Our boorish, loudmouthed new president finally held a press conference today.
Naturally the reporters who were there mostly wanted to know about his ties to the Russian government and whether the Russkies really had blackmail information about Trump’s sexual perversions. For the record, his response was simply to deny everything, say it was “fake news,” and call the Washington Post and CNN disgraceful liars.
But the single most critical issue facing the new president — and the American people — is the inherent conflicts of interest he has, and his refusal to take the necessary steps to end such conflicts. Experts on matters of governmental ethics have said that Donald Trump will be in violation of the constitution the minute he’s inaugurated. Trump’s response is “I can’t have a conflict of interest, because I will be the president.” So basically his defense is “Nuh-uh!”
Today at his press conference he even brought in a lawyer to explain to us lesser folks that as president he can do anything he wants, and because he says it’s OK, it’s OK. It’s reminiscent of Nixon’s statement that “If the president does it, it’s not a crime.” The Office of Government Ethics says he must divest completely, or place all his holdings in a verifiable blind trust. They say handing control of his company over to his children does not constitute any kind of blind trust, that there is no way he’d be able to say truthfully that he is not compromised. So today his lawyer said Trump will turn over control to his two sons, and that should do it. Besides, she announced, it would be really hard to comply with ethics standards and laws.
So that’s it. The final word from Team Trump. He’s not going to comply with the law, the constitution, or with traditional standards of ethics. Don’t forget this day. Trump’s posturing, his name-calling, his bragging, his willful ignorance of policy, tradition and governance is truly offensive. But it now appears that we have not only elected a braying, obnoxious jackass. We have elected a criminal.
Who knew the American voter could be so easily conned?