NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
January 12, 2017
Meeting critics halfway, President-elect Trump committed Wednesday to hand over control of his business empire to sons Don Jr. and Eric, and to step out of day-to-day involvement entirely.
To be shut down are many pending business deals, as well as future overseas endeavors. Good.
But while the setup will guard against some real and perceived conflicts, it leaves others to fester. An American President with a complex family business empire has a higher obligation.
Under the current arrangement, Trump will remain way too close for comfort to the incoming torrents of dollars and dinars tied to his newly powerful brand name — including funds from foreign states the Constitution prohibits any President from receiving.
Starting Jan. 20, they will be free to line his sons’ pockets and bolster his family’s fortune. And he, being fully aware of all the holdings, will have wide latitude to create conditions for his family to profit. There are only two clean ways to fix the problem.
Option A: Transfer the towers, the golf courses, the apparel businesses and the rest to a blind trust and sell them off, investing the resulting proceeds.
As painful as it might be to put the family business on the block, Trump wanted the presidency. Cashing out would be a small sacrifice to earn Americans’ trust.
Option B has a nicer sound to it, for the President-in-waiting and the country at large: Take the Trump brand public, offering it up for sale to throngs of fans who adore the supposedly beautiful brand he built.
Trump and his kids could hold a few shares in a gone-public Trump Organization, but nothing close to controlling interest.
Wednesday, Trump’s tax attorney muttered a dismissive sentence or two about how complicated the endeavor would be. Nonsense. Some of the world’s most iconic brands started out as privately held corporations — then issued shares.
Why not join them, Mr. President-elect?
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