USA TODAY International Edition
Tillerson shows the way on avoiding financial conflicts
If President- elect Donald Trump requires inspiration for extricating himself from his private financial entanglements before taking the oath of office on Jan. 20, he needn’t look any further than the example set by Rex Tillerson, the newly retired ExxonMobil chief nominated to be the next secretary of State.
Tillerson is a controversial choice whose close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin will draw tough scrutiny at his confirmation hearings, scheduled to begin today. The confirmation process for Trump’s Cabinet choices is further complicated by the failure so far of several nominees to complete the ethics review process of filing financial and employment disclosures.
In the meantime, the steps taken by Tillerson to shed ties with the multinational energy giant have drawn praise even from exacting ethics watchdogs.
One of the knottiest problems Tillerson faced, if confirmed, was what to do about more than 2 million deferred ExxonMobil shares he would have received over the next decade. In an agreement with the company’s board of directors, those shares will be converted into about $ 180 million in cash and held in an independently managed trust. He would forfeit the money to charity should he return to the energy industry during those 10 years.
Tillerson, who retired Dec. 31, also agreed to sell 600,000 shares he owns once he is confirmed. He loses about $ 7 million in bonuses and share value in the deal, but he gains the public’s confidence that his actions as secretary of State would not be self- enriching.
Trump should follow Tillerson’s example, which was worked out with the same U. S. Office of Government Ethics that advised the president- elect through Twitter after the election that “divestiture is good for you, very good for America!”
The president- elect has taken only modest steps to reduce conflicts of interest by dissolving his personal charitable foundation, ending some foreign development plans and considering an outside financial monitor. He is expected to detail additional actions at a news conference today.
It doesn’t help matters that Trump has said that his children will run the family business but then allowed them to be part of his presidential transition team, or in son- in- law Jared Kushner’s case made him a senior adviser. Nor is the extent of Trump’s holdings clear. He has refused to release his tax returns, unlike all others elected president in the past four decades.
To be sure, Trump’s real estate holdings are more complicated to unwind than Tillerson’s deferred ExxonMobil shares. Any liquidations should neither be fire sales nor sweetheart deals aimed at currying favor with the first family. Either way, there’s a means to ensure that selling what Trump holds, no matter how complicated, would not be his burden: Name an independent trustee.
“All Trump has to do is sign a simple piece of paper appointing an independent trustee,” says Norm Eisen, the founder and board member of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “Let the trustee have all those headaches. ... Complicated for the trustee. Simple for Trump. He should follow his secretary of State nominee’s lead.”