WASHINGTON _ President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday he won't be selling his company, virtually assuring that that his administration will continue to face questions about potential conflicts between his public duties and private interests.
Instead of divesting his hotels, golf courses, office buildings and other deals, Trump will create a trust for the Trump Organization's holdings and turn over management to his sons Donald Jr. and Eric. Trump will have nothing to do with any decisions involving the company, which will avoid any foreign deals while Trump is president, according to Sheri Dillon, a lawyer for Trump who outlined the plan.
Trump, at a typically raucous exchange with reporters, said he does not believe the public cares much about his business dealings, and made it clear he would keep ownership of all properties throughout his presidency. And he says he has no plans to release his tax returns to provide some transparency about his finances, another customary practice followed by every president since Gerald Ford.
"The only ones that care about my tax returns are the reporters, OK?" Trump said. "I won. No, I don't think they care at all."
He also noted that, as president, he is exempt from federal conflict of interest rules.
"I could actually run my business and run government at the same time," he said. "I don't like the way that looks, but I would be able to do that if I wanted to."
With more than 500 corporations, hundreds of millions in outstanding debts and real-estate deals from Dubai to a hotel down the street from the White House, Trump's business represent unprecedented potential conflicts with his duties as president.
Ethics experts and watchdog groups said the arrangement swerved from long presidential tradition and could spawn years of lawsuits and controversies. The arrangement also seems unlikely to pass muster with the Office of Government Ethics, which in a December letter wrote that turning the company over to Trump's children would not meet the law's standards for a blind trust, "nor would it eliminate conflicts of interest."
"Trump's workaround is a totally fraudulent runaround," Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe said in an email. "The announced structure is cleverly designed to dazzle and deceive but it solves absolutely none of the serious ethical and legal issues."
Dillon said Trump will resign from any positions with his companies, and turn over control to his sons and a company vice president, Allen Weisselberg. She said Trump will not participate in any decisions, nor get any information about how individual properties are doing _ just a general profit and loss statement.
The trust agreement requires that all pending deals, more than 30 of them, be terminated, she said, and the company will do no new foreign deals while Trump is president. Domestic deals will still be permitted, she said, after written approval from a new ethics officer who will work for the Trump company.
Dillon said it would be infeasible for the Trump Organization to sell off properties like Trump Tower and the Mar-a-Lago resort, or to unload the dozens of deals in which Trump gets paid a licensing fee for his name.
That would "greatly diminish the value of assets and create a fire sale," she said. "President-elect Trump should not be expected to destroy the company he built."
She also said that selling the assets would exacerbate conflicts, not cure them. The sons would have to take on huge debts, raising questions about the terms of the loans and whether the lenders were trying to curry favor with Trump.
The Constitution prohibits U.S. officials from getting payments from foreign powers, in what's known as its emoluments clause. Trump is already drawing heat because his Washington hotel is already drawing business from foreign governments. Dillon said Trump will donate any hotel profits from foreign governments to the treasury.
"Nobody seems to think, other than his lawyer, that this solves his emoluments problem," said Norman Eisen, chief White House ethics lawyer in President Barack Obama's first term.
Dillon compared Trump's business empire to the fortune held by Nelson Rockefeller when he became vice president in 1974, "but at that time, no one was so concerned.'
In fact, the nomination of Rockefeller to replace Spiro Agnew, who had resigned, was held up for months because of concerns about conflicts of interest. Rockefeller, heir to an oil fortune, was one of America's richest people at the time and promised to put all his securities into a blind trust. The Senate did not impose such a condition before confirming him.
Democrats jumped on Trump's refusal to sell his holdings or to release tax records.
"They've not been transparent," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest, saying Trump, facing questions about dealings with Russia, could release documents proving that he has no dealings there. "But they've refused to do so. That kind of secrecy only serves to sow public doubt."
Some Republicans also criticized Trump. Rep. Mark Sanford, R-NC, saying not releasing the tax returns is a "grave mistake."
"This is about upholding precedent and encouraging transparency," he said.
Amid a storm of questions about his ties to Russia, Trump insisted he had no business dealings there.
"We could make deals in Russia very easily if we wanted to," Trump said. "I just don't want to, because I think that would be a conflict."
