Stephen K. Bannon or Reince Priebus would be smart to sit Trump down to watch the legal admonitions. As the experts explain, the emoluments clause on Jan. 20 becomes an ongoing source of scandal, illegality and distraction. Allowing Trump to keep his foreign sources of income — and his domestic ones, for that matter — amounts to an invitation for graft. We have already seen everyone from Trump’s sons to Corey Lewandowski putting out the shingle: The influence-peddlers are open for business!

Wait until the foreign potentates begin greasing the skids for better relations with the United States — a permit for a Trump golf course there, a clothing deal for Ivanka Trump over there, a flurry of banquet bookings by foreign delegations at Trump hotels everywhere.

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Laurence Tribe writes:

Trump’s continued interest in the Trump Organization and his steady stream of monetary and other benefits from foreign powers put him on a collision course with the emoluments clause. Disentangling every improper influence resulting from special treatment of Trump’s business holdings by foreign states would be impossible. The American people would be condemned to uncertainty, leaving our political discourse rife with accusations of corruption. These problems are exacerbated by the fact that Trump has regularly declined to make his business dealings or tax returns transparent. Thus a specter of skewed incentives will haunt a Donald Trump presidency.

The irony is that Trump’s ethics critics are trying to spare him a political debacle while his enablers fail to warn him of dangers that could end his presidency. (“If Trump deliberately declines to cure his continuing violation of the emoluments clause upon entering office, Congress has both power and responsibility to enforce the constitution. It would be well within its rights to impeach and remove him for engaging in ‘high crimes and misdemeanors.'”) Tribe offers a concrete suggestion for Congress. He recommends legislation “requiring all presidents to divest assets that risk conflicts of interest and to place the proceeds in a truly blind trust, and by creating a private cause of action explicitly allowing competitors disadvantaged by the president’s acceptance of unlawful benefits to file emoluments clause suits against the president in his personal capacity.” Throw in mandatory release of tax returns for the past 10 years, and we might finally see the swamp recede.

Trump’s mercurial, vindictive personality and preference for bullying have already had one dramatic, immediate consequence: Those who might save him from himself are loath to step forward to level with him about retention of his businesses.