Russia Law Firm of the Year Concocts Bogus Plan for Trump
We can’t risk creating the perception that government leaders would use their official positions for profit. That’s why I was glad in November when the President-elect tweeted that he wanted to, as he put it, “in no way have a conflict of interest” with his businesses. Unfortunately, his current plan cannot achieve that goal.
It’s easy to see that the current plan does not achieve anything like the clean break Rex Tillerson is making from Exxon. Stepping back from running his business is meaningless from a conflict of interest perspective. The Presidency is a full-time job and he would’ve had to step back anyway. The idea of setting up a trust to hold his operating businesses adds nothing to the equation. This is not a blind trust—it’s not even close.
I think Politico called this a “half-blind” trust, but it’s not even halfway blind. The only thing this has in common with a blind trust is the label, “trust.” His sons are still running the businesses, and, of course, he knows what he owns. His own attorney said today that he can’t “un-know” that he owns Trump tower. The same is true of his other holdings. The idea of limiting direct communication about the business is wholly inadequate. That’s not how a blind trust works. There’s not supposed to be any information at all.
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This isn’t the way the Presidency has worked since Congress passed the Ethics in Government Act in 1978 in the immediate aftermath of the Watergate scandal. Since then, Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama all either established blind trusts or limited their investments to non-conflicting assets like diversified mutual funds, which are exempt under the conflict of interest law.
Sophie Tatum reports at CNN:
Morgan Lewis, a law firm representing President-elect Donald Trump, was named the "Russia Law Firm of the Year" last year by a group that ranks legal organizations.
Facing the press Wednesday for the first time since being elected president, Trump yielded a significant part of his news conference to an attorney from the law firm, which is helping separate him from his various business ties.
In highlighting its receipt of the Russia award, Morgan Lewis' website cites Chambers and Partners.
"This active Moscow office of an American firm offers top-level advice in regards to the energy sector and also houses very strong banking and M&A teams," Chambers and Partners writes about the award.
