How would President Trump regulate all the Trump business? | McClatchy Washington Bureau

Donald Trump’s vast business empire is a minefield of potential conflicts with the sprawling federal government he would oversee if elected president.

With more than 500 related businesses on his personal financial disclosure forms, Trump likely would be the nation’s wealthiest president, with the largest financial portfolio in American history. And his business interests, which span the globe from Florida to the United Arab Emirates, fall under the purview of more than a dozen federal agencies and boards, not to mention congressional committees and courts.

Those many points of contact between Trump Inc. and Trump USA make the prospect of his presidency unique.

Add in his penchant for co-mingling talk of profits with politics – he celebrated the drop in the British pound following the Brexit vote by noting it would mean more business for his Scottish golf course – as well as his eagerness to lash out at those he believes have wronged his companies, and the landscape looks fraught with potential conflicts.

Trump has said he would hand over his business empire to his children to run if he wins the White House. His three eldest, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric, are already top executives and heavily involved in operations.

But analysts note that Trump would still be aware of how the businesses were performing and which branches of government were affecting them.

And he could be free to respond: A decades-old law requiring executive branch employees to disqualify, or recuse, themselves from any government matter in which they may have a financial interest applies to all officers and employees in the executive branch and independent agencies, but “expressly excludes the president and vice president.”

For a President Trump, the intersections between his businesses and the federal government are nearly “impossible to count,” said Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University who’s a scholar of the federal government.

“Trump’s empire is deeply connected and regulated by federal agencies,” Light said. “You can only imagine what he might do to a federal agency that’s filing a suit against one of his towers. Presidents have a lot of authority over irritants.”

For candidate Trump, “irritants” have included a judge appointed by President Barack Obama who is overseeing a fraud case against Trump’s now-defunct Trump University, a distance-learning course. Trump has accused Southern California-based U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel of an “absolute conflict” in his handling of the lawsuit because Curiel is “of Mexican heritage” – and presumably opposed to Trump’s call for a wall at the border with Mexico.

Trump also has suggested that Muslims might not be able to judge him fairly, given his call to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States.

Either wholesale approach could reach deep into the government if pursued.

Nearly 160,000 federal employees are of Hispanic heritage, the vast majority of Mexican origin, according to data collected in 2014, the latest year available. More than 100 Hispanic or Latino judges serve in the judiciary. And although the U.S. Census Bureau does not track religion, about 1 in 100 Americans are Muslims.

Trump also has accused the Internal Revenue Service of bias against him, blaming annual audits on anti-Christian sentiment in the agency. The IRS, he’s said, has it out for him because he’s a “strong Christian, and I feel strongly about it and maybe there’s a bias.”

Trump’s campaign declined to comment for this story.

Trump first grappled with the federal government in the 1970s, when he and his father, Fred, battled the Justice Department over accusations that the family real estate firm had refused to rent to blacks.

Trump Management turned around and sued the federal government, arguing that the charges were “irresponsible and baseless,” The New York Times reported. The company and the government later reached a settlement agreement that the Trumps said did not constitute an admission of guilt, the newspaper said.

A McClatchy review found that Donald Trump’s businesses cross or have crossed paths with at least 16 federal agencies – from the giant Department of Homeland Security to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. As U.S. president, Trump would be responsible for appointing high-ranking officials to many of those agencies and boards.

Trump also would appoint 93 U.S. attorneys, the chief federal prosecutors for different regions. And presidents, often acting through their attorneys general, can greatly influence prosecutors’ priorities. Under President George W. Bush, for instance, U.S. attorneys were encouraged to go after immigration cases. In the five federal districts along the Mexican border, felony immigration prosecutions went up 77 percent in three years.

Today, Republicans complain that Attorney General Loretta Lynch cannot fairly decide the fate of the criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails because she is an Obama appointee.

Trump also might require some federal employees to sign the types of nondisclosure agreements he demands of his business employees. That would discourage tell-all books about his administration, Trump told The Washington Post.

“When people are chosen by a man to go into government at high levels and then they leave government and they write a book about a man and say a lot of things that were really guarded and personal, I don’t like that,” he said.

Among the agencies that might collide or have collided with Trump’s business interests:

– The Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates civilian aviation. Trump’s fleet of private aircraft – a Boeing 757-200 series jet, a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter and a Cessna 750 – falls under the agency’s purview. The Cessna made headlines earlier this year when the FAA temporarily grounded it because its registration had expired.

– The Environmental Protection Agency has regulatory powers over golf courses – regarding use of pesticides, waste and water. Trump owns or has his name on more than a dozen golf courses in the United States.

– The U.S. Trademark and Patent Office. Trump trademarked his “Make America great again” slogan in 2012.

– The Department of Homeland Security: Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort has sought more than 500 visas for foreign workers through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

– The Department of Labor, which regulates the H-2B visas for foreign workers.

– The General Services Administration, which in 2012 picked Trump’s firm to turn the Old Post Office in Washington into a luxury hotel, is one agency that Trump has praised. “You have some great people in government, you really do,” Trump told a northern Virginia crowd in December, calling GSA employees “really terrific people.” He added, “if we can be led properly, this country is going to go to a level you wouldn’t believe.”

– The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which regulates workplace safety. This agency, for example, is investigating whether a subcontractor working on Trump’s Old Post Office hotel has underpaid employees.

– The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which administers and enforces civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. A spurned contestant on Trump’s reality-TV show “The Apprentice” filed an age discrimination complaint against the Trump Organization in 2005.

– The Federal Trade Commission. Trump paid the agency that regulates business practices a $750,000 penalty in 1988 to settle an antitrust lawsuit regarding his attempt to take over Holiday Corp. and Bally Manufacturing.

– The National Labor Relations Board has weighed several complaints involving Trump-affiliated businesses, though none have apparently been decided by the full board. Instead, cases are often withdrawn, with or without some kind of adjustment. On June 3, for instance, union representatives filed a complaint alleging unfair labor practices at the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas. The case is still pending. Typically, only about 2 percent of NLRB complaints go all the way to a board decision; but those that do can become very big.

– The Department of Transportation, which Trump dealt with through his Trump Shuttle ownership and failed attempt to purchase American Airlines in the late 1980s.

– The Treasury Department, whose Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in 1998 fined Trump’s Taj Mahal casino $477,700 for currency transaction reporting violations.

One particularly thorny spot for Trump could be banking, said Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor and former ethics attorney under Bush who envisions a Trump presidency rife with potential conflicts of interest.

Trump’s companies have had billions of dollars in loans with Deutsche Bank and he and the German banking giant have clashed, with the bank at one point suing Trump for money it said was owed.

U.S. banks are regulated by several agencies, including the Federal Reserve, whose governors are appointed by the president with Senate approval.

“He’s had a love-hate relationship with banks, especially Deutsche Bank,” Painter said. “I don’t know if you want somebody in the White House whose real estate holdings are leveraged by the banks. He’s got to get rid of all that stuff.”

There is a potential benefit to Trump’s banking experience.

Painter thinks Trump should divest himself of his holdings if he becomes president. However, Painter said that perhaps having a President Trump with a lot of skin in the domestic and international economies would keep him in check against some of the policies he was espousing on the campaign trail.

“If he has a stake in it, it might make him a lot more responsible,” said Painter, co-author of “Better Bankers, Better Banks: Promoting Good Business Through Contractual Commitment.” “His financial interests in real estate depend on the (domestic) economy and the global economy doing well.”

As president, Trump would be able to appoint the U.S.’s nearly 200 ambassadors, who serve as advocates for American interests abroad.

Trump has real estate holdings in Canada, Turkey, South Korea, India, Uruguay, Panama and the Philippines. He operates hotels in Canada, Brazil and Ireland and lends his name to a resort hotel/condo complex in Panama. The Trump name is also on golf courses in Scotland and the United Arab Emirates.

Though tradition has held that career diplomats retain their appointments after new presidents take office, at least five countries where Trump has business interests are now represented by political appointees: Canada, India, Ireland, South Korea and the United Kingdom.

Though Trump would have considerable power over the executive branch, he’d have less sway with Congress.

He’s never been much of a presence at the Capitol, last retaining a congressional lobbyist in 2001.

The House of Representatives is expected to retain its Republican majority, making it less likely Trump would face scrutiny there. Also, he has made campaign contributions to some key chairmen, notably Reps. Ed Royce, R-Calif., who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee; Bill Shuster, R-Pa., chair of Transportation and Infrastructure; and Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., who led the Benghazi committee.

But Congress could make things uncomfortable for Trump and his empire, particularly if Democrats win control of the Senate, which is within their reach. And some of Trump’s sharpest critics might chair key committees affecting his holdings. Among them: Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Banking; Bill Nelson, D-Fla., Commerce, Science and Transportation; Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Energy and Natural Resources; Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Finance; Bob Menendez, D-N.J., Foreign Relations; Patty Murray, D-Wash., Health, Labor, Education and Pensions, and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Judiciary or Appropriations.

Not to mention independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, in line to head the Budget Committee.

The areas where Trump businesses might come under scrutiny include:

– The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, whose jurisdiction includes most federal labor and employment laws,s could look into whether safety guidelines are being followed at Trump’s workplaces, such as the five Trump-brand hotels that operate in five states. The panel could probe an OSHA investigation last year into an incident at a New Jersey Trump tower when a piece of concrete fell from the building and injured a police officer.

– The Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance and Data Security could look at Trump University, as the panel examines consumer protection issues. Former students have filed a lawsuit in California saying the program was a “fraudulent scheme,” though Trump has countered that many praised the program.

– The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and House Government Operations Subcommittee, which would oversee the Old Post Office renovation and could examine a number of related issues, notably whether Trump is fulfilling terms of the lease.

– The Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest could be interested in the Trump organization’s view of visas that make it easier to bring foreign workers into the country. Reuters reported last year that Trump companies have sought to bring in at least 1,000 temporary workers on such visas since 2000.

– The Senate Banking, House and Urban Affairs Committee could look into Trump’s dealings with Deutsche Bank.

– The Senate Aviation Operations, Safety and Security Subcommittee could look at his fleet of aircraft.

William Douglas, Michael Doyle, Kevin G. Hall and David Lightman contributed to this report.