Sen. Murray, Democrats push bill to require President and Vice President to divest personal financial conflicts of interest

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, January 10, 2017

More than 20 Democratic Senators, including Sen. Patty Murray, Washington state’s senior senator, introduced a bill Monday that would require the President and Vice President to disclose and divest any potential financial conflicts of interest.

The bill also requires any presidential appointees to recuse themselves from any matters that come before their agencies when they involve financial conflicts of interest involving the President.

“During his campaign, Donald Trump promised to stand with American workers and families, and to fight back against a rigged system, but actions speak a lot louder than words,” said Senator Murray (D-WA).

“This bill would be a strong step toward transparency and making sure any president, but particularly President-elect Trump, with his unprecedented business dealings and conflicts of interest, assures the public he or she is always acting in the best interest of the country and not merely working for himself or other millionaires, billionaires, and special interests,” Murray said.

In addition to Murray, the original co-sponsors of the bill in the Senate included Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.).

Democratic senators have repeatedly demanded more transparency and accountability from President-elect Trump.

In November, Democratic senators filed a resolution stating the Senate’s expectation that President-elect Trump must decisively and transparently divest all of his business interests and holdings and completely sever his affiliation with the Trump Organization to avoid any actual or perceived conflicts with the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which prohibits the President from accepting gifts or benefits from foreign governmental actors.

According to a fact sheet on the proposed legislation from Sen. Murray’s office, the bill also includes Senator Wyden’s Presidential Tax Transparency Act, which requires the sitting president and presidential nominees of a major political party to make public federal income tax returns for the three most recent tax years.

Media reports have noted that President-elect Trump has more potential conflicts of interest than any other president in U.S. history, and as chairman and president of the Trump Organization, he heads a sprawling international business network with “deep ties” to global financiers and foreign officials from countries around the globe, including China, Libya and Turkey.

Unless Trump takes steps to address these conflicts, constitutional experts have said he will risk being in violation of the Constitution on the first day of his presidency, as Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution prohibits officeholders, including the President, from “accept[ing] any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, price, or foreign state.”