Donald Trump will not be the 45th person to occupy the Oval Office, as referred to by a panelist on MSNBC Sunday evening. He will be the 45th President, but only 43 persons have occupied the Oval Office, one of whom was not elected either President or Vice President.
Why the different numbers? Because Grover Cleveland was elected for two terms but they were not consecutive. He was elected to be the 22d President, but four years later lost to Benjamin Harrison, who served as the 23d President. Cleveland then returned to the Oval Office after defeating Harrison, to become the 24th President.
Secondly, Gerald Ford was not elected to either the vice presidency or the presidency. He was speaker of the House when Spiro Agnew resigned, so Ford moved up to the vice presidency, and then to the presidency when Richard Nixon resigned.
This year, the President-elect has begun backing away from some of his campaign promises, especially those that have little or no real chance of working. This includes a vow to imprison Hillary Clinton. The FBI and Congressional investigations have not found sufficient evidence to proceed with criminal prosecutions. In addition, a President does not have direct authority to investigate alleged wrongdoing. He can appoint a special prosecutor to deal with the case, but numerous others have already been down that investigative road and found it empty.
He also tried to back out of a meeting with staff journalists at the New York Times, claiming that the newspaper tried to change the ground rules at the last minute. The Times denied that, saying it was the Trump team that wanted to switch to an off-the-record talk, but the newspaper refused.
Earlier, several prominent TV news hosts attended an off-the-record meeting with the President-elect, but were treated to a tongue-lashing for what Trump called their biased and unfair reporting. Somehow, other news outlets found out what was said, even as the broadcast folk kept to their agreement.
Meanwhile, Trump has yet to hold a general press conference, which has been standard for winners to do within a few days of their election victory. When or whether Trump will host such a meeting with reporters is an open question.
Trump was successful during the campaign in dominating news coverage with his sometimes theatrical performances. They made "good copy" as the newsroom saying goes, but journalists eventually realized that they were being used.
But the big story finally reaching the print and broadcast outlets is the problem of entanglements between Trump's worldwide business interests and decisions he might make as President.
He insists it's perfectly legal for him to continue to run his businesses while he is President, but he is putting management of the Trump Organization in the hands of his three eldest children and his son-in-law.
A blind trust it ain't.
Even so, when foreign states do business with a Trump-owned enterprise, there is a strong risk of violating the U.S. Constitution, which stipulates that no American official can accept payments of any kind from a foreign state or ruler. Specifically, it's called the "emoluments clause" of the Constitution, and it appears twice in that document.
So if officials from other nations pay rent to stay at a Trump-owned hotel, that can easily be seen as an "emolument" to the President. And if by doing so it curries favor with the President, that can be called bribery, which is an impeachable offence.
Expect journalists and the political opposition to keep a close eye on Trump's business dealings, especially with state-owned banks in other countries that hold mortgages on Trump properties, as well as construction projects and other ventures done in collaboration with foreign governments.
Possible consequences: Impeachment, conviction and removal from office. And the tabloid headline will be "Congress to Prez: You're Fired."
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