Carper Statement on Trump Press Conference

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.), a senior member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released the following statement after President-elect Trump announced his business plan.

“President-elect Trump’s long overdue announcement wasn’t the one I had been waiting and hoping for. We are now only nine days from Inauguration Day, and the President-elect still cannot guarantee that protecting the American public and upholding our Constitution will be his only focus beginning at noon on January 20^th. Instead, the President-elect has once again ignored the advice of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) and the example set by every President-elect, regardless of political party, over the last forty years.

“According to this independent, nonpartisan agency, President-elect Trump must completely divest his business interests and establish a qualified blind trust controlled by an independent third party. Meaning he cannot in any way, shape, or form, retain ownership of any financial interest in his vast array of global businesses. It also means that he cannot sidestep these ethics requirements by passing control of these holdings to his adult children.

“Today, President-elect Trump announced that he is both retaining a financial interest in all of his companies and handing over control of day-to-day operations to Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. This is the exact opposite of what has been recommended to the President-elect. It is stunning and completely unacceptable. In order to guarantee that he will place the interests of our nation above his own business interests and his family’s personal profit, President-elect Trump must act quickly to fully eliminate all conflicts of interest before taking the oath of office next week.”