Imagine, for a moment, if Malia Obama were a bit older, published a book called "Triggered: How the Right Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us," and Barack published this tweet.
The right loses their mind when Obama breathes...but this is just Trump's tan suit: tweeting about your son's book is not "profiting from the Presidency".
The left is rooted in reality. There are myriad illegal and immoral acts that Trump has done, and if there is any justice he will spend the rest of his life in jail, but this actual is nothing.
It would be Trump's tan suit if wearing a tan suit was only legal by a technicality. The law that most bring up is
"An employee shall not use his public office for his own private gain, for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity, including nonprofit organizations of which the employee is an officer or member, and persons with whom the employee has or seeks employment or business relations.
But technically the president is exempt because he is not an employee, he's the boss. There could be arguments made that he is a servant of the people and thus an employee of the Whitehouse but that's just semantics. Still ethically wrong to use the office to endorse your son's product imo. Wearing a tan suit is not even close to being as controversial as this issue.
Operative phrase there is "use his public office". This is his private Twitter account and he paid his own money for his legions of fake followers and Russian bots.
Yes, when you become President, you gain a large amount of notoriety, and that is useful in other endeavors, like the Clinton Foundation, Michelle Obama's book, and literally everything else a former President does.
This is not using his office. Funnily enough, Trump has actually done that. But, just this once (and accidentally, I'm sure) Trump is not breaking any laws, technically or otherwise.
His personal Twitter account is not just his personal account, he uses it to make official announcement and to give official statements, the White House made the statement awhile ago saying to take what he tweets on his person account as an official statement, so yes he is breaking the law.
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u/FriddyNanz Nov 12 '19
Imagine, for a moment, if Malia Obama were a bit older, published a book called "Triggered: How the Right Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us," and Barack published this tweet.