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Trump kin still have huge stake in empire
Daughter and husband beneficiaries of holdings worth up to $741 million
By Jesse Drucker and Eric Lipton
New York Times

NEW YORK — Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, President Trump’s daughter and son-in-law, will remain the beneficiaries of a sprawling real estate and investment business still worth as much as $741 million, despite their new government responsibilities, according to ethics filings released by the White House on Friday night.

Ivanka Trump will also have a stake in the Trump International Hotel in Washington. The hotel, near the White House, has drawn protests from ethics experts who worry that foreign governments or special interests could stay there to curry favor with the administration.

It is unclear how Ivanka Trump would earn income from that stake. Kushner’s financial disclosures said that his wife earned between $1 million and $5 million from the hotel between January 2016 and March 2017, and put the value of her stake at between $5 million and $25 million.

The disclosures were part of a broad document release by the White House that exposed the assets of as many as 180 senior officials to public scrutiny. The reports showed the assets and wealth of senior staff members at the time they entered government service.

Those disclosures included the assets of Gary Cohn, the former president of Goldman Sachs who now leads the National Economic Council, and Stephen K. Bannon, the chief strategist to the president.

Bannon disclosed $191,000 in consulting fees he earned from Breitbart News Network, the conservative media organization; $125,333 from Cambridge Analytica, a data firm that worked for the Trump campaign; and $61,539 in salary from the Government Accountability Institute, a conservative nonprofit organization.

All three are backed by Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah, financiers and major Republican donors.

Bannon’s most valuable asset was Bannon Strategic Advisors Inc., a privately held consulting firm into which income from his other investments appeared to flow.

It was valued at between $5 million and $25 million. He also held bank accounts valued at up to $2.25 million, and rental real estate worth as much as $10.5 million.

Cohn is far wealthier, with assets valued between $253 million and $611 million, and income last year as high as $77 million. Another White House official, Reed Cordish, who heads technology initiatives, accumulated assets as a Maryland developer valued as high as $424 million.

The Trump administration is considered the wealthiest in US history, with members of his senior staff and Cabinet worth an estimated $12 billion, according to a tally by Bloom­berg. The Friday filings will add voluminous detail to that top-line figure.

“I think one of the really interesting things that people are going to see today — and I think it’s something that should be celebrated — is that the president has brought a lot of people into this administration, and this White House in particular, who have been very blessed and very successful,’’ said Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary.

The officials “have given up a lot to come into government by setting aside a lot of assets,’’ he said.

Among the most blessed is Kushner, who was until January the chief executive of Kushner Cos., a family-run real estate investment firm with holdings across the country, a growing business that has taken part in at least $7 billion of acquisitions during the past decade.

Late Friday, the White House released details of the plan devised by his advisers to avoid conflicts of interest between Kushner’s government role and the wide-ranging business empire he ran with his father. That business depends on foreign investment from undisclosed sources, as well as billions of dollars in loans from the world’s biggest financial services firms.

Although Kushner has stepped down from his management positions at the more than 200 entities that operated aspects of the family real estate business, he will remain a beneficiary of the vast majority of the business he ran for the past decade, through a series of trusts that already owned the various real estate companies.

The plan laid out on Friday “is not sufficient,’’ said Larry Noble, a former general counsel and chief ethics officer for the Federal Election Commission.

“While removing himself from the management of the businesses is an important step, he is still financially benefiting from how the businesses do,’’ Noble said. “This presents potential for a conflict of interest. Given his level in the White House and broad portfolio it’s hard to see how he will recuse himself from everything that may impact his financial interest.’’

The disclosures do not reveal the names of investors and lenders to ventures that Kushner is retaining a stake in.

For example, the form shows Kushner is retaining a stake in a limited liability corporation that owns a Trump-branded luxury rental high rise building in Jersey City, N.J., worth as much as $5 million. That project was financed with tens of millions of dollars from wealthy Chinese investors through a controversial visa-for-sale program called EB-5.

However, the filing does not disclose the names of any of those investors — or partners in any of his other projects.

“He could have foreign business partners who have a real interest in policy, and he may be advising the president on those policies,’’ Noble added. “This is a dark area where we just don’t know what’s going on.’’

In all, the Kushner company owns more than 20,000 apartments and approximately 14 million square feet of office space.

Kushner was required to submit some limited financial information for his wife, who will continue to receive payments from the Trump Organization as well as her fashion brand.

Ivanka Trump, who is an assistant to the president, resigned from her leadership roles at both companies. Instead of performance-based payments, she will receive fixed payments from T International Realty, the family’s luxury brokerage agency, as well as fixed fees from two entities related to real estate projects, the documents show.

Ivanka Trump had previously rolled her fashion brand into the Ivanka M. Trump Business Trust, which is overseen by her brother-in-law, Josh Kushner, and sister-in-law, Nicole Meyer. The documents released Friday valued the trust at more than $50 million.

The brand is largely a licensing operation, meaning that it sells the use of Ivanka Trump’s name to partners who manufacture her clothes, shoes, and other accessories.

Since it is privately held, little is known about the company’s financials, but the Times has previously reported that revenues were roughly between $4 million and $6 million in 2013, before the debut of a major partnership.

The disclosure forms released Friday for less senior White House staff members were not reviewed by the federal Office of Government Ethics. Only the White House counsel’s office that examines their assets to determine if there are potential conflicts, and decide what steps employees must take to sell assets, resign positions, or recuse themselves from decisions.