Conflict of Interest: Donald Trump’s Receipt While in Office of Foreign Government Money

An investigation by an oversight committee of the United States House of Representatives found that Donald Trump had received millions of dollars from foreign governments while he was President, according to a media report earlier this month. The investigation found the businessman had received $8 million over two years from 12 governments, including Communist China. The money went to his businesses, which are in the forms of limited liability companies owned by him. Because such companies are legal pass-throughs of income to their owners personally, income to them is effectively income directly to their owners, and not a fictitiously independent entity, as Trumpists argue. Moreover, Trump had promised he would give up control of his businesses during his presidency to his children to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest, but he continued to be aware of his businesses and their income and continued to promote them, sometimes by public means. The income from foreign governments flagrantly violated the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. Trump was supposed to ask Congress for permission to receive income from foreign governments, but never did. The Emoluments Clause was intended by the Framers to prevent conflicts of interest between American and foreign interests. Trump, who lied about not continuing to engage in business with Russia while a candidate for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2016, based his foreign policy while in office not on the interests of America, which he did not understand, but his personal interests, often advantageously to authoritarian regimes, including those hostile to American interests. Russia had helped Trump win the GOP nomination and presidential election in 2016 in a “sweeping and systematic” way, according to the Republican federal Special Counsel, and confirmed by U.S. intelligence agencies and the GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee. Trump and his campaign welcomed Russian support, timed their messaging to the release they knew of ahead of time of information stolen by the Russians and publicized through their cutout, and amplified Russian propaganda and disinformation. The problem of the conflicts of interest of the President validates my effort as a Republican Committeeman to instruct Pennsylvania’s delegation of Republican National Convention Delegates in 2016 to insist on the giving up of such conflicts of interests by presidential and vice presidential nominees, in addition to vetting nominee’s eligibility and requiring nominees to release publicly their federal tax returns before nominating Trump. Like many others across America, I was among a group of Republican officials in my County who resigned, instead of backing a candidate of poor character with ties to Russia, with populist beliefs and authoritarian tendencies and little shared conservative ideology. No changes to the GOP nomination process or federal law have been made to address the problem, and the constitutional disupte about the Emoluments Claus was litigated by Trump to delay the matter until it became moot when he left office, but would have to be raised by the Congress were he to regain the presidency.