the journal is right to chastise washington for its ethics double standard when it comes to the treatment of business folks versus public-interest lawyers (<u+201c> the trump family political business ,<u+201d> review & outlook, nov. 18). it is critical to have rules to protect against individuals entering public service from personally profiting or their clients profiting from that service. the trump transition team<u+2019>s code of ethical conduct covers the basic conflict of interest issues<u+2014>officials suspending activities on behalf of clients while serving and promising not to use any nonpublic information to enrich themselves or others once the team<u+2019>s work is completed. these moves are intended to prevent sweetheart deals or special treatment in the future. business folks and public-interest types are indeed treated differently under the law, but they are not treated unfairly. people with large business holdings can be compromised in ways that public-interest types can<u+2019>t. businessmen can potentially profit personally from decisions that they make in their official capacity. what matters is whether those business folks take measures to assure the public that they are not making decisions to enrich themselves. it is imperative that the new administration shoulder its share of the burden of developing new ethical standards to rebuild the diminished public confidence in our government. meredith mcgehee issue one washington i disagree very strongly with you about president-elect trump liquidating his empire. this would set a terrible precedent for any of our best and brightest. the progressives will find something else to complain about anyway. any tax reform, any deregulation will benefit all businesses including mr. trump<u+2019>s. so what? in the end, a rising tide lifts all boats, and if the trump administration improves the economy, he and his party will be re-elected in a landslide. if the public listened to the progressive media, he wouldn<u+2019>t have been elected in the first place. why should he be forced or coerced in paying hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in taxes? how would this encourage our most successful people to take on this job? it is bad enough that one has to put up with the nonsense that comes from the nation<u+2019>s media. paul bruyea kihei, hawaii president-elect trump<u+2019>s business interests are unknown, and on january 20 he will be exempt from federal conflict-of-interest laws. mr. trump<u+2019>s decades in business and thousands of legal actions demonstrate his ability to skate around laws, regulations and contracts with maximum profit as his single objective. our nation<u+2019>s best bet is that in defeating both the right and left establishments president trump will be a pragmatist, without an ideology serving a narrow constituency, who will cut through influence peddling to the benefit of all americans. clifford m. bernstein new york this should not be a partisan issue. i hope everyone in congress, on both sides of the aisle, will join your call as this is crucial to the well-being of our country. marianne bacharach oklahoma city, okla.
trump<u+2019>s businesses and conflicts of interest - wsj
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