Tornado Alley (PROG)

[BOREALIS]

The Trump conflicts of interest we can see are just the tip of the iceberg

The true possibility of corruption is essentially unlimited.

Updated by Matthew Yglesias - @[e-mail] - Nov 29, 2016, 8:10am EST

For all the stunning revelations we’ve seen about Donald Trump and his global business interests since the election, the larger and more troubling issue is what we don’t know.]

A magisterial six-byline New York Times investigation found 20 countries around the world where Trump does business, and both the US and foreign governments are already talking about the intermingling of public and private interests.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/us/politics/donald-trump-international-business.html?_r=0

But the most important line in the piece by far is an observation that’s not directly tied to any of that excellent reporting from around the world: “The true extent of Mr. Trump’s global financial entanglements is unclear, since he has refused to release his tax returns and has not made public a list of his lenders.”

To put it even more plainly: We have absolutely no idea what Trump owns, who his business partners are, who is paying him, or whom he owes money to. Trump’s main line of business in recent years has been licensing the Trump name to various developments, so there is a certain obvious connection between the various buildings in various cities named Trump Tower and the Trump Organization. In general, Trump likes to name things after himself, so as a rule, “if Trump is involved, the thing will be named Trump” has been a pretty good guideline. But obviously Trump is not actually legally required to name everything he’s involved with after himself.

And thanks to his failure to do any kind of meaningful financial transparency, the basic reality is we’re not really sure what he owns and we won’t be sure how his family’s investment portfolio shifts over the years. The truly scary thing, in other words, isn’t the conflicts of interest we can see. It’s all the conflicts — and, conceivably, bribes, insider trading, and other illicit activity — that we can’t see.

Trump’s financial disclosures tell us very little

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The possibilities for corruption are essentially limitless

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Conflicts of interest entirely permeate Trump as a regulator

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The cure is simple: Trump must sell

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http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/29/13763836/trump-disclosure-conflict-of-interest