Trump’s response letter to aides mistakenly promoting his wife’s businesses states that ethic rules “do not apply to employees of the executive branch,” but that they would try to follow the spirit of the rules if not the rules themselves. This is goes even further than claiming that they don’t apply to President Trump and his aides. No other president has asserted this exception. Just a reminder, another criminal (Nixon) said something very similar: “Well, when the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”
