Can the President of the United States Have Conflicts of Interest?

Mady Nutter

mn830117@ohio.edu

madelynnenutter@gmail.com

The people in charge of governing our country should hold no financial conflicts of interest, or so the law says.

According to the U.S. Code Title 18, section 208 "prohibits an executive branch employee from participating personally and substantially in a particular Government matter that will affect his own financial interests, as well as the financial interests of certain individuals with whom he has ties outside the government."

The running total number of President Trump's conflicts of interest as of 8/15/19 via Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

 

However, the president and vice president of the United States are exempt by Congress from having to comply with conflict of interest laws. This is largely due to the significant power that these positions hold and the inevitable conflicts of interest that could arise amidst their executive duties. 

Members of the Trump family have asserted that President Trump has no conflicts of interest. 

In a 2016 interview with the New York Times, President Trump said, "The law's totally on my side, meaning, the president can't have a conflict of interest." In a 2017 interview with ABC World News, Eric Trump said, "The president of the United States has zero conflicts of interest. Zero."

While it is ruled that the president does not have to comply with conflict-of-interest laws, this cannot be conflated with the president not having any conflicts of interest. 

In the same ABC World News interview where Eric Trump claimed that President Trump "has zero conflicts of interest," Eric Trump admits to discussing profit reports with the president. Even though the president does not have to abide by conflict-of-interest laws, Eric Trump is insistent that there have been zero conflicts of interest with the president. 

This contradiction within the interview reminded me of one of the codes of ethics we have been studying this semester: transparency.

I personally feel that it is unreasonable to expect any person to be void of conflicts of interest, especially a person occupying the highest office of our country. That being said, I am in no way insinuating that we should allow conflicts of interest to prevail. 

I believe that transparency, especially in the case that conflicts of interest laws are not being applied, would be an excellent antidote to this situation of uncertainty, and it would keep any conflicts of interest above board.

Legislatively, there has been some effort to enforce transparency of the president and vice president's financial interests. In 2017, Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced a bill named the Presidential Conflicts of Interest Act.

The bill would require the disclosure of financial interest held by the president, vice president, their respective spouses and minor children. The president and vice president's tax returns would also have to be disclosed. 

The bill goes further to require the president and vice president to transfer any of their financial interests that could potentially be conflicts of interest into a blind trust. While I feel that this measure goes beyond the baseline goal of transparency, I also think that it is a more than reasonable standard which most recent presidents have met despite the lack of requirement. 

We all hold conflicts of interest in our lives, especially those who are in positions of power in our country. At the bare minimum, I believe that measures of transparency should be enforced to guarantee that the only interest of government officials is how to best serve the American public.