In a pair of tweets sent after 11 p.m., Trump wrote: “Even though I am not mandated by law to do so, I will be leaving my businesses before January 20th so that I can focus full time on the Presidency. Two of my children, Don and Eric, plus executives, will manage them. No new deals will be done during my term(s) in office.” Trump was earlier scheduled to hold a press conference on Thursday — his first since winning the election Nov. 8 — to announce his plans for his businesses, but his transition team announced Monday that the press conference will be rescheduled for next month. Trump’s tweets gave no indication that he will give up his ownership stake in his global real estate and licensing empire, which experts have advocated as the only way to ensure Trump could not profit from the impact of his own policies.

Actually, Trump hasn’t held a press conference since July, and the only interviews he does these days are with Fox. And here’s a prediction: That press conference he says he’ll give some time in January to detail and answer questions about how he’s separating himself from his business? Not gonna happen.

One might think, “Well of course he’ll give press conferences when he’s president, every president does.” But if there’s anything we should have learned by now, it’s that Trump feels no need to do something he’d rather not do just because every other president has done it.

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January will come and go, and most people will forget about this question, since there will be so much else to think about. At some point a Trump spokesperson will be asked about it, and he or she will say that President Trump has explained this all, the American people understand, blah blah blah, next question. Trump is also never going to release his tax returns, despite his repeated claim that he’d release them when his IRS audit is complete. He just won’t.

Let’s look at Trump’s claim that “No new deals will be done” by the Trump Organization during his time in office. Does he mean that he himself will not be doing any new deals for the Trump Organization? That appears to be what he meant when he discussed this on Fox News on Sunday:

“If I were going to do new deals right now, I am turning down billions of dollars of deals. I will tell you, running for president, the money I spent is peanuts compared to the money I won’t make. And that’s OK because this is so important. What I’m doing is so important. “This is a calling. This is so — this is a movement. It’s not just me, it’s millions and millions of people. You got to see it firsthand. I’m not going to be doing deals at all. No, that would be — I don’t even know if that’s a conflict. I mean I — I have the right to do it. You know under the law I have the right to do it. I just don’t want to do it. I don’t want to do deals because I want to focus on this. “But by my not doing deals, I turned down seven deals with one big player, great player, last week because I thought it could be perceived as a conflict of interest.”

There’s no way to know what “big player, great player” he’s talking about, and given Trump’s record up until now the safest assumption when he says something like that is that he’s just making it up.

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Now keep in mind that the Trump Organization’s primary business is licensing the Trump brand, which has become much more valuable now that he’s about to become president of the United States. Particularly in the many foreign countries in which it operates, wealthy and powerful interests will be lining up to associate themselves with the brand, as a way of either making more money for themselves or currying favor with the American government. If and when those arrangements are made, the profits will go directly to Donald Trump, since he will continue to be the primary owner of the Trump Organization even if his children are managing it. And since it’s a private company, the details will be opaque. The opportunities for graft are practically limitless.

But as ridiculous as the idea of the Trump Organization doing no new deals might sound, it is technically possible. It would mean there will be no new licensing arrangements on resorts or hotels or apartment buildings, no new purchases of property, no new golf courses or buildings built, anywhere in the world. If Trump were telling the truth, it would mean that the Trump Organization is basically going to be frozen in place with its current properties and arrangements.

If that’s really what he means, then we need two things. First, we need a specific and clear statement from him that he does indeed mean that the Trump Organization is going to freeze in place with its current arrangements for as long as he’s president. Not a “Believe me, it’s covered,” but a promise to which he can be held accountable. Second, we need all the details. We need to know every single partnership and income source both the organization and Trump personally have, and we need that information not just now, but in every subsequent year Trump is in office, to make sure this promise is being kept.