Concerns over whether Donald Trump should divest from his companies is “not a Democrat or Republican issue,” according to Elizabeth Warren, who has co-sponsored a bill that would require the President and the Vice-President to sell their assets before assuming office.
“This is a good government issue,” the Massachusetts Senator told CNN Wednesday, after Trump announced during his first press conference in half a year his plan to insulate himself from his many businesses during his presidency, and for Trump Organization entities to avoid conflicts of interest.
While there are suggestions that it could actually work as intended, many others, including Warren, do not think the plans Trump and his team have announced so far is enough.
The bill, introduced Monday by Democrats in both houses of Congress, would also require political appointees tapped by Trump to “recuse themselves from any specific matters involving the President’s financial conflicts of interest that come before their agencies,” according to a press release about the bill from Warren’s office.
Given that Republicans now control both the House and the Senate, CNBC reports that the bill is not expected to have any significant effect on how Trump’s assets will be managed after he gets into office. But Warren thinks that a law like that proposed by her bill could be beneficial to the GOP as well.
“It will save Trump. It will save the Republicans. And most of all it will save the United States of America a whole lot of heart ache,” she told CNN.
For more on Trump’s potential conflicts of interest, see Coins2Day’s video:
Although Trump has noted his immunity from conflict-of-interest laws as President, the Trump empire’s sprawling businesses have nonetheless triggered intense concern over any actual or potential conflicts of interest.
His many dealings around the world has also sparked chatter over how the Emoluments Clause in the U.S. Constitution, which forbids Presidents to accept gifts or benefits from foreign governments, might be applicable.
