President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team denied a report that his sons were seeking donations of up to $1 million in exchange for possible post-inauguration access.
The Center for Public Integrity, an award-winning group that addresses ethics and other policy issues, said a non-profit foundation was set up last week making discreet potential pay-for-play possible. The CPI report said the “Opening Day Foundation” was planning to hold a fundraising event on January 21, the day after the inauguration. The report said major donors would receive: a “private reception and photo opportunity for 16 guests” with Mr Trump.”
The Trump team has denied the president-elect’s sons were behind the event.
On the other hand Donald Trump was supposed to have held his first proper press conference in five months. But then the event was put off; his aides now talk vaguely about holding it early in the New Year. It being merely a case of battle deferred, not battle avoided.
If one theme of the next four years already seems set, it is that of conflict between the 45th president and the media – yes the hoary old mainstream media, fighting off countless new challengers to be sure, but which still sets America’s real news agenda.
The sheer novelty of the situation will make the conflict more intense. Trump is a President-elect who has defied every standard rule of politics, who said and did things that would have destroyed any normal candidate, but not him. He gives every sign of continuing that way in the Oval Office.
