Associated Press

Associated Press

NEW YORK

President-elect Donald Trump declared Wednesday he will leave his business empire behind to focus on his presidency. But the prospect that he could simply shift more control to three of his adult children looked too cozy to some business-ethics specialists who suggest the arrangement could bring unprecedented conflicts of interest into the Oval Office.

Trump announced in a series of early morning tweets that he would leave his “great business,” adding: “While I am not mandated to do this under the law, I feel it is visually important, as president, to in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses.”

Trump provided no details, though he said legal documents were being prepared. He previously had said he’d leave his business operations to his three eldest children – Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka.

Asked if the tweets indicated plans to move the businesses to the children, Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said Wednesday, “it appears that way.”

Ethics experts have pushed for Trump to fully exit the ownership of his businesses using a blind trust or equivalent arrangement.

“Otherwise he will have a personal financial interest in his businesses that will sometimes conflict with the public interest and constantly raise questions,” Norman Eisen, President Barack Obama’s chief ethics lawyer, and Richard Painter, who held the same post for President George W. Bush, said in a joint statement. The laws are generally loose for presidents regarding their businesses except when it comes to ties to or gifts from foreign governments.

Meanwhile, Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence, the outgoing Indiana governor, planned an event today in Indiana in connection with an announcement the air- conditioning giant Carrier Corp. planned to keep nearly 1,000 jobs in the state instead of moving them to Mexico.

Details of the agreement were unclear. Trump spent much of his campaign pledging to keep companies like Carrier from moving jobs out of the U.S., but he also dismissed tax incentives and favorable financing deals often used by state officials to keep major employers home.

Carrier said in a statement that more than 1,000 jobs were saved, though that figure includes headquarters and engineering staff that were likely to stay in Indiana.