Didn’t catch the whole story, but something on CNN about Trump seeking top security clearance for his children?
And he previously said they’d be in charge of the Blind Trust running all his businesses while he’s in office?
Um. Doesn’t this just scream BAD IDEA?
Frankly I can’t even imagine that the kids will be able to keep information about his businesses from Trump anyway. Or not listening when he tells them what he wants done in regard to them.
And then add potentially letting them in on details of negotiations or whatever with foreign countries, when they’ll be handling his business ventures in other countries?
No. It screams “contradiction in terms”. This won’t be a blind trust. Calling it a “blind trust” won’t make it a blind trust.
Trump won’t set up a blind trust to handle his personal business. His supporters, for the most part, won’t be bothered by this because they never expected honesty, ethical behaviour or high personal standards from him. That’s not why they voted for him.
Is it a bad idea? From Trump’s point of view, obviously not; it will enable information available to him in his official role to be employed for his personal advantage. From the point of view of the republic, yes, it’s a bad thing. But the bad thing is not so much that Trump will be personally enriched as that a sufficiently large group of Americans are unbothered by this that he can still be elected.
Yes, the President (who doesn’t have a formal security clearance himself) is considered the ultimate decider of who needs to know what. This is a horrible, but not surprising development.
He’s cottoned onto how little restriction there really is on what he can do on the ragged fringes of legal. I believe he’s planting idiocy with every appointment to make prosecution impossibly difficult. And I think he will continue to use white supremist crap as a media grabbing distraction whenever it suits him.
Would you be surprised if he fires the new guy after the first real incident? If he fires someone after each outrage he’ll kinda remain teflon, I think. I believe he’s putting a lot of these people into place JUST so he can fire them. Dramatically and to great effect. It’s a game he’s great at, if you ever saw his reality show. It was thinly veiled manipulation, with generated outrage, for ratings.
You’ve elected a shadow government, with little to no actual oversight, probably run out of New York, by the guy’s kids, I suspect.
Everybody is about to get schooled on how the founder’s never foresaw a Trump!
Interesting that Christie got pushed out, and Christie happened to be the prosecutor who sent Kushner’s daddy (who seems like a peachy guy) to prison.
"Kushner’s father engaged in witness tampering? Oh yes:
The federal witnesses he had attempted to retaliate against were his sister and brother-in-law, who were cooperating with that same investigation. Kushner paid a prostitute $10,000 to lure his brother-in-law to a motel room at the Red Bull Inn in Bridgewater to have sex with him. A hidden camera recorded the activity, and Kushner sent the lurid tape to his sister, making sure the tape arrived on the day of a family party."
According to the Washington Post, this will not be a blind trust. “Trump’s ‘blind trust’ is neither blind nor trustworthy” He’s refusing to follow the CUSTOM of putting his assets in a blind trust just as he refused to follow the CUSTOM of disclosing his IRS returns. He’s going to do/not do whatever he wants. And no one will stop him. <shrug>
I cannot possibly take you folks seriously until you explain HOW, exactly, Trump can set up a blind trust.
Other rich presidents mainly owned stocks or had a family trust. Trump owns real estate – lots and lots of it. Do you seriously imagine that putting his assets into a trust will somehow make him forget what he owns?
Furthermore, he has ties to a truly staggering number of businesses.
Even if it’s possible to create a blind trust out of that, it would take YEARS. His term in office would be nearly over before the trust was actually up and running.
Mind you, I don’t expect you to actually pay attention to this. Most liberals have long held the attitude “My mind is made up; don’t bother me with facts.”
He doesn’t have to forget. If Trump puts his assets in a true blind trust, the trustees can sell the assets and replace them with other assets, and Trump will not know whether they have done so. Therefore, after he has transferred his assets to the trust, he won’t know whether he still has an interest in those assets, or in some entirely different set of assets.
And the trustees will make decisions about which assets to sell, and what to replace them with, without being party to the kind of information that would come to Trump and his staff in the exercise of their public functions.
Not at all. The assets could be transferred to trustees very quickly. What happens to them after that might or might not take years, depending on what the trustees decide to do. But in a true blind trust Trump would not know what interest, if any, he still held in any assets he transferred.
Ironic that you should say this, really, in a post which demonstrates that you have no clue how a blind trust works.
It’s gotten to the point where it always screams BAD IDEA when people think about accepting a CNN story without getting independent verification. just sayin’
Stories mentioned “multiple sources” for Trump’s request for security clearances for his son-in-law and/or other spawn. But nobody had gone on record. After complaints in the press, the “official announcement” said no such request has been made. Perhaps those “multiple sources” are artifacts of the shambolic transition occurring atop Trump Tower. Trial balloons? Rumors from angry rejects?
Walking Trump back from rash statements is a useful skill:
A skill which has been rewarded.
The main problem is that Trump will have no Blind Trust–not with his kids in charge. And giving them important government roles–which he has–makes it even worse.
(Well, Bannon is a whole other problem. There’s no Problem Shortgage.)