title:  George H. W. Bush Writes Letter Showing Trump How To NOT Be A Corrupt President
text: Former President George H. W. Bush can teach Donald Trump a thing or two about handling conflicts of interest.As January 20th approaches, Donald Trump is apparently poised to violate the Constitution the moment he finishes reciting the oath of office because he has yet to properly eliminate the conflicts of interest between himself and his family business.Public officials are not allowed to use their office to to influence policies that would increase profits of a company they have a personal stake in. By not putting his assets, including the Trump Organization and any stocks he owns, into a blind trust or sells them off, Trump is violating the the Emoluments Clause and breaking decades of precedent.The most example is when Jimmy Carter sold the peanut business he built from the ground up to avoid conflicts of interest. Of course, Republicans initiated a series of witch hunts against Carter s business anyway in a desperate effort to find a scandal. Today, Republicans don t care if Trump continues to own his business, even though he is already using the presidency to make business deals and bring in profits.Indeed, when Ivanka Trump sat in during a meeting between her father and the Japanese Prime Minister, her company was in the middle of working on a deal with a Japanese company.As Newsweek explained,At the same time, officials with her clothing company were working on a licensing agreement with Sanei International. The largest shareholder of Sanei s parent company is the Development Bank of Japan, which is wholly owned by the Japanese government headed by Abe.Trump has also talked to the president of Taiwan and the leader of Argentina, where Trump s company is trying to secure deals to build hotels. Clearly, Trump is flagrantly using the presidency to enrich himself and his company.George H.W. Bush warned his own family not to do this or even make it appear that they are doing it by sending each family member a letter in 1988 in the midst of the presidential election.The elder Bush told his family that people are going to try to be their friend but that  friendship  could result in asking for favors simply because they are connected to the leader of the free world. If there is a legitimate inquiry, call my office,  Bush wrote.  It is certainly appropriate to contact your own government, but let s do it through my office so no one can accuse any of the family of trying to use influence. In other words, Bush told his family not to call him on their friend s behalf. They have to call his office themselves.Bush knew all too well that,  Every effort will be made to find some phone call, some inquiry, some letter that can be made to appear improper. Here s the full letter via Twitter.pic.twitter.com/60GKf4QIIJ  Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) December 21, 2016Donald Trump, however, is influenced by his business and since his children are deeply involved in the company, that means they ll have special access to him and will be able to curry favors such as asking him to gut certain regulations or asking him to call certain foreign leaders to push through business deals.That s a serious ethics violation that cannot be tolerated. Hell, Eric Trump has already been busted trying to sell access to his father in exchange for $1 million donations to his fraudulent charity. So it s pretty clear that there is already a pay-for-play scandal brewing before Trump has even taken office.This needs to stop now and the only way it will stop is if Trump sells his company or puts it into a blind trust. Anything less is unacceptable.Featured Image: Wikimedia