jared kushner and #Ivanka Trump, the marital team that sit like king and queen in the regal throne of Washington, are now both senior federal government officials, and yet they have a vast web of businesses and assets to their names. On Friday reports disclosed their assets – and that of their influential peers at the White House – and this is making some ethics experts very cautious.
The Trump-Kushners have had the pleasure of meeting some of the most powerful men and women in the world since Donald Trump won the presidency, and it is clear that their power and influence is undisputed.
Their glittery reign will continue as Kushner heads up a new office that will be called the #White House Office of American Innovation. He will continue to draw in and mingle with a rarefied crowd, with top executives from tier one companies from the airline, arms, tech and pharma industries. There will be conversations taking place within these halls of power, and those privy to insider information will be most certainly tempted to enlarge their investment activities.
The expansive #financial disclosure dossier published on Friday that looks at Kushner's assets reveals many interesting things. Firstly, both he and he and his wife Ivanka are still profiting from a real estate and comprehensive investment kingdom in the realm of $740 million.
Secondly, they are around the dealers and the power holders of the companies that surround their assets. It is clear that this glamorous and powerful Washington couple find themselves on hazardous ground, both legally and ethically.
#Donald Trump, even though he is President, is immune from official conflict of interest laws.
Kushner and Ivanka Trump, on the other hand, are expressly forbidden under civil and federal law to act in a way that may benefit their particular assets or business interests. This is because they are working in formal capacities at the #White House.
And whilst its possible that President Trump can evade legal reckoning in the face of his own conflicts of interest, his son-in-law and daughter don't have the same recourse to immunity.
So says Noah Bookbinder, who is the director of a liberal nonprofit in Washington called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics.
Stepping down in style
Yes, #Jared Kushner did quit a couple of hundred roles in various boards and companies and partnerships that help form the Trump brand, but the financial disclosure report highlights how he is still a beneficiary of many of these bodies, that the cash is still flowing through various networks into his coffers.
Most of their asset range is compromised of real estate and buildings, and ex-deputy attorney general #Jamie Gorelick, who is advising them on ethics, claims that these actual physical structures, these buildings, are unlikely to pose any conflicts that would be serious enough for them to divest.
“The remaining conflicts, from a practical perspective, are pretty narrow and very manageable," Gorelick said from his law firm on Friday.
Money coming in from Trump family assets
This sounds fine, until you look at all the foreign money coming into America through real estate ownerships, most of it tied up in offshore shells. Clearly, this throws up some tricky questions of policy and #ethics. China, where Kushner’s company has actively sought investors, is one example, as is the Middle East and Russia.
