Trump is still angry that he can't host G7 leaders at his own hotel — but the people who work for him are dead silent

Nine days before he would swear an oath to "preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States," then-president-elect Donald Trump held a press conference to make a big announcement.

Though he maintained that as president he would be exempt from ethics laws on conflicts of interest, and therefore could legally run a private business and the executive branch at the same time, he announced that he was nevertheless handing over the reins of his company, the Trump Organization, to his two oldest sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

"My two sons, who are right here, Don and Eric, are going to be running the company," he said. "They are going to be running it in a very professional manner. They're not going to discuss it with me."

Though Trump was breaking from decades of precedent by not putting his holdings into a "blind trust," Morgan Lewis and Bockius partner Shari Dillon explained that she and her colleagues, with the approval of Presidential Transition Team attorney — and former White House Counsel Fred Fielding — had designed "a structure for his business empire that will completely isolate him from the management of the company."

"Through the trust agreement, he has relinquished leadership and management of the Trump Organization to his sons Don and Eric and a longtime Trump executive, Allen Weisselberg. Together, Don, Eric and Allen will have the authority to manage the Trump Organization and will make decisions for the duration of the presidency without any involvement whatsoever by President-elect Trump," said Dillon, who added that any "new deals, actions, and transactions that could potentially raise ethics or conflicts of interest concerns" would require the written approval of an ethics adviser.

Over the 1,004 days he has been in office, Trump's response to the myriad examples of how his businesses have benefited from his occupying the highest office in the land has been to repeatedly insist that he gave up control of his hotel, golf and real estate empire to his sons. But thanks to his itchy Twitter finger and his most senior assistant, we now know that like most things that come out of his mouth (or phone), his repeated statements insisting that he'd separated himself from his businesses were lies.

On Thursday, Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney appeared at a hastily called press briefing, his first since taking on the role. The subject at hand was one which he'd originally intended to discuss with a select group of reporters, in private, off-camera, and "on background" as a "senior administration official."

But instead — and at Trump's urging, according to a White House source — Mulvaney took to the James Brady Briefing Room to announce that Trump National Doral Miami, a luxury golf resort in Florida, had been determined to be "by far and away — far and away — the best physical facility" for next year's G7 summit.

Numerous ethics experts and constitutional scholars have argued that Trump's continued ownership stake in the Trump Organization has been a running violation of the US Constitution's emoluments clauses, which prohibit the President — as a "Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust" in the US government — from receiving "any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever" from "from any King, Prince, or foreign State" or from receiving any compensation outside his salary.

But Mulvaney suggested that hosting the event at Doral, which has struggled financially in the years since the Trump Organization purchased it, would not violate the Emoluments Clauses of the constitution and would be "dramatically cheaper for us" compared with sites he would not name in California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah, because "the President" — not the Trump Organization — “could actually do it at no cost."

Two days later, having been told by a number of moderate Republicans that the plan was not politically defensible, Trump did something uncharacteristic: He backed down.

"I thought I was doing something very good for our Country by using Trump National Doral, in Miami, for hosting the G-7 Leaders. It is big, grand, on hundreds of acres, next to MIAMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, has tremendous ballrooms & meeting rooms, and each delegation would have its own 50 to 70 unit building. Would set up better than other alternatives. I announced that I would be willing to do it at NO PROFIT or, if legally permissible, at ZERO COST to the USA. But, as usual, the Hostile Media & their Democrat Partners went CRAZY!" he tweeted. "Therefore, based on both Media & Democrat Crazed and Irrational Hostility, we will no longer consider Trump National Doral, Miami, as the Host Site for the G-7 in 2020. We will begin the search for another site, including the possibility of Camp David, immediately. Thank you!"

Trump's insistence that he would have been willing to use Doral — which he claimed to have given up control over before he took office — at "no profit" or "zero cost to the USA" completely contradicts the assurances given by Dillon, his attorney, at his January 11, 2017 press conference.

Mulvaney all but confirmed that Trump still retains some measure of control over his hotel empire on Sunday, telling Fox News' Chris Wallace that Trump "still considers himself to be in the hospitality business.” And Trump seemed to confirm himself during a cabinet meeting on Monday by boasting that "I have a great business" and telling reporters that he "would have given it [Doral] for nothing."

He also mocked the assembled members of the White House press corps for asking about his now-rescinded decision and suggesting that it would have violated Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the US Constitution. “You people with this phony Emoluments Clause," he said.

Dillon, the attorney who set up the structure to "completely isolate” the President from the Trump Organization, did not respond to a voicemail message I left her, in which I asked how Trump's ability to offer Doral as a site "at no cost" was possible, given her statement that Trump was handing over his company to his sons.

Similarly, Bobby Burchfield, the Trump Organization's outside ethics adviser, did not respond to a text message asking if he'd been asked to review or approve the use of Doral to host next year's G7, which undoubtedly would have been something "that could potentially raise ethics or conflicts of interest concerns."

No one from the Trump Organization responded to my emailed query as to how the President could offer up the use of a property he hadn't controlled since January 2017.

Perhaps their silence is because Trump has made things crystal clear.