Constitutional expert explains possible Trump conflict of interest

Eyewitness News anchor Todd Kunz talked to a local Constitutional expert about a possible conflict of interest with President-elect Donald Trump still having influence into this business ventures.

David Adler is a historian and a student of the Constitution. He said from a statutory law perspective, Donald Trump is able to simply turn over his vast business empire, but that might not be enough for the public perception.

“There might be a different question, a deeply troubling question when it comes to the Emoluments Clause of Article I, Section 9, which prohibits the president and any other elected officer in the country from receiving a gift from a foreign government. The problem that we find with President-elect Trump’s vast empire is that it will do business in more in than 50 countries with some 125 companies and anytime any of his interests are sold for better than a fair market value, then that constitutes a gift and politically the world over knows that everybody wants to curry favor with the U.S. president. So it’s unlikely that any company is going to give anything different than an above market value for his many different products. That will create an Emoluments Clause problem,” said Adler.

He adds to avoid this, the U.S. Congress could urge the president-elect to divest his vast holdings and place them in a blind trust, which all previous presidents have done. He said Congress has the ultimate power and authority to ‘move’ on possible impeachment, but that is very unlikely.