Ethics office sends signal to Trump on real divesting

It became clear last week that the congressional Republicans who shamelessly averted their eyes while Donald Trump was nominated and elected will have to decide soon if they want a part-time, ethically compromised chief executive.

Again using Twitter inappropriately, Trump announced that he would “leave his great business in total” so that he can “make America great again” without being subjected to conflicts of interest and pressures posed by his multibillion dollar web of foreign and domestic enterprises.

Within hours, the usually buttoned-down Office of Government Ethics unleashed an unprecedented Twitter burst, seeming to praise Trump for a move that would “be good for you, very good for America!”

The nine Tweets in two minutes – authorized at the highest level of the OGE – were a signal, a bit of digital jiu-jitsu using Trump’s favorite form of communication to warn him (and the public and Congress) that if he does not fully divest himself of his businesses, the OGE will declare that his position is ethically unsound and invites a compromised administration.

Though the tone of all the Tweets felt positive, expressing delight that Trump was talking about doing the right thing, the OGE brass knew that real divestiture was not at all what Trump meant. Thus it was no accident that of the nine OGE Tweets, eight used the word “divest” or “divestiture” as the anticipated action.

Those were words Trump avoided. He merely announced that he would announce on Dec. 15 what arrangement involving his children taking over his businesses he would use. That is a million miles from genuine divestiture and in no way represents the “blind trust” that Trump promised to create during his campaign .

Unlike Trump, the OGE – established by Congress in 1978 after the Watergate scandal to oversee ethical matters for the executive branch – knows and cares about ethical behavior. Since 1978, every president has protected himself and the public by walling off personal financial affairs and businesses from even the appearance of conflicts of interest. They each did this aware that the OGE’s rules specifically exempt them, but do apply to cabinet members and all other executive branch employes. To all of them, it was the right thing to do.

But even if the rules did apply to presidents, the OGE has no enforcement power beyond sending recommendations to the Justice Department headed by a presidential appointee.

One possible scenario: Trump announces an insufficient plan; the OGE cites a 1983 agreement between Justice and OGE that, as a matter of policy, presidents should act as if the rules apply to them.

That made presidential divestiture a matter of moral suasion, not legality, and Trump has shown little respect for moral suasion; to wit, refusing to release his tax returns. So don’t expect much.

That leaves only one lever: impeachment. The new Congress is highly unlikely to do that, of course, but Republican members could make up a bit for their 2016 cowardice and cynicism by at least using the possibility of impeachment to lean hard on Trump about actually divesting his businesses and devoting all his energy and attention to his day job.

This story was originally published December 6, 2016 at 5:05 AM with the headline "Ethics office sends signal to Trump on real divesting."