Donald Trump's long-awaited press conference detailing his plans to separate himself from his business is tentatively on the books for next week.

Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to Trump, said Monday evening on CNN that the president-elect intends to take questions from the press on Jan. 11, fulfilling a post-election promise to hold a news conference on his business dealings before he takes office.

'I believe it was rescheduled for January 11, originally, and if the lawyers and the compliance officers feel like we're ready, then we'll stick to that date. It's really up to them,' she said on Anderson Cooper 360.

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Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to Trump, said Monday evening on CNN that the president-elect intends to take questions from the press on Jan. 11, fulfilling a post-election promise to hold a new conference on his business dealings before he takes office

Trump is on board with the date, she said, which follows a farewell address from President Barack Obama on Jan. 10.

'But I know that I spoke to the president-elect today about press conference and I know that's the current plan. So that’s next week,' Conway said.

The presser was initially scheduled for Dec. 15. It was postponed as Trump and his lawyers lagged in preparations for the billionaire to untangle himself from the business. Trump's top spokesman said the president-elect had frontloaded meetings with potential cabinet secretaries and needed more time to organize his assets.

Government ethics experts are pushing Trump to divest himself from his company entirely to avoid the appearance of improper conduct. He has not said whether he'll follow their advice.

Three days before Trump was supposed to talk to reporters he announced via Twitter that his adult sons, Eric and Donald Jr., would be taking over his lucrative business.

Trump limited his sons to maintaining the global Trump Organization and ordered them to cease expansions once he takes the Oath of Office.

'No new deals will be done during my term(s) in office,' the president-elect promised.

Trump reiterated in the Dec. 12 tweets that he is not legally required to 'leave' his business and would do it so he could focus 'full time' on the presidency.

He also stated that he would have a news conference 'in the near future to discuss the business, Cabinet picks and all other topics of interest.'

Trump held an impromptu media avail on New Year's Eve, responding to questions from reporters in his press pool on Russian hacking, Obamacare and Israel

His last press conference was during the Democratic convention on July 27, a week after he was formally declared the GOP's White House nominee

His last press conference was during the Democratic convention on July 27, a week after he was formally declared the GOP's White House nominee.

Trump held an impromptu media avail on New Year's Eve, responding to questions from reporters in his press pool on Russian hacking, Obamacare and Israel.

Throughout his campaign he mocked his opponent for avoiding her traveling press, noting at the July 27 news conference that it had been '235 days since crooked Hillary Clinton' had a press conference.

Clinton took questions from her press corps on a regular basis after Labor Day when they began riding her campaign plane.

It was Trump who kept reporters at arm's length in the general election, refusing to upgrade to an aircraft that could accommodate journalists who followed him or take questions from them in an open setting.

Trump's last press conference was 140 days ago, per a Washington Post count.

Trump has suggested in interviews, along with tweets, since the election that he won't divest himself entirely from his business. He's also ignored calls from watchdogs and experts to liquidate the Trump Organization altogether.

He told the New York times in November, 'The law's totally on my side. The president can't have a conflict of interest.'

Trump assured the paper, 'My company's so unimportant to me relative to what I'm doing.'

Federal law doesn't require Trump to divest and exempts the president from conflict of interest statues.

Holding on to his company creates opportunities for the kind of pay-for-play schemes Trump said Clinton and her husband would fall prey to if they controlled the Oval Office, however.

Trump has said he'll shut down his charitable foundation, which had also come under scrutiny, and son Eric has said he would stop soliciting donations for his own organization for the same reason.

The full scope of Trump's holdings are unknown. He never released his tax returns. He said in December that he sold his stocks before he accepted the GOP nomination, in June, because he believed he could win.

Trump could put his assets in a blind trust, but ethics experts say it wouldn't truly be blind because Trump would know what's in it.

President Barack Obama's ethics lawyer Norm Eisen has been sounding the alarm about the potential for the appearance of misconduct, telling USA Today, 'It will only be a matter of time before we have our first major scandal.'

The independent Office of Government Ethics publicly pressed Trump to divest, claiming in a series of tweets that he had and patting him on the back for it.

House Republicans separately moved to gut an ethics agency last night and put it under their control - but backed off the plan after Trump seemed to chide them.

Trump has already said his adult sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, will be taking over the family business. The president-elect limited his sons to maintaining the global Trump Organization and ordered them to cease expansions once he takes the Oath of Office

GOP lawmakers voted to prohibit the Office of Congressional Ethics from investigating allegations of criminal wrongdoing levied at members of Congress. They also gave the House Ethics committee the ability to stop the office's investigations and barred the agency from making public statements and hiring communications staff.

House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republican leaders were against the changes but the party's rank and file moved forward with the plan, anyway. Lawmakers who voted for the measure said they were tired of seeing the organization take up partisan investigations that led to the harassment of innocent members of Congress.

Democrats are enraged by the vote, which took place late Monday night on the eve of the new legislative session.

'Republicans claim they want to 'drain the swamp,' but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House GOP has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions,' House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said. 'Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress.'

President Obama's spokesman likewise said, ‘It is disheartening that the first thing that Republican in Congress chose to do was to vote in secret to gut ethical accountability - that's not draining the swamp.’

House Republicans made an about face after Trump scolded his party on Twitter on Tuesday morning for their actions.

'With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it may be, their number one act and priority,' he said in a two-part message. 'Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance! #DTS'

The Obama White House suggested that Trump was stating that 'the optics of doing it first were bad' not that the action itself was wrong.



