The Trump Organization on Friday issued a new ethics agreement that it said would govern how the family and President-elect Donald J. Trump would conduct themselves over the next four years to try to avoid conflicts of interest, even though the president is legally exempt from federal conflict of interest laws.
The measures described in the document largely echo pledges the Trump family made eight years ago, when Mr. Trump first became president. They include appointing an outside ethics lawyer to review major family business transactions worth more than $10 million, keeping assets Mr. Trump owns in a trust and limiting his access to detailed financial information about the company.
But the Trump family is not pledging to halt any new international real estate deals, unlike eight years ago. Instead, it is agreeing only to “no new transactions with foreign governments,” reflecting a plan that was first described to The New York Times in December.
“We are going above and beyond,” Eric Trump said in an interview with The Times on Friday.
Ethics lawyers immediately dismissed the moves as insufficient, citing as an example that the Trump family separately disclosed just this week that it would host a golf tournament in April at its Trump National Doral resort in Miami. The tournament is sponsored by LIV Golf, the new league created and financed by the Saudi government. The deal will generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue.
“If the president receives any profits or benefits from foreign governments — not just new deals — then he is in violation of the Constitution,” said Richard W. Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration, who has been a longtime critic of Mr. Trump’s handling of ethics issues. “The money flow has to stop on Jan. 20.”
The ethics pledge included an announcement that William A. Burck, a prominent ethics lawyer at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, would serve as the outside lawyer for the family company. He will review any property acquisitions or sales worth more than $10 million, major leases on buildings owned by the Trump family, new loans or even loan refinancing deals, as well as any transactions with federal or state governments, or claims against foreign governments.
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