On January 11, 2017, nine days before his inauguration as the chief cook and bottle washer of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump held a lengthy press conference at which he announced any number of plans and answered questions from reporters.
At one point he voluneered the following:
Over the weekend, I was offered $2 billion to do a deal in DubaI with a very, very, very amazing man, a great, great developer from the Middle East, Hussein Dumak (sp), a friend of mine, great guy, and was offered $2 billion to do a deal in Dubai, a number of deals. And I turned it down. I didn’t have to turn it down, because as you know, I have a no-conflict situation because I’m president, which is — I didn’t know about that until about three months ago, but it’s a nice thing to have, but I don’t want to take advantage of something. I have something that others don’t have. Vice President Pence also has it. I don’t think he’ll need it. I have a feeling he’s not going to need it. But I have a no conflict of interest provision as president. It was many, many years old. This is for presidents because they don’t want presidents getting — I understand, they don’t want presidents getting tangled in minutiae. They want a president to run the country. So I could actually run my business. 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. I would be the only one that would be able to do that. You can’t do that in any other capacity, but as a president, I could run the Trump Organization — great, great company — and I could run the country. I’d do a very good job. But I don’t want to do that.
I’ve been puzzling for months over how to explain this perverse understanding of conflict of interest as an exemption that is only extended to presidents and vice presidents. Is it just wishful thinking? Is it an understanding that is simply consistent with a prejudice towards authoritarian rule? Why would he reject this privileged status because he does “like the way that looks”? Is he a clueless dufus about what the Constitution expects?
Robert Mueller concluded that he might not be able to prove willful intent to violate the law. That might well be true of any amoral, instinct-driven person. That makes them difficult to restrain, but it also does not posit them as insane.
So, what’s to be done? Since, in this case, the person literally does nothing for himself, other than talk on the phone, one suspects that physical restraints are going to have to suffice.
Will His Irrelevance even notice?