Donald Trump’s long-awaited announcement on the future of his business enterprises has now been postponed until January.
The Guardian can confirm that the president-elect’s press conference on what he will do with his real estate and intellectual property holdings will not take place as originally planned on 15 December. The cancellation of the press conference, which was announced by Trump on Twitter on 30 November, was first reported by Bloomberg News.
Trump has long faced major ethical issues surrounding his holdings, which include a number of hotels and golf courses, as well as royalties from the NBC reality television show The Apprentice. Although Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, has said in the past that the president-elect would put his assets into “a blind trust”, Cohen also insisted that Trump’s three oldest children, Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric, would administer the blind trust. All three are on Trump’s transition team – and Ivanka, in particular, has played a hands-on role advising her father. She joined the president-elect in a meeting with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe in mid-November and also participated in a phone call that Trump held with Argentina’s president Mauricio Macri less than a week after the election. The Trump Organization has long been involved in a development project in Buenos Aires.
The president-elect’s various holdings present a variety of possible conflicts of interest. Although federal ethics laws do not directly apply to the presidency, Trump risks a constitutional violation under the Emoluments clause. That provision found in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the US constitution provides that “no person holding any office of profit or trust under them shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state”.
Trump’s foreign investments, as well as foreign governments doing business at his hotel, could be considered a violation. The Washington Post reported in November that foreign diplomats were already planning on frequenting the president-elect’s Washington hotel in attempt to court favor with the new administration.
The press conference is not the first major one that the president-elect has postponed. In early August, Trump pledged that his wife, Melania Trump, would hold a press conference to address questions about her immigration status that were raised during the campaign. That press conference was never held.
Further, Trump has not formally taken questions from a group of reporters since 27 July .
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