Trump Says He'll Totally Leave His Business Behind In Order To Be President
Many people have been concerned president-elect Donald Trump's business holdings and debts could influence his decision-making in the White House.
The fears were, in my opinion, quite warranted. For one, consider the fact he refused to release his tax returns, which may reveal conflicts of interest.
Another recent example is the stock he owns in the Dakota Access Pipeline, which has been in the center of the news these past few weeks with the Standing Rock protests.
Regardless of your position on the pipeline, having a president who has a personal financial stake in the matter which could influence his position, is clearly unsettling.
And as his son Donald Trump Jr. (who is slated to partially take over his father's business for him) himself explained,
Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets… We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.
Trump's assets and debts stretch far and wide, domestically and internationally, and his cageyness regarding them has a lot of people worried.
He tried to put those fears to rest as he always does: through 140 characters on Twitter.
This morning, Trump tweeted a series of statements on the subject:
He also said,
Legal documents are being crafted which take me completely out of business operations. The presidency is a far more important task!
The series of tweets were meant to put people's minds to rest, but it had the opposite effect.
As Politico points out, this just brings up a lot of questions, as Trump has explained he'll be leaving his business in the hands of his family — meaning he will, of course, be financially invested in it.
Historically, presidents put their business in a blind trust, to avoid these sort of conflicts of interest. Trump does not seem interested in doing that as of yet, but we'll know a lot more about his plan on December 15.
