President Trump's conflict of interest — regarding his organization's management dispute with a Panamanian hotel owner

© 2018 Peter Free

 

05 March 2018

 

 

Whee!

 

Regarding President Trump's anticipatable conflicts of interest:

 

 

Ethics experts fear that the week-long standoff at a Panamanian hotel between ownership and the Trump Organization just presented one of the most consequential conflicts of interest yet for President Donald Trump.

 

The dispute broke out into the open last week when Orestes Fintiklis, the majority owner of the hotel, arrived in the lobby of the building with associates. His aim was to fire the Trump Organization, which has managed the hotel since its 2011 opening. The Trump Organization, however, refused to leave.

 

© 2018 Allan Smith, Ethics experts say their 'fear has been realized' as Trump faces one of his most consequential conflicts of interest yet, Business Insider (03 March 2018)

 

 

This is the kind of thing that I predicted when the conflicts-ridden Trump was elected.

 

At the time, there was nary so much as a determined anti-peep — from public, judiciary or Congress — posing ethical opposition to automatically putting this perpetually hostile and unvetted man into the presidency.

 

 

The moral? — So now, we have the American commander in chief involved in . . .

 

. . . a personal dispute with a Panamanian business person over property located in Panama.

 

That hardly qualifies as remotely sound American governance.

 

Yet, our supposedly self-checking tripartite government and its archaic Constitution obtusely permitted it.