
Prof. Richard Painter Quoted in Jacobin About More Conflicts of Interest in New Administration
Professor Richard Painter, S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law, was quoted in Jacobin about further conflicts of interest occurring in the Trump administration. The Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) — a Treasury Department subcommittee tasked with approving foreign investments into U.S. company — has been urged by Human Rights Watch to strengthen its oversight of new financial deals the administration is proposing with Saudi Arabia and other countries known for human rights violations. CFIUS membership now includes Saudi-connected officials, which has led to a global law firm concluding that the oversight committee “may be less wary of investments from Saudi Arabia” than it was in the past. Prof. Painter thinks CFIUS members’ financial ties to the international deals they’re supposed to be supervising will be par for the course for the new Trump White House. He said, “Conflicts of interest are going to be pervasive in this administration. You’ve got a bunch of people [invested] in crypto that are supposed to be regulating crypto. You’ve got social media [companies] with the president and Elon Musk. I’m not surprised that we’re going to have a committee on foreign investments that’s stacked up with millionaires or very wealthy people doing a lot of deals overseas themselves.