US election 2016: Trump and Clinton trust in daughter power
But depending on the outcome of the vote on 8 November, one of
the two can expect to be thrust into a major financial role.
Donald Trump has said that if he becomes president, he will hand
control of his business empire to Ivanka and her brothers, Don and Eric.
If Hillary Clinton wins the race for the White House, the
intention is for her and husband Bill to step down from the board of the
Clinton Foundation and for Chelsea, currently its vice-chair, to take over its
day-to-day operations.
Both candidates' plans have come under fierce scrutiny from
critics, who say they involve big conflicts of interest.
So what are the risks and why should they be allowed to get away
with such arrangements?
Blind trusts
Well, first of all, there is absolutely no law that prevents
them.
Previous presidents, from Lyndon B Johnson on, have avoided any
hint of impropriety by placing their business interests into what is known as a
blind trust. This means that the president gives up the right to manage his (or
her) money personally, handing the task over to independent trustees.
In LBJ's
case, he set one up in 1963, after assuming the presidency in the wake of John
F Kennedy's assassination. He and his wife, Lady Bird, owned a TV station,
KTBC, in Austin, Texas, and wanted to avoid regulatory problems without having
to sell it.
In 1978, the Ethics in Government Act formalised the rules on
blind trusts, but left them entirely voluntary as far as presidents are
concerned.
Mr Trump has spoken about putting his holdings into a blind
trust, but then said that his three oldest children would be in charge of the
company, which would not pass the independence test.
"I
don't know if it's a blind trust if Ivanka, Don and Eric run it," he said
earlier this year. "If that's a blind trust, I don't know.
"But I would probably have my children run it with my
executives and I wouldn't ever be involved."
In any case, even if Mr Trump no longer controls those assets
directly, he could hardly be expected to forget what they were, so he would
remain vulnerable to allegations that his political decisions were designed to
favour his business interests.
Foreign donors
The Clinton Foundation, which came into being in 2001, poses a
different set of problems.
Former US presidents tend to set up some kind of charitable
centre on leaving office, usually with a presidential library attached, and
Hillary's husband Bill was no exception.
But, of course, there has never before been a presidential
candidate married to an ex-president, so the foundation has turned into a headache
for Hillary.
Donors to
the foundation have included a number of foreign governments, including Saudi
Arabia, Morocco, Algeria and Qatar, as well as various rich individuals and
companies.
Critics of the Clintons say these donations, many of them made
while Hillary was Secretary of State, represent attempts to influence US
policy.
And for those
opponents, if Hillary wins, putting Chelsea in charge would not be an
acceptable solution, even though the foundation's president, Donna Shalala, has
pledged that many of its programmes will be spun off as separate non-governmental
organisations and foreign donations will no longer be accepted.
Foreign income
And there is another big spanner in the works for both
presidential candidates: the US constitution has a provision that could make
life very difficult for either of them.
The constitution's Emoluments Clause states: "No title of
nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any
office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the
Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind
whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state."
It's easy to see what the point of that was. Having created a
republic and enshrined the ideal of equality, the Founding Fathers wanted to
prevent the US acquiring an aristocracy or being beholden to foreign powers
that might undermine those ideals.
But it also seems to say that no-one in senior public office
should have any foreign income.
Does that apply to the Clinton Foundation, with its record of
foreign donors? And more directly, does that also apply to the Trump
Organization, which has joint property ventures and licensing deals stretching
from Panama City to Istanbul?
In theory, yes. In practice, it probably depends on that little
phrase, "the consent of the Congress".
Any foreign deal or donation involving either of those bodies
could easily spawn a Congressional investigation into a possible breach of the
constitution. And once the juggernaut started to roll, it could lead all the
way to impeachment.
For either Chelsea or Ivanka, life is set to get a whole lot
busier after 8 November. But unless their activities are genuinely outside
parental control, Mrs Clinton or Mr Trump cannot be sure of escaping unscathed.
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