Donald Trump tweeted that he will leave his “great business in total in order to fully focus on running the country." | Getty Trump's vow to leave business raises more questions

President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday morning that he will leave his “great business in total in order to fully focus on running the country” in the White House.

But his cryptic announcement, delivered in an early-morning Twitter flurry, is already stoking doubt among ethics experts, who fear the Manhattan mogul may be unwilling to follow past precedent to assure Americans that he won’t mingle business with governing as president.


“I will be holding a major news conference in New York City with my children on December 15 to discuss the fact that I will be leaving my great business in total in order to fully focus on running the country in order to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump wrote.

In subsequent tweets, however, Trump signaled that his concerns are more political than substantive, writing: “While I am not mandated to do this under the law, I feel it is visually important, as president, to in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses.”

“Hence, legal documents are being crafted which take me completely out of business operations. The presidency is a far more important task!” he continued.

Trump promised throughout the presidential campaign to hand over control of his business empire to his adult children if he were to win the White House, but that has done little to assuage widespread concern that he could use his Oval Office perch to benefit his personal bottom line — or that decisions he makes as president could come at the expense of the national interest.

Norm Eisen, the former top White House ethics lawyer for President Barack Obama, said Trump’s Wednesday announcement raises more questions for him about the stakes of the new arrangement and continues to leave open the possibility of a major ethics scandal.

“Although it is, of course, important that he have no involvement in Trump business operations, in order to avoid conflicts, he must also exit the ownership of his businesses through using a blind trust or equivalent. Otherwise, he will have a personal financial interest in his businesses that will sometimes conflict with the public interest, and constantly raise questions,” Eisen said in an email.

Candidates have historically pledged to place their assets into a blind trust should they win the presidency, but Trump’s plan to hand control to his children would fall short of that threshold. He did not clarify in Wednesday morning's announcement what, if any, other steps he would take to ensure that no conflicts of interest would occur.

Since his election, Trump’s adult children — three of whom are senior members of his transition team — have sat in on phone calls and meetings with world leaders, and Trump himself has acknowledged that he raised his objection to wind energy in a conversation with British politician Nigel Farage. Trump owns a golf course in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, near where an offshore wind farm is slated for development. On Tuesday, the kingdom of Bahrain sent out invitations to an event at Trump’s hotel in Washington, D.C., raising more concerns.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told POLITICO on Wednesday that Trump's announcement is reassuring. “The fact that he’s going to have a news conference with his family and talk about how to avoid any appearance of conflicts of interest, it’s a good sign," Graham said. "Does it make sense to me? I’m just going to wait ... but I want to applaud him for recognizing the fact that it’s a problem."

Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz, the top congressional investigator in the House, said Trump's announcement was an important step in the right direction, although he said Trump won't get a free pass from investigators next year.

“He’s moving in the right direction. And he needs to instill the confidence that he’s more than arm’s length away,” Chaffetz, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in an interview with POLITICO.

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter Wednesday to Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), insisting that the panel “immediately” hold hearings to examine possible conflicts of interest or ethics provisions.

“Although we do not yet know the details of his proposal, this announcement raises a number of questions,” reads the letter, whose signatories include all 16 minority members on the committee.

“Donald Trump regularly boasts of the scale and global reach of his companies, and he can be expected to face an array of situations in which his personal business interests are entwined with official policy matters,” it continues. “So far, however, he has indicated only that he will turn over day-to-day management of his holdings to three of his children, each of whom has played a role in his presidential transition, and who may continue to serve as informal advisors during his presidency.”

Incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Wednesday, would not say whether Trump still planned to hand over his business to his children, telling panelist Willie Geist, "I'm not ready to reveal any of that." Priebus did insist that the issue is being taken seriously by the president-elect and his transition team, despite the fact that laws governing such situations were not written with politicians of Trump's vast wealth in mind.

"This is the first president we've had, at least in modern history, that's had so many successful businesses and so many diverse areas across the country and in many cases retail and hospitality business that is dependent on people's business. So, it's not the easiest thing to work out," Priebus said. "You should know that he’s got the best people in America working on it. And I think what you see in those tweets is a person at the top that understands and is willing and showing the American people that he's working hard on it, and he’s taking it seriously."

Later Wednesday morning, Trump spokesman Jason Miller confirmed what Priebus would not, telling Fox News' "Fox & Friends" that the president-elect is "completely getting out of the business, hand it over to the family." Miller said the news conference's mid-December timing will allow Trump and his transition team time to hammer out the complicated separation of the Manhattan billionaire from his business empire.

"He's so focused on taking over as president. That is his only focus, the only thing he's worried on," said Miller. "It takes a little bit of time to get everything in place.”

American voters embraced and celebrated Trump’s business success by electing him, Priebus argued.

"Here's the thing. He was elected by the American people with all of this knowledge in mind. I mean, there's nothing to be ashamed of," the incoming chief of staff said. "So now, we're working on making sure that all of those conflicts are taken care of and doing the best job we can, given the fact that the laws actually are very vague and don't contemplate this scenario, but we're doing the best we can for the American people."

The president-elect’s business holdings include entanglements with multiple foreign governments, including financing for one property coming in the form of a loan from the Bank of China. Donald Trump Jr., one of the children expected to assume control of the company, said in 2008 that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. … We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

Without divesting ownership, Trump will still have an interest in any foreign government payments and benefits that flow into the Trump business coffers, Eisen noted. “That creates such a serious conflict of interest that the framers of the Constitution prohibited it for the president in the Emoluments Clause,” he said, referring to a little-known requirement from the country’s founding document that bans U.S. government employees from accepting payments by foreign countries or the companies they own.

“We have to wait for the details,” Eisen added, “and if he goes the true blind trust route, …I will be the first to support it.”

The federal Office of Government Ethics celebrated Trump's announcement in a bizarre flurry of posts to its own Twitter account Wednesday afternoon, lauding the president-elect for his “divestiture” from his business holdings, even though the Manhattan billionaire has yet to promise such a divestment. “.@realDonaldTrump OGE is delighted that you've decided to divest your businesses. Right decision!” the office wrote in one of its posts, imitating Trump's penchant for exclamations in his own posts to Twitter.

The OGE admitted in a statement released after its series of Twitter posts went public that it did not, in fact, have the details of Trump's intention to extricate himself from his companies. But it nonetheless celebrated his announcement that he would do so.

Should Trump keep his adult children in the business, a plan the president-elect has long indicated is his preferred route, Eisen insisted the family set up an “ethics firewall.” That would include removing his three oldest adult children — Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka — from their prominent roles on the Trump transition team.

“Without an ethics firewall that is set up at once and continues into the administration, scandal is sure to follow,” Eisen warned.

In his Twitter messages, Trump appeared to leave wiggle room to maintain ties to his company, and that continues to raise red flags on the ethics front, said C. Boyden Gray, the former White House counsel for President George H.W. Bush.

“The implication is it’s not taking him out of ownership,” Gray told POLITICO. “I just don’t know if that will be enough.”

Of note, Trump could still find himself in trouble as he meets with foreign dignitaries, potential foreign investors or even local officials who have permitting or zoning authority over businesses that remain tied to his trademark name.

“The conflicts stem rather less from what he does at the company than what he does as president to help the company. They’re two separate things,” Gray added.

Burgess Everett and Nolan D. McCaskill contributed to this report.