*Let Pres. Trump also handle the business of business
By Mark Scheinbaum
MIAMI (Nov. 23,)—If you hate Donald Trump it will be really tough to read this because it is actually reasonable and objective about the President-elect. But try to handle this for a few minutes.
Before getting caught up in the dispute over whether or not Mr. Trump should keep an active, arm’s-length relationship, or fully disgorge himself from affairs in his business life, think about the election and the evolution of U.S. political history.
Spending some time surfing the files of the American Bar Association and the Congressional Research Office, one learns that in the late 19th Century around 80 per cent of those in Congress and high government positions came from the legal profession. In the 1960s it was still 60 per cent, and in the past five years the level sank from 40 to 39 per cent. The vast majority of Presidents, Vice Presidents and Secretaries of State have been lawyers.
Yet, as the current 114th Congress winds down there are almost 100 more members of both Houses of Congress who identify themselves as “business” people rather than attorneys.
Using the erratic but sometimes energizing ill-fated presidential run of computer billionaire H. Ross Perot more than 25 years ago as a model, consider he only received 19 per cent of the vote. That is a big Third Party number but America apparently was not ready for an “outside the Beltway” candidate. Had he been elected he would have had to deal with the same issues of family members loyal to him and his campaign, family interests in his business ventures, and many foreign leaders and centers of influence now having access to the White House.
Those who did not vote at all or supported Hillary Clinton will cringe when they hear “approximately half the voters rejected politics as usual and supported Trump.”
They will point to a popular vote for Clinton by a slight margin and an electoral system they do not like.
None of this changes the reality that approximately half the country rejected Clinton and by inference, dynastic politics, be they named Roosevelt, Kennedy, Bush, or Clinton. Clinton was not rejected by a Perot-style 19 percent or a 30 or 35 per cent plurality, but by a huge number equaling about 50 per cent.
Donald Trump implied he graduated from the Wharton Graduate School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Actually, he only finished two years as a business student in the UP undergraduate school. Half the country did not care.
Donald Trump has now settled a law suit involving an alleged diploma mill called Trump University where he said many students went on to great futures and critics say they were scammed, Half the voters were not concerned.
Donald Trump has a playboy image and likes women, and was the subject of audio, video, and print information showing he would not skip a chance to grope a woman, providing she met his standards of beauty.
The election proved people, including millions of women either were not concerned, did not believe the stories, or were more worried about other issues.
There is a method to my madness; the point is those who hate Trump will accept nothing in his favor. Those who like Trump do not need any explanations.
So, we come to the business of business. It is part of the difference between campaign debates and promises and threats and shouts and the reality of, well, of reality!
Just as Sen. X might return to his or her law firm or funeral parlor someday (either as owner or customer), Mr. Trump has a right to go back to his hotels, golf courses, steaks, ties, suits, and bottles of water.
If he has to take calls from Dubai and Panama for business from time to time, let him do it. It is reported that when Pres. Woodrow Wilson had a stroke, his wife ran the country.
It is reported that when Gen. U.S. Grant was drunk perhaps no one ran the country. People elected a businessman. Let him serve the nation and do what he needs to do to maintain his companies and employees. If his kids and other relatives are trusted White House advisors, that is his decision, his choice, and his potential problem, not yours.
Why not yours?
Because there are still laws and attorneys and millions of you who will fight him.
So if Billy Carter used his brother’s name to embarrass Pres. Jimmy Carter; if Pres. Bush the First had a brother tweaking influence peddling at savings banks, and if a huge chunk of the FDR family was dialing for dollars from the White House for business deals, we probably have all seen this rodeo before.
Out West we used to call this a Goat Rodeo. In Washington it will take prosecutors and public outrage to round up crooks and put people in jail.
Do you get the gist of this? Aren’t you glad you are open minded?
If President Trump is actually charged with ILLEGAL use of business contacts, or influence peddling, he can be impeached, convicted, removed, and fined or imprisoned. A President has special exemptions and exclusions but history shows he or she would not be Teflon protected, and certainly not his family.
Unless, or until Trump’s business life is proven to adversely impact the national interest, let him do what he did before the election and likely after his one or two terms of office: conduct business.
Impropriety
If you are concerned about the “perception of impropriety” or the need for “recusal” or divestiture or blind trusts you are dealing with your feelings and not the law. As of now nothing forces a president to put his investments or business on hold while in the White House.
I am confident that the millions of Americans who reject Trump, the way millions of liberal Democrats rejected George W. Bush during every day of his presidency, have no interest in allowing Businessman Trump succeeding as President Trump, the businessman.
All of this makes me wonder what the Dump Trumpsters would say about a privileged aristocratic slave owner, who was landed gentry and an attorney, architect, agronomist, mathematician, theologian, and farmer being elected president? But, then again, I assume they would not have liked Thomas Jefferson either,
*-For some Constitutional views see
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/us/politics/donald-trump-conflict-of-interest.html?ref=business&_r=1
MARK SCHEINBAUM is a frequent Newsroom contributor who is Managing Director of Shearson Financial LLC in Boca Raton, FL, a political scientist and former UPI newsman. His opinions are his own.
