Trump's Ethical Dilemna

"Every Republican nominee since Richard Nixon, who at one time was under an audit, has released their tax returns" according to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. No major party nominee has failed to release tax returns since at least 1976 so what’s holding up Donald Trump? Perhaps it’s because they’ll show he isn’t the billionaire he claims to be. Perhaps it will simply show Trump has not made the millions of dollars of charitable contributions he claims to have made. Or more troubling it may be due to the connections to various Russian oligarchs whose wealth Trump relies on to fund his many ventures since no U.S. bank will lend to him. Trump’s son, Donald Jr., told a real estate conference in 2008, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets, we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

Trump adviser Carter Page has extensive dealings with Gazprom, the Russian state-run energy company with strong ties to Putin and his inner circle. Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort consulted for former Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovich, a key Putin ally, until his ouster in February 2014. There’s even a ledger, recently found in Ukraine, that was maintained by Yanukovich’s staff listing $12 million as fees to Manafort.

What will Trump do if Putin makes it known that he wants to complete the annexation of Crimea or perhaps all of Ukraine and if Trump protests Putin’s buddies will cutoff funding for Trump’s projects? That’s a question that concerns ethics lawyers who worked for President George W. Bush, presidential candidates Bob Dole, John Kerry, and Mitt Romney, among others. They all agree Trump would have more potential business conflicts than any prior president.

Trump’s conflicts of interest aren’t limited to Russian investors, he’s invested in 500+ companies around the world. Many are limited liability corporations related to real estate holdings, including properties in Panama, Istanbul, Mumbai, Puerto Rico and Dubai. How would Trump behave if one of those countries says they’ll nationalize his local assets if the U.S. doesn’t relent on some issue or give them preferential trade treatment?

Trump has said many times that his children and executives would manage his businesses instead of selling them off. "This is certainly going to present an unprecedented ethical dilemma if Trump wins," said Kenneth Gross, a partner at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, who provided legal assistance to several presidential candidates during their campaigns. "He can't just get amnesia. He's stuck with the knowledge of what he owns."

The Donald has waffled when describing his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump claims he's never spoken to Putin yet in 2014 Trump said he did. According to Trump, Putin "could not have been nicer" and has praised him as a canny leader who he respects. In the last week his daughter Ivanka posted on social media a photo of her and Putin’s girlfriend out sightseeing together.