White House lawyer says politicians must separate their business and political interests — even though Trump never has

On Monday, White House lawyer Eric Herschmann tried to change the subject of the impeachment trial to GOP conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden's work for Ukraine — and made an impassioned argument for overhauling ethics laws to prevent conflicts of interest for senior government officials.

"I actually think that this is something that is undisputed, that Ukraine had a particularly bad corruption problem," said Herschmann. "It was so corrupt that dealing with corruption and solving the corruption was a priority for our U.S. foreign policy. Here is how one knowledgeable observer of Ukraine put it in 2015. Quote, 'It is not enough to set up a new anti-corruption bureau and establish a prosecutor fight corruption, the office of prosecutor general needs to be reformed, and the judiciary needs to be overhauled, and the energy sector needs to be competitive and ruled by market principles and not sweetheart deals. It is not enough to push through the laws to increase transparency with regard to the official sources of income. Senior elected officials have to remove all conflicts between their business interests and their government responsibilities.'"

Putting aside the problem that Hunter Biden's conduct has nothing to do with the high crimes for which Trump is accused, there is truth to the criticism that Ukraine's government suffered from endemic corruption. But Herschmann's criticisms ring hollow given that the president he is defending is completely festooned with business conflicts, from the fact that he uses presidential trips to boost the value of his own real estate properties, to the fact that his children have used the Trump name to gain trademarks from China.

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