Albert R. Hunt, Columnist

Trump's Business Ties Will Run Afoul of the Constitution

His foreign connections could violate the Emoluments Clause, even if he sets up a blind trust.

November 11, 2016 at 4:18 PM UTC

Albert R. Hunt is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was the executive editor of Bloomberg News, before which he was a reporter, bureau chief and executive Washington editor at the Wall Street Journal.

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Donald Trump will face wide-ranging questions about his ethics and integrity from the moment he enters the White House in January.

The president-elect says he'll turn over his vast financial holdings to his kids. But many doubt a blind trust will insulate him completely, potentially exposing him to conflicts of interest or the appearance of such conflicts on a range of domestic and foreign issues as no president before. During the campaign, Trump branded his opponents with nicknames such as "Lyin Ted" and "Crooked Hillary." Yet more than Ted Cruz or Hillary Clinton, he lied and shrewdly assumed that the media, especially television, would never catch up with him as he moved to the next deception. That should be harder for a president.