Column Uses ARM Industry Conference To Highlight President’s Continuing Conflicts of Interest

Earlier this year, Mick Mulvaney, a former Congressman who is the acting director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, famously told a ballroom full of bankers that the only way lobbyists received time to meet with him while he was in Congress was if they donated to his campaign. Needless to say, that did not go over well. Now, a column that was published last week in the Washington Post is wondering whether President Trump is going to be swayed in his regulation of the collection industry because an industry conference is going to be held at one of his hotels next year.

The Debt Collection Forum, which is run by industry veteran Nick Jarman, is scheduled to be held at the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago next April. Because the president has refused to put his financial holdings in a blind trust during his presidency and has left his empire to be run by his two sons, he has left himself open to being criticized for potential conflicts of interest.

In the column, Jarman points out that his choice of the hotel had nothing to do with attempting to influence the president on matters related to the ARM industry and had everything to do with it being a “beautiful hotel.” In fact, Jarman says he is worried about the potential negative backlash of selecting a Trump property because of how “volatile” the president is.

However, as pointed out by former White House ethics lawyers, all it takes is one debt collector, should he or she ever get the chance to meet the president, to say “by the way I love your hotel in Chicago, we had an industry conference there,” to attempt to influence the president on any one of a number of potential matters, including the pending debt collection rule from the BCFP, a proposed rule from the Federal Communications Commission related to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

The column ends by chastising the public for allowing a situation to exist where the president can profit from individuals or organizations that are regulated by the federal government and allowing the president to continue to “flout traditional norms.”