Less than a week after Donald Trump was elected the 47th president, news headlines published by CNN and other outlets claimed he still had not disclosed conflicts of interest and signed an ethics agreement that is required for the presidential transition.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) accused Trump and his transition team of “breaking the law” by refusing to sign the ethics agreement.
“Incoming presidents are required to prevent conflicts of interest and sign an ethics agreement,” Warren wrote in a viral post on X on Nov. 11. “This is what illegal corruption looks like.”
Warren added that she “wrote the law” that includes this requirement.
Other viral posts on the social media platform also claim President-elect Trump is legally required to sign an ethics agreement.
THE QUESTION
Is President-elect Donald Trump legally required to sign an ethics agreement?
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
Yes, President-elect Donald Trump is legally required to sign an ethics agreement.
WHAT WE FOUND
President-elect Donald Trump and members of his transition team are required to sign an ethics agreement under a law called the Presidential Transition Enhancement Act.
That bipartisan legislation, which Trump signed into law during his first presidential term in March 2020, amended the Presidential Transition Act of 1963. Though presidents-elect had adopted ethics plans in the past, the law did not previously require it, Sen. Warren, who cosponsored the Presidential Transition Enhancement Act, said in 2020.
Under the law, presidential candidates are required to “create and release an ethics plan for their transition team prior to the election,” the nonpartisan Center for Presidential Transition said in March 2020.
That ethics plan must disclose conflicts of interest for the candidates and their team members, and include a code of ethical conduct that all team members have to sign, among other requirements, according to the text of the law and the Center for Presidential Transition.
The team members who are required to sign the ethics agreement include president-elect Trump, experts with the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) say.
Trump missed the Oct. 1 deadline to establish an ethics plan for his transition team, according to the CLC.
It’s unclear exactly what would happen if Trump doesn’t sign and submit the ethics agreement before his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025. But the CLC says his refusal to do so is already holding up the presidential transition process.
“Only after the president-elect has signed the pledge and disclosed to the General Services Administration (GSA) all nonfederal contributions received for the transition can their transition team receive federal agencies,” the CLC says.
In other words, the Trump team does not currently have access to secure communications from government agencies, including classified information. He also is not allowed to occupy federal office space without signing the agreement.
Trump’s transition team did not respond to VERIFY’s request for comment on why the president-elect has not signed the ethics pledge or when he plans to do so.
But Trump’s “most recent financial disclosure reports point to one potential reason” behind why he hasn’t signed the ethics agreement, the CLC says.
He has a “number of holdings that raise significant conflict of interest concerns,” including his majority stake in the social media network Truth Social, real estate properties and his new cryptocurrency business, according to the CLC.
“If the president-elect were to sign an agreement vowing to avoid conflicts of interest, it would suggest that he should divest from many — if not all — of these holdings,” the CLC says.
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