Trump invites trouble if he keeps businesses: ethics experts

If he follows through, he will shatter a presidential precedent on conflicts, and ethics experts say he will open the door to investigations and lawsuits that could hobble his administration.

In a financial disclosure he was required to file during the campaign, he listed stakes in about 500 companies in at least 25 countries.

Newt Gingrich, a vice chairman of Trump's transition team, said voters knew Trump was a billionaire businessman when they elected him and he shouldn't have to sell.

[...] Gingrich said he recommended to transition officials that Trump appoint a panel of five ethics "jurists" to vet potential conflicts.

In what is often referred to as the "emoluments clause," the Constitution bans public officials from accepting gifts or payments from foreign governments and companies controlled by them without the consent of Congress.

Scott Amey, general counsel of the Washington watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, said Trump could be named in all sorts of routine business lawsuits that will eat up his time if he doesn't disentangle himself from his holdings.

Separately, American Bridge, an outside group that backed Hillary Clinton in the campaign, has amassed 20,000 hours of Trump footage and audio and compiled reams of opposition research that it will turn to throughout his administration.

Founder David Brock promises to file lawsuits in the style of Judicial Watch, a conservative nonprofit that successfully sued to obtain Clinton's emails from her tenure as President Barack Obama's secretary of state.

Drabkin noted the president will appoint the head of the government agency that negotiates Trump's annual lease payments for the use of the taxpayer-owned Washington building that houses his new hotel.