Donald Trump’s worldwide real estate empire has politicians and government officials concerned over whether foreign powers will use it to curry favor with him when he takes over the White House.
Trump says his adult children will run the businesses for him. But his close relationships with them strike some as creating a leaky barrier at best.
Sen. Tom Carper (D) is one of them.
“I’d like to believe that you really have created a wall, if you will, between the business operations and your presidency, your administration. I think that’s probably hard to believe would be true,” Carper said.
Delaware’s senior senator sent a letter to federal ethics officials, asking how they will handle his financial disclosures and mitigating conflicts of interest, with an answer expected in early December.
He notes Trump should adhere to the same ethics guidelines senators and representatives do – meaning they avoid conflicts of interests by putting their financial assets into a blind trust.
“We have to fully disclose those investments, the kind of roles that our families can play in those business enterprises. There’s an old saying, ‘What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.’ I think that applies here as well.”
Trump has rejected these calls, saying his children will run his businesses to act as a firewall between the White House and those who might be trying to buy political clout.
But instances, like his daughter Ivanka sitting in on a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his other children serving on his transition team signal potential holes in that firewall, which Carper and others will be looking for.