The Trump Presidency Will be Legally Interesting, if Nothing Else

Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos, his pick for secretary
of education. Photo: a katz / Shutterstock.com

According to a recent survey, 81 percent of voters think that Donald Trump will use his time in the White House to benefit his own business interests, and regardless of how people feel about that—with 39 percent apparently thinking this is a good thing—it does seem pretty likely.

That’s largely because Trump has so far said nothing on the issue of the Trump International Hotel, located near the White House, which he is contractually obligated to divest once he takes office. The lease for the hotel was put together by the General Services Administration, to which Trump will be appointing leadership, and that lease specifically states that no elected official may have any share or part in that lease. Trump is not making any motion yet to divest from the hotel, which will put him in breach of that lease as soon as he take office on January 20.

But that isn’t the only potential legal issue that he’s facing. His choice for national security advisor, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, who is seen by many as a hugely problematic nomination, owns a private intelligence firm that raises serious questions about conflict of interest especially because it has a history of lobbying for the Turkish government, and his own personal and business connections to the Kremlin. There are questions about whether Flynn will even be able to get a security clearance.

Meanwhile, Betsy DeVos, Trump’s pick for secretary of education, owes $5.3 million in fines to the state of Ohio for campaign finance violations dating back to 2008. Her All Children Matter PAC broke Ohio election law by illegally sending $870,000 from its national PAC to its Ohio affiliate.

It seems clear that the Trump administration is one that will be embroiled in legal problems from the very start, which raises some serious concerns considering Trump’s apparent difficulty in understanding how the law works and seeming disregard for the judicial branch.

Whatever comes of a Trump administration—and many have plenty of reason to be concerned that it will be nothing good—it will be one that lawyers and legal scholars are going to talk about for some time.