Trump likens intel leaks to Nazi acts
President-elect outlines plan to move businesses into a trust
WASHINGTON – An angry president-elect took to a stage at Trump Tower in New York on Wednesday, furious with journalists who released a memo detailing unsubstantiated opposition research against him.
That memo, released by BuzzFeed News, alleged that Russian operatives had collected financially precarious and personally salacious information on Donald Trump over the course of five years that might compromise the president-elect’s independence.
An hour before BuzzFeed published on Tuesday night, CNN reported the memo had alarmed US intelligence agencies sufficiently to warrant their briefing both outgoing US President
Barack Obama and Trump on its contents.
CNN did not report on the contents, however, despite also having access to the document, which first circulated among journalists in June. Trump on Wednesday categorically denied the veracity of the memo.
Beyond attacking the press, Trump once again targeted the intelligence agencies for leaking both the scheduling and contents of its classified briefings for the president-elect. It is they, Trump charged, who are responsible for leaking the inclusion of this memo of allegations.
“I think it was disgraceful, disgraceful, that the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out to be so false and fake out there,” Trump said on Wednesday. “That’s something that Nazi Germany would have done and did do.”
His comparison followed a comment made earlier in the morning on Twitter, in which he asked whether we are living in the Third Reich. The Anti-Defamation League has condemned the comment as “ridiculous” and offensive, and is calling on Trump to apologize for it.
Amid whirling scandal and accusations, Trump did accept for the first time a joint intelligence assessment first declassified by the intelligence community last week that found Russia was behind hacks of the Democratic National Committee and the staff of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. “I think it was Russia,” he said. Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement in the hack and subsequent strategic leak of that material. It similarly denied the existence of a dossier of compromising material on Trump on Wednesday morning.
Trump said his focus would be on establishing a comprehensive cyber-defense strategy, and rejected criticism of his attitude toward Russia.
“If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability,” he said.
Wednesday’s event was Trump’s first press conference in 167 days. He took the opportunity to outline his plan to disentangle from his businesses, which will now be controlled by his two sons without his involvement.
Trump said he would resign from all positions overseeing hotels, golf courses and hundreds of other businesses and move his assets into a trust to help ensure that he will not consciously take actions as president that would benefit him personally.
Trump, a Republican, is under pressure to distance himself from his businesses before he moves into the White House on January 20. Unlike other US government officials, the president is not required by law to steer clear of conflicts of interest.
“I could actually run my business and run government at the same time. I don’t like the way that looks, but I would be able to do that if I wanted to,” Trump said.
Ethics experts said the arrangement does not go far enough.
“Mr. Trump’s ill-advised course will precipitate scandal and corruption,” said Norm Eisen, a former White House ethics adviser under President Barack Obama.
Trump appears to be still involved with his businesses while preparing to take office, saying he had turned down a $2 billion development deal in Dubai he had been offered over the weekend.
The company that made the proposal, DAMAC, confirmed the discussions had taken place.
The Trump Organization will not enter into any new overseas deals while Trump is president and will undertake domestic projects only after a company ethics adviser has approved them, said Trump adviser Sheri Dillon.
Trump will know of those deals only if he hears about them through the news media, said Dillon, a lawyer at Morgan Lewis who focuses on tax and ethics.
Trump’s daughter Ivanka is to have no further involvement with management authority in the group, she said. Trump has appointed her husband, Jared Kushner, to a senior advisory role in the White House.
Since Trump sold all his stocks last year, the Trump trust will hold only business assets and liquid assets such as cash, Dillon said.
Many other ethics experts, including the US Office of Government Ethics, have urged Trump to completely divest or set up a blind trust for his assets. In a blind trust, the owner does now know what the holdings are or how their assets are managed. Trump’s oldest sons will be running his business, so the arrangement does not meet that standard.
Dillon said that was not a realistic possibility for a family-owned company and any sudden divestment would hurt Trump financially. Unlike liquid assets like stocks and investment funds, much of Trump’s wealth comes from office towers and other real estate that cannot be sold easily, as well as licensing deals that could be difficult to unwind.
Stripped of the Trump name, many of these assets would lose much of their value, Dillon said.
“President-elect Trump should not be expected to destroy the company he built,” she said.
Dillon dismissed concerns that Trump could violate an anti-bribery provision in the US Constitution, known as the Emoluments Clause. That applies to gifts but not to business transactions like renting a hotel room, she said.
Nevertheless, profits generated at Trump’s hotels by foreign governments will be donated to the US Treasury, she said.
Reuters contributed to this report.