What Trump’s taxes mean for national security

Susan Hennessey: The fact that the president of the United States owes somewhere between $300 and $400 million in debt, that is going to come payable over the next four years, that mere fact alone, raises really, really serious questions about who the president owes money to, and whether or not those debts, when they finally come due, might ultimately induce or influence the president to do some things that are more in his personal financial interest than in the interests of the United States. And I really think the way to think about that is as a national security issue. 

We have to be careful in how much we can infer from the reporting about these tax returns. Tax returns are not comprehensive financial disclosures. That said, these documents do strongly suggest that the president owes a significant amount of money to foreign banks, foreign companies or foreign governments. So, we see the amount of money that Donald Trump has paid in taxes to foreign countries. He’s paid more to the Philippines, to Turkey, to India in the first year of his presidency than he actually paid in federal income tax to the United States government. That certainly strongly suggests the degree of entanglement with foreign interests in particular, also with countries that have quite sensitive business with the United States. I think these documents raise really serious questions. They don’t provide comprehensive answers, at least not yet, based on what the public has been able to see. 

Yes, it certainly could. All these could be sources where this debt is held, and we would imagine that there are likely multiple sources considering the sheer scope and size of the debt. And again, we aren’t just concerned about who specifically the president might owe money to, but also whether or not the existence of the debt might offer other avenues in which to influence him. The way we think about this is a foreign government or foreign country being able to provide a thing of value to the president of the United States. The framers of the Constitution actually explicitly forbade that in dual emoluments clauses. And so, these really are sort of core, national interests of the United States. 

The framers of the Constitution really knew that they had to guard against this idea of corruption or else the entire system itself would crumble. Our system really, really depends on the legitimacy of public officials who are working for the public good and not for private gain. They talk a lot about the need to separate the love of power and love of money, as Benjamin Franklin puts it. And so, in part, they do this by creating structural separation of powers. They do this through these emoluments clauses. And this is because they really, really don’t want the president being bought off or influenced by foreign governments or by individual states. It’s also the reason why the framers insisted the president of the United States accept a salary. They wanted the president to be an employee of the United States, to be deriving his source of income only from his job as a public official because of this really, really fundamental concern of outside interests, sort of working to influence the president’s thinking, considering the really astonishing amount of power and authority that the American system vests in the American executive. 

The mere fact that we do not know the amount of money that the president might owe to foreign governments or foreign interests, that itself is a national security risk. That itself is a national security threat to the United States. And so, I think the immediate question is to what extent are the public — the American electorate and American voters — going to decide that this is not a risk that we can continue to take moving forward and to express that in who they vote for this election? 

I think unquestionably no. A lot of people have speculated on whether or not these tax returns, in combination with other financial disclosures, reveal some kind of criminal misconduct. We don’t know the answer to that. That said, in the security clearance process in the United States for individuals who hold these sensitive clearances, access to classified information, the issue of debt, the issue of any kind of financial stress or strain and very, very specific examination of sources of money is central to that process. I find it really, really difficult, if not impossible, to believe that somebody who had this kind of exposure that is shown in these documents could, in fact, obtain a security clearance. 

The president of the United States does not obtain a security clearance. He is vested by certificate of election. That said, this also raises really serious questions about his children, who the president has brought into the White House and has reportedly exerted some political and very unusual influence over the security clearance process in order to grant those security clearances to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner over the objections of career officials.