Potential Presidential Conflicts of Interest.

[Rusty Edge]

Let's start off with a piece by the Washington Post. The actual article is full of links to back up their allusions.

-kleptocracy/?utm_term=.6c3eeacb76ef]https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/11/16/welcome-to-the-[Sleezebag]-kleptocracy/?utm_term=.6c3eeacb76ef

Welcome to the [Sleezebag] Kleptocracy
By Paul Waldman November 16 at 9:57 AM

“It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it,” Donald [Sleezebag] said back in 2000 when he was contemplating a bid that he never followed through on. And while he didn’t actually turn a profit on his 2016 run, it’s looking more and more likely that being president is going to be very lucrative for [Sleezebag]. By the time it’s over, he may even be worth as much as he has always claimed to be.

The words “conflict of interest” don’t begin to describe what the [Sleezebag] administration is shaping up to look like — though there will be plenty of conflicts of interest with administration figures such as Rudy Giuliani, who made millions from foreign governments and corporations, some of which are hostile to the United States. But the real action is going to be in [Sleezebag]’s own family.

Anti-nepotism laws prevent [Sleezebag] from giving his family members jobs in the administration. But don’t think that’s going to stop them from being active participants in U.S. government decision-making, or using the fact that [Sleezebag] is president to keep money flowing in. In fact, we could see the president enriching himself and his family on a scale that we normally associate with post-Soviet kleptocrats and Third World dictators.

For starters, Ivanka, Eric and Donald [Sleezebag] Jr. are on the executive committee of [Sleezebag]’s transition team, helping decide who gets hired for key positions and what the administration’s initial focus will be. We learned that someone on the transition team inquired about obtaining security clearances for the three so that they could see classified information (though the [Sleezebag] team protested that the request did not come from [Sleezebag] himself). Then there’s the matter of Ivanka [Sleezebag]’s husband:

Donald [Sleezebag] has taken the unprecedented step of requesting his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, receive top-secret clearance to join him for his Presidential Daily Briefings, which began Tuesday.

Multiple sources tell NBC News [Sleezebag] received his first briefing on Tuesday and designated both Kushner and Ret. Gen. Michael Flynn as his staff-level companions for the briefings going forward.

Kushner — whose knowledge of government is so minimal that he was apparently surprised to learn that the Obama staffers in the White House wouldn’t be staying on to serve President [Sleezebag] — is shaping up as perhaps his father-in-law’s closest adviser. He won’t have an official position, yet he’ll be privy to some of the most sensitive intelligence secrets the government possesses.

Then he’ll go home at night to Ivanka [Sleezebag], who is already monetizing her father’s election; Ivanka [Sleezebag] Fine Jewelry is promoting the bracelet she wore on last Sunday’s “60 Minutes” interview, which can be yours for $10,800.

But that’s peanuts compared with what the [Sleezebag] children will be able to accomplish. During the [Sleezebag] presidency, they will be running the [Sleezebag] corporation on their father’s behalf, but the money it makes will still be his money. We don’t know exactly how the profits are divided, because it’s a private company and [Sleezebag] won’t tell us. But it’s important to understand that [Sleezebag]’s primary business is not building things; he actually does very little building anymore. His main business is brand licensing, and it’s a business that is particularly amenable to enriching himself while he’s president.

How would that work? Well, imagine this scenario. Ivanka and Donny Jr. go to some country — let’s say Russia, for no particular reason — and arrange a meeting with a developer. They suggest a deal that the [Sleezebag] corporation has carried out in places all over the world, in which the local developer builds a hotel or resort, then slaps the [Sleezebag] name on it and pays the Trumps millions of dollars in licensing fees for the privilege. And let’s say that developer just happens to have ties, publicly known or otherwise, to the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin. And let’s say he offers the [Sleezebag] corporation very favorable terms — which, being savvy businesspeople, Ivanka and Donny accept. You’d then have a situation in which the Russian dictator has, through a proxy, deposited millions or even tens of millions of dollars into the bank account of the president of the United States.

Or it wouldn’t even have to be as public as a hotel with a “[Sleezebag]” sign on it. What if that same developer just hired the [Sleezebag] children to be “consultants”? Since the money would flow through the company, it would mean that foreign governments or interests could be paying untold sums to the American president.

This could be repeated in countries all over the world. And since the [Sleezebag] corporation is privately held, we might never know all the details. We might be able to figure them out if [Sleezebag] released his tax returns, but he refused to do so, despite almost certainly having more potential financial conflicts of interest than any president in history. And forget about seeing them after his IRS audit is done, the lame excuse [Sleezebag] gave for not releasing them during the campaign. I promise you this: Donald [Sleezebag] is never going to make his tax returns public. Never.

So we’re going to have to rely on the [Sleezebag] family’s strong ethical code to reassure ourselves that nothing problematic will go on when it comes to the entwining of [Sleezebag]’s business interests and U.S. government policy. The problem is that absolutely nothing we have learned about [Sleezebag] suggests that he will operate in a remotely ethical way when it comes to opportunities to enrich himself once he becomes president. We’re talking about a man who allegedly ran multiple grifts on gullible customers ([Sleezebag] University, the [Sleezebag] Institute, the [Sleezebag] Network); who used the bankruptcy laws to escape the collapse of his casinos, leaving investors holding the bag while he made out like a bandit in a kind of Atlantic City version of “The Producers”; who ran a foundation that was essentially a scam from top to bottom; who regularly stiffed contractors when he knew they were too small to fight him; who used undocumented workers and reportedly had foreign models lie to customs officials so that they could work illegally in the United States, who once paid $750,000 to the Federal Trade Commission to settle an antitrust suit, and who was generally revealed to be, if not the most spectacularly corrupt businessman in the United States, then certainly a strong contender for that title.

The irony is that so many of [Sleezebag]’s supporters believed his preposterous claim that he would be the one to banish corruption from Washington, that he’d “drain the swamp” and send that crooked establishment packing. He’ll do nothing of the sort, of course; his transition team is drowning in corporate lobbyists, and among his first priorities are cutting taxes for the wealthy and removing oversight from Wall Street. But that’s standard Republican fare; what’s different and probably unprecedented is the way [Sleezebag] will increase his fortune by hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars while he’s president. "

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There won't be a problem, believe me.

[E_T]

Pay no attention to the crooks behind the curtain..

Well, he had better be very careful or he will be fighting multiple impeachments...

[Unorthodox]

Guess this is as good a place as any...

Back a ways.  Maybe before the first debate, even.  Right after T rump was made the candidate.  There was a press conference with T rump and the kids...hEt pointed it out, and it fits in a lot of ways. 

The [Sleezebag] family's entire mannerism and staging was just like the Largo family in Repo! the Genetic Opera

Some NSFW images here:

! No longer available

If you've never seen the movie, you owe it to yourself. 

I'm not saying it's everyones cup of tea, or everyone will like it.  But it's so monumentally unique and bizarre, you should experience it at least once. 

Preferably at a shadowcast. 

! No longer available

[Rusty Edge]

Pay no attention to the crooks behind the curtain..

Well, he had better be very careful or he will be fighting multiple impeachments...

Fear not! He's safe .Well, maybe.

Impeachment originates in the House. They would be loath to turn on him anytime soon, considering that they have to answer to the voters fairly regularly. As for the Senate, who actually conducts the trial, it may go Red super-majority in the 2018 election. This year the GOP had more seats at risk, and they held on. In two years there are a lot of Blue senators in red and purple states. I am certain that my senator will flip. Not a lot of chance of Congress turning on [Sleezebag].

On the well, maybe, side. T rump coming out for term limits as part of his program won't win him any friends in either house of Congress.

[edited for pronouns and stuff]

[Rusty Edge]

Oh, there's room for family working in the White House, just not in cabinet positions and agencies. Hillary ran a health care task force out of the White House. G.W. Bush did some staff work.

Of course, they weren't also running international businesses at the time.  Legal and ethical aren't synonymous.

[Rusty Edge]

"[Sleezebag] wouldn't know a conflict of interest if it bit him in the axe ( or similar) " - me, after reading about the following ...let me see if I can find a curt and pastable source. This is close enough.

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/17/turkish-client-paid-[Sleezebag]-adviser-michael-flynns-company-tens-of-thousands-of-dollars-for-lobbying/

Essentially, Flynn, who was dismissed from military intelligence under unfavorable circumstances, has had [Sleezebag]'s ear. He couldn't survive a Senate confirmation hearing, but he doesn't need one to be an advisor. He was the designated assistant to sit in on the courtesy National Security Briefings to the candidates in August while he ran an international intelligence consultant business. He personally is not a registered lobbyist. His son is his chief of staff and presumably will continue to run things while the general is national security advisor.

Cool, huh?

[Buster's Uncle]

What unfavorable circumstances?

[Rusty Edge]

What unfavorable circumstances?

I think it's classified. After some more digging - Here's Flynn's side of it-

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/michael-flynn-isis-memoir/2016/07/10/id/737937/

Gen. Michael Flynn: I Was Fired for Calling Our Enemies Radical Islamic Jihadists
By Cathy Burke   |   Sunday, 10 Jul 2016 09:36 AM

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn — being considered by Donald T rump as a possible running mate — says he was axed as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014 because of his stand "on radical Islamism" and al Qaida's expansion around the globe.

In a biting commentary for the New York Post which included excerpts from his bestseller "Fields of Flight" cowritten by  Michael Ledeen, Flynn writes "the intel system was way too politicized."

"I asked the DNI [Gen. James Clapper] if my leadership of the agency was in question and he said it was not; had it been, he said, they would have relieved me on the spot," he writes.
 
"I knew then it had more to do with the stand I took on radical Islamism and the expansion of al Qaida and its associated movements. I felt the intel system was way too politicized, especially in the Defense Department."

An unapologetic Flynn writes he'd been trying "to change the culture" of the agency "from one overly focused on Washington, D.C., to a culture that focused on our forward-based war fighters and commanders."

"In the end, I was pissed but knew that I had maintained my integrity and was determined in the few months I had left to continue the changes I was instituting and to keep beating the drum about the vicious enemy we were facing (still are)," he writes.

I would not change a lick how I operate. Our country has too much at stake."

Flynn asserts the nation is in "a global war" comprised of "an enemy alliance" that stretches from North Korea to Cuba and Venezuela and "picks up radical Muslim countries and organizations such as Iran, al Qaida, the Taliban and Islamic State."

Flynn writes only a designed "strategy to destroy this global enemy" will win, but decries the nation's current approach to "timidly nibble around the edges of the battlefields from Africa to the Middle East, and act as if each fight, whether in Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Libya or Afghanistan, can be peacefully resolved by diplomatic effort."

"This approach is doomed," he declares.

"We’re not going to talk our way out of this war, nor can we escape its horrors," he adds. "We have to destroy the enemy armies and combat enemy doctrines. Both are doable."

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This is Wikipedia's explanation-
"On April 30, 2014, Flynn announced his retirement effective later in 2014, about a year earlier than he had been scheduled to leave his position. He was reportedly effectively forced out of the DIA after clashing with superiors over his allegedly chaotic management style and vision for the agency.[22][23] According to what Flynn had told in one final interview as DIA director, he felt like a lone voice in thinking that the United States was less safe from the threat of Islamic terrorism in 2014 than it was prior to the 9/11 attacks; he went on to believe that he was pressed into retirement for questioning the Obama administration’s public narrative that Al Qaeda was close to defeat.[24] He retired as of August 7."

************
Mother Jones-   http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/11/meet-ret-general-michael-flynn-most-gullible-guy-army

Meet Ret. General Michael Flynn, the Most Gullible Guy in the Army
Kevin DrumNov. 17, 2016 5:29 PM

Donald T rump's favorite general, Michael Flynn, was fired as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency a couple of years ago. The circumstances have long been a bit mysterious. On one side, the story is that he was pushed out due to a revolt of his senior staff over his abusive and chaotic management style. Flynn himself says it was because he was tough on Islamic terrorism, and the weenies in the White House didn't like it.
In any case, Flynn has been "right wing nutty" ever since, in Colin Powell's words, so naturally he's now in line for a top position in the T rump administration. Possibly National Security Advisor. But whatever you think of Flynn, he was the head of an intelligence agency and therefore ought to have a pretty good BS detector. Apparently he doesn't:  "

Then it posts a CNN video about how he re-tweeted a bogus story about the contents of Anthony Weiner's laptop that would have evidence to jail Hillary, Huma, etc.

****************
* My hunch/reading between the lines of the insider naysayers is that the problem was with his intemperate remarks - tarring all Moslems broadly, including those within our country and those who are officially our Allies, and criticism of his Commander In Chief.

* On the factual side, the Secretary of Defense is supposed to be a civilian position and active duty military are barred from serving for 5 ( or is it 7 ? ) years afterwards. So, not only would he require confirmation for that job, but a special act of Congress to exempt him from the legal restrictions. That's why he is seen as T rump's  National Security Advisor pick, which has no such limitations.

[Rusty Edge]

A little more about ethics and why I'm such a hard axe about it.

When I was a kid, and my Dad was VP and later president of a small bank in a small town, I was privy to a lot of information, because both of my parents worked there, and I overheard phone calls, meetings, conversations, etc.  I was told to never repeat anything I heard or overheard to preserve confidentiality, and never to talk about banking and local business matters in general, simply because it would start rumors because people would think it was inside information.

 As an adult in local government, church treasurer, etc. It was a matter of honor looking after my friends and neighbor's money, because they were demonstrating their personal trust in me.
That meant that once or twice my family business refused to bill for services when we were the only ones available to provide them to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest. 

[Rusty Edge]

As for General Flynn's dismissal. NBC's military consultant said it was about competing narratives. Obama describing ISIL as the "JV team", and Flynn describing them as the great global threat.

[Rusty Edge]

Time magazine's overview of our thread topic-
-conflicts-of-interest/]http://time.com/4574938/donald-[Sleezebag]-conflicts-of-interest/

"Donald [Sleezebag]’s Many, Many, Many, Many Conflicts of Interest
Jeff Nesbit Nov. 17, 2016

Jeff Nesbit was the communications director to former Vice President Dan Quayle (R-IN) at the White House. He is the author of Poison Tea

And Rudy Giuliani's, too
When Donald [Sleezebag] becomes the 45th president of the United States in January, it seems quite likely that he will bring hundreds of potential financial conflicts of interest with him into the Oval Office.
Yet none of it will matter. Instead, incredibly, several congressional oversight committees have said that they will continue to investigate potential financial conflicts of interest between the Clinton foundation and Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of State during the Obama administration. The irony here is beyond strange. It’s also unprecedented.

What is astounding about this is that few seem to care—not the 59 million Americans who voted him into office because they wanted an outsider who has never been involved in politics to run the national government, and certainly not the new GOP Congress that will, instead, continue to investigate potential conflicts of interest of the Democratic presidential candidate who lost the 2016 election.

[Sleezebag]’s conflicts of interest range from small matters like his investment in a controversial oil and gas pipeline in North Dakota that he may ultimately have to rule on, to large trade issues with China that will affect Bank of China ties to his business organizations that will be managed by his three children.
Presidents are largely exempt from oversight from Congress on matters of financial conflict of interest, and the GOP Congress wouldn’t launch investigations of him regardless. The FBI tilted in his favor in the run-up to the presidential election, so it’s unlikely it will take an interest in this subject either. There isn’t anyone left on the playing field in Washington to investigate any of his potential conflicts of interest.

[Sleezebag] didn’t release his tax returns during the presidential campaign, and he has shown no inclination to be any more transparent about potential financial conflicts of interest once he becomes president. Despite intense media pressure on [Sleezebag] to be more forthcoming about his business dealings and how they might intersect with the White House, [Sleezebag] has simply stonewalled. That isn’t likely to change.

Past presidents have placed their financial holdings in blind trusts and released their tax returns each year to show good faith to the American public. [Sleezebag] has said he’ll simply allow his children to continue to run his varied financial interests while he’s president, and isn’t likely to allow anyone to scrutinize the inner workings of his many and varied businesses while he’s president.

His campaign personal disclosure form lists more than 500 legal business entities, as well as 21 large financial properties that he says are worth more than $50 million each. Many of the decisions he makes as president will undoubtedly affect those small and large financial interests, yet there is no mechanism that can compel him to be more transparent about how those interests might overlap—and there are no federal investigative bodies either in Congress or his own administration to conduct any meaningful oversight. The media will continue to investigate, of course, but [Sleezebag] has convinced much of America that the media can’t be trusted.

Take just two examples of how this might work once he’s in office. [Sleezebag] is a small investor in Energy Transfer Partners, which is one of the business interests behind the Dakota Access Pipeline that has spurred dozens of protests. The decision on the Dakota pipeline could very likely be made from the Oval Office, in favor of his investing partners. It is an obvious and clear financial conflict of interest, but [Sleezebag] has shown no indication that he will avoid such conflicts—and there is no public call for him to divest his political decisions from such financial interests.

At a larger scale, the state-run Bank of China has a financial interest or stake in at least two of [Sleezebag]’s large real estate properties. During the campaign, [Sleezebag] said he would consider trade sanctions on China in an effort to promote American business interests. Should he follow through on those campaign threats, triggering reciprocal actions by the Chinese government, those Bank of China loans to his business interests will be squarely in the crosshairs.

No one—other than the media—has made an issue out of [Sleezebag]’s potential financial conflicts of interest as president. And in yet another level of bizarre political irony, one of the central elements of [Sleezebag]’s presidential campaign was a populist demand from his followers to put Clinton in jail for perceived conflicts of interest between the Clinton foundation and her time as secretary of State. “Lock her up” was a central theme of the [Sleezebag] campaign, one that he often repeated from the podium. But do such potential financial conflicts interest extend to [Sleezebag] when he becomes president? Apparently not.

The sheer irony of all of this doesn’t stop at the White House, either. The loudest, most vociferous cheerleader at many of those [Sleezebag] rallies—where his populist movement was demanding that Clinton go to jail for any financial conflict of interest transgressions while she was serving as secretary of State—was former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. Like [Sleezebag], he was a willing and eager political cheerleader for this demand that Clinton be investigated and jailed. Both he and [Sleezebag] have said they would still consider appointing a special prosecutor to pursue Clinton.

Giuliani is now the leading candidate to become secretary of State in the [Sleezebag] administration. He has any number of business ties that might come under intense scrutiny should he, in fact, be named to that position.

Giuliani has dismissed the questions of any potential conflicts of interest that might intersect with the State Department. “I have friends all over the world,” he told the New York Times. He’s said his financial dealings, which ranged from contracts with the government of Qatar and the huge Canadian company behind the Keystone XL pipeline to paid speeches to groups with financial interests in countries that he would deal with as secretary of State, aren’t the same as the charges that he and [Sleezebag] leveled during their “lock her up” campaign tour.

And yet it is precisely the same thing. The question, at least for the foreseeable future, is whether anyone beyond the media will ever show any interest in the subject. Congress hasn’t shown any interest. The FBI isn’t likely to look into it. [Sleezebag] isn’t compelled by ethics laws to list potential conflicts of interest when he becomes president. So who’s left to conduct oversight?"

[Rusty Edge]

-administration.html?_r=0]http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/us/politics/donald-[Sleezebag]-administration.html?_r=0

Well, this seems to lay out the question of the son-in-law.  Here's the core of the article-

"But the prospect that Mr. Kushner might end up in the West Wing remained a concern to some people close to the president-elect, who said he would instantly become a target for media and legal attacks if he took the unorthodox step.

Mr. Kushner has consulted with at least one lawyer and believes that by forgoing a salary and putting his investment fund, his real estate holdings and The New York Observer into a blind trust, he would not be bound by federal nepotism rules, according to one of the people briefed.

Ethics lawyers in both parties said that such an arrangement would violate a federal statute designed to prevent family ties from influencing the functioning of the United States government. Under a 1967 law enacted after John F. Kennedy installed his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, as attorney general, no public official can hire a family member — including one related by marriage — to an agency or office over which he has authority. A separate statute also makes it a crime, punishable by a fine and up to two years of prison time, for government employees to accept voluntary services that are not authorized by law, except in emergency situations.

The anti-nepotism law “would seem to block out Kushner flatly,” said Norman L. Eisen, who served as Mr. Obama’s ethics counsel during his transition and at the White House. If Mr. [Sleezebag] were to try to skirt it by having Mr. Kushner advise him in a volunteer capacity, he added, he “would be treading upon very serious statutory and constitutional grounds.”

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[Sleezebag] may try to do it anyway, as Priebus &  Bannon, want Kushner, too.  [Sleezebag] could try it and see who dares to oppose him. A legal motion may be filed, but depending on the judge who hears it, etc., the bench may challenge the legal standing of the person who files it and dismiss the case.  [Sleezebag] could argue that Hillary's health care task force is the legal precedent, but the office of First Lady is legally established in the White House, so that is a legal distinction. Also, [Sleezebag] could argue that since he is declining a salary, he is not a US government employee, and therefore there isn't a problem with Kushner offering voluntary advisory services in the White House.

Not the spirit of the law, but somebody may see it as within the letter.

[Bearu]

Ah. The supreme member of the bourgeoisie wins the position of president in the United States of America so he can produce a profit from the backs of the proletariat. What higher ideal could exist for a capitalist? The family of Donald [Sleezebag] represents the epitome of the bourgeois family where the husband and wife produce nothing, yet, as Carl Marx and Friedrich Engels states, "For those of its members who work acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything do not work" (93). The entire situation reeks of the corruption behind the screen of the bourgeois society. Why would anyone believe the concept that Donald [Sleezebag] would "Make America Great Again"? The entire scheme reminds me of the process to indoctrinate people where you first shock them (rape them, murder the family, force them into poverty, deprive them of food, etc.), isolate them (sever the communal ties in a country, divide the country into a mosaic society), indoctrinate them (repeat the same phrases like the communists remain evil, the Russians remain corrupt, the Mexicans will take the jobs of Americans, and so on), and then promise a reward (Make America Great and the removal of the poverty remains a guarantee). How could anyone believe the feculent and preposterous statements of Donald [Sleezebag] and Hillary Clinton?

[Buster's Uncle]

How did you come to this actual communist phase?  I'm asking.

[Bearu]

Pay no attention to the crooks behind the curtain..

Well, he had better be very careful or he will be fighting multiple impeachments...

The governmental prostitutes known as representatives and senators ensure the president does not confront the prospect of impeachment unless the allegation violates a set of standards like sexual morality.