Trump tried to limit financial conflicts in 2017. This time could be different.
The president-elect said in his first term he would go beyond the law to avoid conflicts. Now he owns stock worth billions of dollars and says he won’t sell.
Eight years later, as Trump prepares to return to the White House, he has not yet made any similar moves to avoid financially benefiting from being president.
Trump has made no promises to divest from any of his financial interests, which have now soared to include a cryptocurrency business and a stake valued at $3.76 billion in a social media company, in addition to his family firm’s growing number of foreign deals. Indeed, three days after winning the election, he shook up Wall Street by denying on his Truth Social site that he was selling his shares in the social media firm’s parent company.
“I HAVE NO INTENTION OF SELLING!” Trump said. The stock price promptly rose, benefiting Trump and others.
Trump is poised to take office with extraordinary wealth when the government’s ability to monitor his ethics is far weaker than in his first presidency — and when there are more avenues for industries, foreign governments and rich patrons to seek to influence him. He is enabled by a system that has relied on a president’s good-faith effort to separate personal interests from the country’s, as well as a cascade of court rulings and political shifts since Trump was first elected in 2016 that have removed other safeguards.
The Supreme Court ruled this year that Trump, as a former president, is immune from prosecution for anything related to official acts within his constitutional authority taken while in the White House. Congressional Democrats are unlikely to have the power, at least for the next two years, to initiate investigations of Trump’s business dealings as they did in his first term. Trump has made clear he will demand loyalty from his attorney general and on Wednesday tapped former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz for the role. Internal watchdogs at federal agencies known as inspectors general, who could question the administration’s actions, could be fired. And the prospect of another impeachment is slim.
“We have very little potential outside oversight because I don’t think there are any functional systems of accountability in place,” said Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, a public interest group. “The scale of what can happen is wildly greater than the genuine concerns we had during his first term.”
The Trump campaign and transition and the Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment from The Washington Post. The campaign has previously said Trump will follow ethics guidelines in office.
“Unlike most politicians, President Trump didn’t get into politics for profit — he’s fighting because he loves the people of this country and wants to make America great again,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump transition spokeswoman, said in a previous statement to The Post.
The unprecedented scenario of a president holding a single company’s shares worth billions of dollars — as Trump does in Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., the parent company of Truth Social — is unanticipated by existing law.
The president and vice president are exempted from conflict of interest laws because they oversee too many areas to make enforcement practical, and there is no requirement to divest holdings. Before Trump’s first election, presidents since Jimmy Carter in the 1970s had put their assets in a blind trust or mainly in Treasury bonds to avoid any appearance of conflict, but the law does not demand it.
If Trump again declines to follow that tradition, he will open new venues by which corporate and foreign interests could attempt to influence policy by pouring money into his businesses.
The Securities and Exchange Commission requires disclosure only of investments of 5 percent or more in a company such as Trump Media. At the same time, a person or group seeking to curry favor with Trump could buy millions of dollars’ worth of advertising on Truth Social.
“When you buy a bunch of stock, you potentially create very significant value for Donald Trump because that could cause the price to rise,” said Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). “And if you own a bunch of stock, you also have the potential to really hurt his bottom line because you can sell off all of that stock price downwards. So there’s been an enormous potential for this that is difficult to trace.”
Trump’s family real estate business has also expanded its international presence since he left office in 2021.
In his first term, as Trump retained his stake in the family company — which was run by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. — he faced lawsuits, including one brought by CREW, alleging he violated a constitutional clause prohibiting presidents from accepting benefits from foreign governments. But those cases, which centered on foreign delegations paying to stay at his Washington, D.C., hotel, were dismissed, suggesting that renewing such efforts in a second term could be difficult.
The family real estate company, now run largely by Eric Trump, still owns a portfolio of hotels, golf courses, resorts and New York City office space, retail and condominiums — although Trump sold his D.C. hotel lease in 2022. The company has also expanded with foreign deals, including an announcement last month of a joint venture with one of Vietnam’s leading developers to build luxury hotels, golf courses and homes in the Southeast Asian country.
“We’re in a worse position now than we were when he first took office,” said Don Fox, former acting director of the Office of Government Ethics.
A new frontier
In 2016, at his first post-election news conference, Trump gathered reporters at Trump Tower alongside his tax attorney and gestured to stacks of paper piled high beside him, saying, “These papers are just some of the many documents that I’ve signed turning over complete and total control to my sons.”
To further assuage public concern about Trump’s potential conflicts, his lawyer issued a statement that he recognized he “should not benefit personally” from his election, and so had terminated more than 30 pending deals “which resulted in an immediate financial loss of millions of dollars, not just for President-Elect Trump but for Don, Ivanka, and Eric as well.”
In a document from his law firm titled “Conflicts of Interest and the President,” Trump committed to an arrangement that prohibited “without exception — new foreign deals during the duration of President-Elect Trump’s Presidency.” In addition, the agreement said that “new domestic deals will go through a rigorous vetting process” that would be overseen by an ethics adviser.
Trump’s sons, having taken over the company, hired an outside ethics adviser and vowed to give profits from foreign governments to the U.S. Treasury, eventually donating hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Despite Trump’s vows to avoid conflicts of interest, his business was a regular source of distraction and litigation during his first term. The government’s top ethics official, Walter Shaub, resigned six months after Trump entered office, criticizing him on the way out. Trump was scrutinized for the fees his company charged Secret Service agents and other government personnel to stay at his properties. At least 20 governments, among them China and Saudi Arabia, collectively spent more than $7.8 million at his hotels and golf courses, according to a report completed later by congressional Democrats.
At the time, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Kentucky) said in a statement that it was “beyond parody that Democrats continue their obsession with former president Trump,” and that Trump has “legitimate businesses.”
But Trump’s potential conflicts of interest during his first term were tempered somewhat because the federal government does not directly regulate commercial real estate, putting some distance between his government policymaking and his personal financial interest.
The same cannot be said about two sectors in which Trump is newly focused — social media and cryptocurrency, industries that are likely to be shaped by the Trump administration.
By far the largest driver of Trump’s wealth on paper is almost 115 million shares in Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social. The company as a whole is worth $7.1 billion as of Monday afternoon’s share price despite losing tens of millions of dollars annually, according to securities filings. His roughly 53 percent stake is likely to be worth more than all his commercial real estate combined, at the stock’s current trading price.
“One of the things that makes this so unique is when you have a sitting president of the United States posting on his own social media platform that he owns and profits from,” said Fox, the former acting director of the Office of Government Ethics. “Does Truth Social then become state media? It’s just hard to wrap your head around.”
A spokesman for Trump Media & Technology Group did not respond to a request for comment.
In the weeks leading up to the election, Trump and his eldest sons also repeatedly promoted the cryptocurrency World Liberty Financial. Neither Trump nor any of his family members are directors or employees of the business, but it relies on Trump’s image on its website and promotional materials alongside the tagline “Inspired by Donald J. Trump.” A separate Trump company is entitled to 75 percent of the net revenue and 22.5 percent of the company’s tokens, according to a disclosure from the company — digital currency that can be used like money or held as a longer-term investment.
World Liberty Financial did not respond to a request for comment.
Overall, the crypto industry, which contributed heavily to Trump’s campaign, has rejoiced since Trump’s election. Trump has said he will put crypto-friendly associates in key government positions, replacing officials who have been critical of the currency. He vowed to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet.”
So far, however, World Liberty Financial, the crypto business that Trump is associated with, has not achieved its financial goals. It initially planned to sell $300 million worth of tokens to investors in the United States and abroad. But in an Oct. 30 securities filing, the company slashed its sales target by 90 percent, saying it planned to sell only up to $30 million in tokens “before terminating sale.” As of last week it had sold about $22.7 million. The business has also stopped selling to U.S. residents, according to a new disclaimer.
The crypto firm, experts said, could provide deep-pocketed investors the opportunity to enrich Trump by purchasing tokens — delivering his company profits by driving up their price or pushing sales above the $30 million threshold, beyond which Trump’s company would reap three-quarters of any proceeds.
Since Trump left office, the Trump Organization has made a number of international deals. When Trump turned over control of the company in 2017 to his two eldest sons, he resigned his position, and he has not resumed it; he continues to own his stake in the privately held firm.
After Trump lost the presidency, the family company began negotiating in the Middle East, including on plans for a high-rise development in Saudi Arabia and an agreement with the Saudi-backed enterprise LIV Golf to host tournaments at Trump courses. It also has a deal for a massive resort in Oman backed by that country’s government.
Then, last month, the Trump Organization announced a joint venture with a company in Vietnam that develops luxury projects. It quoted Eric Trump as saying, “Vietnam has tremendous potential for luxurious hospitality and entertainment, and we are beyond thrilled to work with this amazing family to redefine luxury in the region.”
At the same time, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is running a company that has received $3 billion in funding, including $2 billion from the Saudi sovereign investment fund. His wife, Trump’s daughter Ivanka, has been involved in the company’s efforts to develop a project in Albania, she said in a July interview on the Lex Fridman podcast. She said she was looking forward to being able to “play around and flex the real estate muscles.”
A spokesman for Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, asked whether Kushner would make any change as a result of his father-in-law becoming president again, responded in a statement: “Affinity has always operated in full compliance with all laws and regulations and will continue to do so.”
Trump is required under the Presidential Transition Act to sign an ethics plan that includes how he would “address his or her own conflicts of interest during a Presidential term” — notwithstanding the fact that, under Title 18 Section 208 of the U.S. Code, a president is exempt from conflict of interest laws while in office. As of Nov. 13, that plan has not been received by the government, a White House spokeswoman told The Post. (The spokeswoman did not respond on Monday about whether the form has been received since then.) If Trump doesn’t provide that information, then he could be denied access to information at federal agencies that experts say is needed for a smooth transition.
“It’s quite surprising that they haven’t engaged because it has real consequences for their ability to be ready on Day One,” said Max Stier, who has studied the law in his role as president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan nonprofit group that includes the Center for Presidential Transition.
The Trump-Vance campaign did distribute a different, internally produced ethics document to transition members that requests them to “abide by the highest ethical standards” and disqualify themselves from any transition matter that posed a direct financial conflict of interest, the campaign said. The Trump transition team leaders, Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, said in a recent statement that the campaign will abide by “all agreements contemplated by the Presidential Transition Act” and that all transition staff “have signed a robust ethics pledge.”
Once Trump takes office, senior members of his administration — but not Trump — would be subject to federal law that requires varying degrees of financial disclosure.
The Trump family real estate company’s finances are under review by former federal judge Barbara S. Jones, who is serving as a court-appointed monitor over the company after a New York State Superior Court judge found the firm liable for business fraud and fined the company $355 million plus interest. Trump has appealed the ruling. Jones is empowered to review the company’s communications with business partners and watch financial transactions, enabling her to alert a judge if she sees anything amiss.
Upon assuming the presidency, Trump could try to get Congress to change ethics laws, or the supervision of them. By tradition, the head of the Office of Government Ethics has acted in a nonpartisan fashion.
The office has an acting director, Shelley Finlayson. President Joe Biden’s nominee to run the office, David Huitema, had been blocked by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who said in a Senate speech that he wanted to delay confirmation until after the election. On Thursday, Huitema was confirmed for a five-year term and is expected to take office soon. Trump, however, would have the authority to fire Huitema and nominate his own choice to run the ethics office.
Fox said that it is “scary” to contemplate that the array of changes since Trump’s first term could empower him to operate with little or no ethics oversight. He worried that there is “no mechanism now within the government, particularly as he has stated how he intends to use the Justice Department, that can hold him accountable.”
Lisa Rein contributed to this report.
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