The New York Times published an extensive article yesterday detailing all the places around the world where Trump has business interests, along with this damning paragraph:

What is clear is that there has been very little division, in the weeks since the election, between Mr. Trump’s business interests and his transition effort, with the president-elect or his family greeting real estate partners from India and the Philippines in his office and Mr. Trump raising concerns about his golf course in Scotland with a prominent British politician. Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who is in charge of planning and development of the Trump Organization’s global network of hotels, has joined in conversations with at least three world leaders — of Turkey, Argentina and Japan — having access that could help her expand the brand worldwide.

This is a deeply-reported article about Trump’s holdings and dealings with well-connected developers around the world, in Scotland, Ireland, India, Turkey and the Philippines. Even if the company acts in an altogether up-and-up way the potential for backslapping and baksheesh is awfully high.

Even more worrisome, what might not be done?

“What we already have is a blurring of the lines between official and business activities,” Mr. Fuchs [until recently deputy assistant secretary at the bureau of East Asian and Pacific affairs] said. “The biggest gray area may not be a President Trump himself advocating for favors for the Trump Organization. It’s the diplomats and career officers who will feel the need to perhaps not do things that will harm the Trump Organization’s interests. It is seriously disturbing.”

Trump has got to divest himself of all these holdings. I don’t see how the Electoral College could vote against him because of these conflicts, as the Chief Ethics Counsels for George W. Bush and Barack Obama believe, but he has to be persuaded that he can’t serve both the United States and his companies simultaneously.