Wednesday Briefing: Trump’s Worrisome Business Deals

Trump’s business could create conflicts if he’s re-elected

Donald Trump is cashing in on a variety of new ventures as he seeks a second term. But unlike in his first term, when he halted new international deals and hired an outside ethics adviser, he is making no promises to rein in his company’s freewheeling ways.

This year alone, his business struck real estate deals in countries that are central to American foreign policy interests: Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Doing business overseas with government entities, not just traditional corporations, creates an ethical minefield where both those governments and Trump family business interests could benefit from U.S. foreign policy, experts said.

Such conflicts aren’t new for Trump, but there are more of them now. If he were to win, there would be little ability to curb them, legal and ethics experts said.

Your questions: We asked Theodore Schleifer, who covers campaign finance, this question from a reader.

I am surprised that Elon Musk is allowed to offer (big) money in return for signing a petition or register to vote. Doesn’t it defeat the purpose of a petition? Could that be considered as voting bribery? — Marie-Pauline Desset, New South Wales, Australia

Theodore: Musk is arguing that he is not offering money to register to vote — only to sign the petition. The catch though is that the petition is only open to registered voters, and so some legal critics think that it is effectively an inducement to register to vote.

The precise purpose of the petition is not totally clear, to be honest. Musk is collecting data on hard-core supporters of his political agenda, perhaps giving him a refined universe of voters to target for Trump on Election Day. Is this all just to get some earned media? Or maybe he’d want to use that data in a future operation? We don’t totally know.

For more: Theodore and my colleagues have reported on a warning from the Justice Department to Musk that he might be violating federal law. The Philadelphia district attorney sued him for setting up what amounted to an “unlawful lottery.”