For what it’s worth, I think this is a premature worry. The president is entitled to ask for advice from people he trusts. If he wants to be able to ask his adult children what they think he ought to offer Iran in a new treaty, they may need a clearance before he can share details, and indeed the process of getting a clearance imposes legal obligations on them related to the protection and handling of the classified information they learn.
However, if this is a precursor to appointing one of his family members to a government post, your comment would be relevant, and your concern justified. I think that we’re fifty years past the idea that a US President could appoint a family member to a senior government job.
But you, and all other readers, are now clear that while the vast majority of laws DO apply to the President, the conflict of interest law definitely does not.
Yes?
I ask because despite all this discussion, BAB again says:
No, I think the right has always been a little skeptical of Trump but no one else was willing to “tell it like it is” They are convinced that if the world were actually fair, all whites would be rich.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Maybe, but I doubt it. You can’t turn a billion dollar enterprise into a trillion dollar enterprise with cleverly disguised federal policy on highway spending and shit like that.
I don’t think Trump is actually going to use his office to enrich himself.
He will use his office to get every goddam things in America named after him. He is going to try and put his face on Mount Rushmore.
Maybe you can’t make it a trillion dollar enterprise, but I think he’ll give it the ol’ trump try.
So, you are saying that because you don’t think he can enrich himself by 3 orders of magnitude, he won’t enrich himself to a lesser, but still fairly significant extent? Considering that the highway spending that is needed to fix everything is well into the trillions, it would not be that hard to skim off a pretty sizable chunk to his cronies and subsidiaries.
I agree with you that his narcissism will cause him to try to immortalize himself in name and graven image, but disagree that he will not collect every dollar his grubby hands can be laid upon.
My original intent, based on the thread title, was to say Giuliani thought any old corruption was legal as long as the president did it.
Here he is saying other crimes are legal as long as there is a war. Does he mean there is no such thing as a war crime? Is this what Rummy and Ashcroft and their minions said 13 years ago? May be Rudolph is only kidding.
IMO, making this guy Secretary of State would be tantamount to declaring war on the rest of the world.
Article from The New York Times about some of the conflicts of interest that may arise. For example, the Trump International Hotel in Washington DC is in the Old Post Office Building, which is leased from the General Services Administration and Trump will be appointing the head of the GSA. He’ll be appointing members of the National Labor Relations Board, which rules on union disputes at his hotels. Some of his business is with foreign companies and some of these companies are owned in part or in whole by foreign governments. If he receives money from these governments, it might violate the Constitutional clause against accepting titles of nobility from foreign governments. (“No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.”)
It is not half the country! It isn’t even half the voters, though it didn’t miss by much. What happens when the I Don’t Give A Shit American wakes up? Dunno, but we are likely to find out. We live in interesting times. Dammit.
The cool part is, the US can ALWAYS be at war with someone. So therefore, anything is permissible. Literally anything, according to Giuliani. Corruption, breaking treaties, shitting on the Geneva conventions, murder, killing civilians deliberately… ANYTHING.
You seem be deliberately misleading. In context, Mr. Guiliani is talking about actions that occur in a war zone, not to any action anywhere. Your post seems to indicate that you think he is saying that any crime is, in his view, excusable as long as there is a war going on.
You have a good argument against war crimes and corruption therein; why taint it?
