth of at least $22 million. Transition aides did not provide any documentation to explain the transactions.
Politically, Trump appears to have some room to maneuver as he tries to sort out his business dealings. Republican leaders have said they’ll give Trump the benefit of the doubt that he will be governing in the country’s interest, as opposed to his own financial ones. On CNBC last week, House Speaker Paul Ryan said Trump’s business interests were “not what I’m concerned about in Congress.”
That’s a view other senior GOP lawmakers have expressed to POLITICO too.
Tillerson boosters have Russia, Exxon business ties
By ISAAC ARNSDORF
“He’s not a defense contractor, he’s not dealing with NASA, he’s not dealing with the Justice Department, he’s not dealing in health care,” said Alabama GOP Sen. Richard Shelby, the chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Development Committee. “He’s in the hotel and entertainment business. I think there’d be minimal conflicts, if any.”
“The only obligation he has is that under the law,” explained Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the Utah Republican and House chairman in charge of Trump administration oversight in the next Congress. “There are public perceptions that I’m sure they’re keenly aware of.”
The Trump Organization and the president-elect’s adult children have maintained an active presence since the election waving around the name of the next president, hawking the family’s wines for the holidays, auctioning off a private coffee for charity with Ivanka Trump and celebrating the No. 1 ranking of their premier Scottish links golf course No. 1 ranking with a “Trump Wins Again!” tweet.
Since winning the White House, however, the Trump name also has new strings attached to it, including questions about how to handle security around the world on Trump-linked properties that become inviting terrorism targets
“If something happens on a Trump building outside the U.S. and people get hurt, that’d make Benghazi look like nothing,” warned Richard Painter, a former top ethics lawyer from George W. Bush’s White House.
Painter last Friday also joined more than a dozen public interest groups and several former GOP elected officials in a letter to Trump pleading with the president-elect to go beyond just handing organizational control of his business over to his children.
“By combining your presidency with your family business, you will create ongoing conflicts of interest and credibility problems for your presidency,” wrote the group, which includes the Project on Government Oversight, Public Citizen and former New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman.
Norm Eisen, the former top ethics lawyer in Barack Obama’s White House, said in a statement Monday that by delaying his announcement this week, Trump was sending a “positive sign” that he still could sell off his company and move the assets into a blind trust. “Let's hope he takes the additional time to do the right thing,” he said.
Trump pushes off decision on business conflicts
The president-elect is delaying the announcement of his plans to disentangle himself from his business empire.
By DARREN SAMUELSOHN and SHANE GOLDMACHER
12/12/16 09:30 PM EST
Updated 12/12/16 09:30 PM EST
President-elect Donald Trump is delaying Thursday’s announcement rolling out how he’d disentangle himself from his business empire, giving his team more time to navigate his ethics entanglements and his critics more time to punish him as he struggles to do so.
Trump had previously said he would hold a “major news conference” on Dec. 15 “to discuss the fact that I will be leaving my great business in total in order to fully focus on running the country.” But Trump transition officials said Monday that the roll out will now take place next month, before Trump is sworn in on Jan. 20.
The “minor delay,” Trump strategist and former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said, will give the real estate mogul more time to work through an arrangement his team believes protects the incoming president from conflicts of interest as he transitions from running a sprawling business organization to running the federal government. The president-elect, his family and their lawyers have been working since November’s election to sort through a complex set of legal mandates, tax questions and ethical constraints. Their goal is to allow Trump to maintain a stake in the company he’s built over more than four decades while still turning over operational responsibilities to his three oldest adult children, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric.
“As we know, it’s a very unconventional situation,” Conway told CNN. “Normally we have politicians moving from political job to political job. In this case, we have a very successful businessman, who’s brilliant and a billionaire, who has assets and holdings all over the globe, and that needs to have a transfer of power through the proper channels.”
But Trump retaining any stake in his company, given its global operations, promises to be controversial. Exactly how that arrangement would look is a work in progress. With additional time, Republicans say the Trump team will keep brainstorming on possible fixes. “This is one of these situations where it’s so complicated and it’s so big that people keep thinking of things,” said a well-placed GOP source tracking the issue. “I don’t think there’s an easy answer, but there may be a simple elegant idea not thought of yet.”
The delay also gives Democrats and other Trump critics another opportunity to accuse the president-elect of attempting to use public office for personal enrichment. They argue those conflicts of interest are unavoidable unless Trump takes significant steps to distance himself from his own assets, and they’ve criticized Trump relentlessly for his resistance to setting up their preferred anti-corruption safeguards.
MONEY
Traders scheme to cash in on Trump tweets
By BEN WHITE and PATRICK TEMPLE-WEST
“Donald Trump is a corrupt liar,” American Bridge President Jessica Mackler said in a statement. “And after pledging to eliminate his ability to profit off the presidency, he's now refusing to even talk about it. Trump knows his only option is to totally divest, but he can't bring himself to do it, because he wants to profit off the presidency.”
Trump doesn’t appear headed toward a complete selling off his businesses, despite the pleadings from Democrats and some Republicans who say he should follow recent presidential practice by putting his assets into a “true blind trust” run by an independent trustee with no ties to him or his family.
In Trump’s public remarks and recent tweets, he’s indicated no interest in taking such an approach. In an interview Sunday with FOX News, Trump stated again that he planned to maintain ownership of his company while his executives and children take over the day-to-day operations. “Well, essentially, I’m not going to have anything to do with the management,” Trump said.
Trump insisted in the interview that the plan he was mapping out was designed to avoid conflicts of interest, and he tried to make his case by citing a potentially lucrative business opportunity presented to him last week that he decided against pursuing.
“I am turning down billions of dollars of deals,” Trump said, citing an unspecified offer involving, “seven deals with one big player, great player, last week, because I thought it could be perceived as a conflict of interest.”
Many of Trump’s leading surrogates have also knocked down the notion that he needs to sell his business outright.
“You can’t take Trump as a name and a $10 billion system and hide it. It’s just stupid,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, an early Republican backer of the president-elect, said in an interview. He's urging Trump to turn over his company to his children while setting up an independent panel of three to five people who review its books monthly “and make sure in no way it’s being used to the advantage of Trump.”
On CNN, Conway on Monday called the change in schedule for the announcement a “minor delay” that accounts for the upcoming holidays and the need to keep working out a solution. “There’s no reason to rush that if the procedures are not ready,” she said. “The same questions that will be asked and the same answers that will be provided will just be delayed for a few weeks.”
PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION
Trump battles for legitimacy
By LOUIS NELSON
Asked by anchor Anderson Cooper whether Trump’s delay signaled any intention of changing course from the plan for the president-elect to keep hold of the ownership of his company, Conway replied, “At the moment, it does not. What it does is make more clear how convoluted and complex you know many of these business holdings are.”
“Everybody wants to make sure they get it right,” she added. “And to get it right you have to get proper legal counsel, accountants, lawyers, obviously other corporate officers involved, and his expectation remains that he will cede operational control of the Trump Organization to his adult children and other corporate officers whom he trusts and have worked for him for many years so that he can focus 100 percent of his time and attention to being president of the United States.”
During his transition, Trump has been less than absolute on many of the issues involving his business – and the potential domestic and international conflicts they bring.
His company is still pursuing litigation that would expose Trump to depositions, document discovery and other steps that can embarrass a sitting president. He also signaled last week that he’ll keep drawing a salary and maintain the executive producer credit line on the NBC reality show “Celebrity Apprentice,” which he previously hosted, helping make him a household name with a new generation of Americans.
But on other occasions, Trump has shown he wants to avoid crossfire on matters stemming from his pre-political career. Last month, he settled for $25 million on three separate lawsuits alleging fraud at his Trump University real estate seminars. Then last week, his transition team said Trump had, back in June, sold his entire stock portfolio, with an estimated worth of at least $22 million. Transition aides did not provide any documentation to explain the transactions.
Politically, Trump appears to have some room to maneuver as he tries to sort out his business dealings. Republican leaders have said they’ll give Trump the benefit of the doubt that he will be governing in the country’s interest, as opposed to his own financial ones. On CNBC last week, House Speaker Paul Ryan said Trump’s business interests were “not what I’m concerned about in Congress.”
That’s a view other senior GOP lawmakers have expressed to POLITICO too.
Tillerson boosters have Russia, Exxon business ties
By ISAAC ARNSDORF
“He’s not a defense contractor, he’s not dealing with NASA, he’s not dealing with the Justice Department, he’s not dealing in health care,” said Alabama GOP Sen. Richard Shelby, the chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Development Committee. “He’s in the hotel and entertainment business. I think there’d be minimal conflicts, if any.”
“The only obligation he has is that under the law,” explained Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the Utah Republican and House chairman in charge of Trump administration oversight in the next Congress. “There are public perceptions that I’m sure they’re keenly aware of.”
The Trump Organization and the president-elect’s adult children have maintained an active presence since the election waving around the name of the next president, hawking the family’s wines for the holidays, auctioning off a private coffee for charity with Ivanka Trump and celebrating the No. 1 ranking of their premier Scottish links golf course No. 1 ranking with a “Trump Wins Again!” tweet.
Since winning the White House, however, the Trump name also has new strings attached to it, including questions about how to handle security around the world on Trump-linked properties that become inviting terrorism targets
“If something happens on a Trump building outside the U.S. and people get hurt, that’d make Benghazi look like nothing,” warned Richard Painter, a former top ethics lawyer from George W. Bush’s White House.
Painter last Friday also joined more than a dozen public interest groups and several former GOP elected officials in a letter to Trump pleading with the president-elect to go beyond just handing organizational control of his business over to his children.
“By combining your presidency with your family business, you will create ongoing conflicts of interest and credibility problems for your presidency,” wrote the group, which includes the Project on Government Oversight, Public Citizen and former New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman.
Norm Eisen, the former top ethics lawyer in Barack Obama’s White House, said in a statement Monday that by delaying his announcement this week, Trump was sending a “positive sign” that he still could sell off his company and move the assets into a blind trust. “Let's hope he takes the additional time to do the right thing,” he said.
Trump pushes off decision on business conflicts
Theyd call him comrade
southpawstyle
Superstar
People who voted Trump would call Obama comrade if he had ties to Russia? I'm not on any side here, but the ideological shift of Republicans and Democrats in the last year has been incredible.
Papi Lenin will make it all better.
People who voted Trump would call Obama comrade if he had ties to Russia? I'm not on any side here, but the ideological shift of Republicans and Democrats in the last year has been incredible.
Papi Lenin will make it all better.
Comrade as a dig in being pro russia..not as their own comrade lol
They called Bernie comrade too for his honeymoon in the Soviet Union. Obama made that joke at the correspondents dinner
southpawstyle
Superstar
I remember that. I remember being disgusted at the attempt to undermine the potential of collectivization with a simple "comrade" one liner. Bernie has good intentions, but he does't really want those global third world revolutionary problems.