Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump made up to $640 million while working in White House, report finds

 

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump reported as much as $640 million in outside income while working in the White House as advisers to Donald Trump, according to an analysis from a government watchdog group.

The couple – the son-in-law and daughter of the former president – made between $172 million and $640 million, according to financial disclosures analyzed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

While they did not take a public income while working in the administration, and they reportedly stepped away from daily operations at their companies, their extraordinary incomes have alarmed lawmakers and ethics groups chronicling concerns over the family’s allegedly rampant self-dealing and enrichment while Mr. Trump was in office.

Ivanka Trump’s ownership stake in Washington DC’s Trump Hotel – what CREW called a “locus of influence peddling in the Trump administration” – earned her more than $13 million since 2017, according to the report.

She also made up to $1 million from her namesake brand a year after she filed a disclosure with the government that its operations ceased in 2018, the report found.

The report also outlines how her applications for foreign trademarks “may have been her biggest accomplishment” while her father was in office.

Russia renewed two trademarks for Ms Trump’s business a month after her father was elected in 2016. She won preliminary approval for three Chinese trademarks after dining with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in 2017, the first of more than two dozen approvals for trademark registrations with foreign governments while her father was in office.

In October 2018, three months after she announced that her brand had shut down, she received 16 trademarks from the Chinese government, including for voting machines.

Mr Kushner did not divest from his stake in real estate investment platform Cadre, co-owned by his brother Joshua, despite his wife’s role in the administration’s Opportunity Zones program from which Cadre benefitted.

At the beginning of the Trump administration, Mr. Kushner’s stake in Cade was initially valued between $5 million and $25 million, according to CREW.

The couple made at least $24 million during the final year of the administration, according to recent disclosures. A list of future interests for the couple include golf courses in Bali and Dubai and hotel construction in New York City.

Mr. Kushner opened Kushner Companies BVI Limited, an off-shore holding company in the British Virgin Islands. Among its assets is New York’s Puck Building, valued at more than $25 million.

The Independent has requested comment from a representative for Mr Kushner.