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Why does Trump enjoy 'presidential exemption' from conflict of interest law?
Every executive branch official is required by law, under threat of prison, to avoid financial conflicts of interest. But two people are exempt: President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance.
This presidential exemption, enshrined for decades in federal conflict of interest law, has created an absurd situation where Trump openly disregards ethical norms, while cabinet members, White House advisers, and appointees throughout the federal government are forced to perform endless maneuvers to avoid conflicts, whether by selling their assets or recusing themselves from certain decision-making.
Seven months into his term, Trump has openly mixed his business with the presidency. His administration has received a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar. He has dined with wealthy investors in his cryptocurrency, sold Trump-branded phones, promoted golf resorts in Scotland and more.
“This legal exemption for the president undermines public trust in government,” said Richard Painter, the top White House ethics lawyer during the Bush presidency, who later left the Republican Party. “Every president since the Civil War has voluntarily avoided conflict. They have understood how important this is.”
As for Trump’s appointees, “they are bound by criminal law and I think they are trying to follow the rules,” Painter added. For example, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says he has sold 96% of the assets he was supposed to sell, a tall order for a former fund manager who owned nearly $1 billion in assets. However, he was criticized last month by the federal ethics watchdog for delays in complying with his full divestment plan.
CNN has reviewed internal government emails and financial statements that show that other senior administration officials, including at the Pentagon and the Office of Management and Budget, have also taken significant steps this year to comply with ethics rules. They have sold shares in defense companies, recused themselves from decisions involving their former employers, closed other investments and obtained approval from ethics officials.
“The law is not designed to prevent the close relationships that this administration and other administrations have had with companies,” said Donald Sherman, executive director of the ethics group CREW. “But it’s still good news when federal officials withdraw from projects where they have clear conflicts.”
The exemptions for the president and vice president have been around for a long time. They were created after the Watergate scandal, when Congress passed new laws and previous presidents voluntarily complied with the rules. Don Fox, former acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, said the exemptions were created so that the president and vice president could deal with any issue that came their way. “It made sense in theory, and it made sense for previous presidents up until Trump. Bush and Obama acted as if they were subject to the law. Trump has seen it more as an opportunity to exploit a legal loophole.”
When asked by CNN about the ethics violations, a White House spokesman said Trump was “restoring the integrity of the executive branch” by being “the most transparent president in U.S. history.” In January, the Trump Organization released an ethics plan that stipulated that Trump would have no involvement in the management of his business empire, but the plan did not require him to sell or divest from any interests. His private lawyers stressed that “neither federal law nor the U.S. Constitution prohibits the president from continuing to own or manage his businesses and investments while in office.”
That’s true for Trump, but everyone else in the administration is required to avoid conflict. “Indeed, there are people in this administration who have made enormous financial sacrifices to get these jobs,” Fox said. “But the tone is set at the top, and Trump sets a terrible example.”
Bessent is a case in point. He has played a key role in the administration’s messaging on tariffs and tax cuts, while simultaneously trying to sell a large portfolio of energy, bitcoin and telecom stocks. The OGE, the federal ethics agency, has officially told him that he is not moving fast enough to achieve 100% compliance. The remaining assets include a soybean and corn farm in North Dakota worth up to $25 million. He has said that this is a hard-to-sell asset, but that he is working to sell it by the end of the year.
Even if Bessent is 96% clean from his billion-dollar portfolio, the question remains: what is 4% of a billion? For an ordinary citizen, that's a staggering fortune.
CNN has also learned that two senior officials at the Office of Management and Budget have taken steps to avoid conflicts with major defense contractors. One of them, Thomas Williams, had a multimillion-dollar financial interest in Palantir, where his wife worked. After meetings with ethics officials, he recused himself from any decision-making related to six companies, including Palantir. Another official, Greg Barbaccia, had up to $250,000 in Anduril Industries, but has said he has fully divested.
Trump's nominee for Undersecretary of the Army, Mike Obadal, also owned shares in Anduril. He has pledged to recuse himself from any dealings with the company and has notified the ethics office that he is now fully divested.
All of them are legally obligated to avoid conflict. But Trump and JD Vance are not. And that's the crux of the matter: A president who flouts the norms not only fails to set an example, but turns a legal loophole into a political way of life. / Adapted from "CNN"
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