New York - US President-elect Donald
Trump vowed on Wednesday to step back from running his global
business empire to avoid conflicts of interest but gave few
immediate details as concern over his dual role mounts ahead of
his Jan. 20 inauguration.
Trump, a real estate magnate who owns hotels and golf
resorts from Panama to Scotland, said he would spell out at a
December 15 news conference how he will separate himself "in total"
from his worldwide business holdings, which include a winery,
modeling agency and a range of other businesses.
After Trump won the November 8 election, his company, the Trump
Organization, had said it was looking at new business structures
with the goal of transferring control to Donald Trump Jr,
Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump - three of his adult children who
are involved with the company.
Trump gave few details in a series of early morning tweets
but said that "legal documents are being crafted which take me
completely out of business operations" and that his children
would attend the news conference. He did not say what the
planned change might mean for ownership of his businesses.
Although Trump's fellow Republicans generally take a more
laissez faire stance toward business than Democrats, the
president-elect will travel to Indiana on Thursday to formally
announce a deal he reached with United Technologies Corp
to keep close to 1,000 jobs at its Carrier Corp air conditioner
plant in Indianapolis rather than have them moved to Mexico.
Trump and his running mate, Mike Pence, the governor of
Indiana, railed against Carrier on the campaign trail, using the
company's outsourcing move as an example of how trade agreements
hurt American workers.
Must sell
Critics have raised questions about the role of Trump's
children, who are on the executive committee of his White House
transition team. His daughter Ivanka joined a telephone call her
father had with Argentine President Mauricio Macri earlier this
month and attended a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe, creating concerns about possible conflicts of interest.
A brand name around the globe, Trump previously argued he
had no need to separate himself from the Trump Organization,
which includes a hotel down the street from the White House, a
Manhattan tower where he lives and is running his transition to
office, and a New Jersey golf course where he interviewed
Cabinet candidates earlier this month.
Trump said on Wednesday he was not required by law to alter
his relationship with his business, but added: "I feel it is
visually important, as president, to in no way have a conflict
of interest with my various businesses."
As the Republican heads toward taking over the White House
from Democratic President Barack Obama, scrutiny of potential
conflicts has grown. Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill called
for hearings on the issue.
Rules on conflict of interest for executive branch employees
do not apply to the president, but Trump will be bound by
bribery laws, disclosure rules and the US Constitution, which
bars elected officials from taking gifts from foreign
governments.
The nonpartisan Office of Government Ethics, a government
office that oversees ethics programs for the executive branch,
issued a statement saying it applauded Trump's aims and
appearing to suggest that he completely shed his holdings.
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"Divestiture resolves conflicts of interest in a way that
transferring control does not," it said.
Richard Painter, who served as the chief ethics lawyer to
former Republican President George W. Bush, concurred.
"He needs to sell the businesses not just have someone else
manage them for him," Painter, a professor at the University of
Minnesota Law School, said in an emailed comment.
Wall Street picks
Trump, a former reality TV star, has spent much of the past
few weeks setting up his Cabinet and interviewing candidates for
top jobs in his administration.
On Wednesday, Trump said he would nominate his chief
campaign fundraiser, Steven Mnuchin, to lead the US Treasury.
Mnuchin said the administration would make tax reform and trade
pact overhauls top priorities as it seeks a sustained pace of 3
percent to 4 percent economic growth.
Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker, also signaled a
desire to remove U.S. mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac from government ownership, a move that could have
wide-ranging ramifications for how Americans pay for their
homes, and said banking regulations should be eased to spur
lending.
Trump named Wilbur Ross, a billionaire known for his
investments in distressed industries, as his nominee for
commerce secretary. Both nominees will require confirmation by
the US Senate.
Trump is also considering Goldman Sachs President and Chief
Operating Officer Gary Cohn, a former commodities trader, to
head his White House budget office or to fill another position,
a Trump transition official said.
The economic picks were praised by the Business Roundtable,
a group that represents America's largest corporations.
But US Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren called
Mnuchin "just another Wall Street insider."
"That is not the type of change that Donald Trump promised
to bring to Washington - that is hypocrisy at its worst,"
Sanders, a Vermont independent who ran for the 2016 Democratic
presidential nomination, and Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat,
said in a joint statement.
Trump pledged during his campaign to "drain the swamp" in
Washington. A spokesman said giving top economic jobs to Wall
Street figures was not inconsistent with that vow.
"You want some people that are insiders and understand the
system and some outsiders that are creative thinkers,
out-of-the-box thinkers and disruptors," said Anthony
Scaramucci, an asset manager who is on Trump's transition
committee.
Trump is also working to fill out his foreign policy team,
but no decision appeared imminent on who the next secretary of
state would be.