Trump aides’ filings tell deep wealth

New documents released Friday night by the White House revealed hard numbers showing how President Donald Trump, who campaigned as a champion of the working class, has surrounded himself with a circle of wealthy advisers.

The Washington Post

found that 27 top aides together held assets worth at least $2.3 billion when they entered the White House.

Trump’s senior staff members, including his Cabinet, came to government with a far more expansive range of investments than in previous administrations. Federal ethics officials are supposed to review their disclosures and help to develop plans on avoiding financial conflicts of interest. In many cases, those plans involve divestiture — and aides such as economic adviser Gary Cohn and senior adviser Jared Kushner previously have revealed their plans to sell substantial holdings.

Trump has retained ownership in his real estate and licensing businesses. And while he has handed their management over to his sons, he has been criticized by the head of the federal Office of Government Ethics and Democratic lawmakers who say he hasn’t gone far enough to distance himself from the businesses.

Among the wealthiest aides are Kushner, who is Trump’s son-in-law, and Ivanka Trump, his daughter;

Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs senior executive; and Stephen Bannon, chief White House strategist.

Kushner, the president’s senior adviser, and Ivanka Trump, Kushner’s wife, have property and investment holdings worth at least $241 million. They resigned from all of their business entities and sold off 58 assets. But the couple held on to much of what they have built into a global and real estate-focused empire.

Ivanka Trump has not yet filed a disclosure form. Kushner’s document said that a business trust that holds her branded apparel line has a value of more than $50 million.

Thanks to his family’s real estate firm, Kushner has one of the largest fortunes of the White House officials. His filing also shows that he has up to $95 million in borrowed money, much of it in the form of unsecured lines of credit held jointly with his father, from lenders including Deutsche Bank and one of Israel’s largest banks, Israel Discount Bank.

The aide began selling off the most problematic pieces of his portfolio shortly after Trump won the election, and some of those business deals predate what is required to be captured in the financial-disclosure forms. For example, Kushner sold his stake in a Manhattan skyscraper to a trust his mother oversees. He then organized much of his holdings into trusts for which he is the sole primary beneficiary.

Cohn’s 41-page disclosure shows that he received at least $40 million in income from Goldman Sachs-related dividends, interest, salary and bonuses, about half of which was in some form of stock compensation, in 2016 and part of 2017.

The report contains various estimates of wealth for Cohn, who worked at Goldman Sachs for more than 25 years, including the last decade as its president. According to earlier estimates compiled by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he’s worth about $600 million.

Cohn reported assets worth at least $250 million.

His investments range from venture capital fund Andreessen Horowitz to self-storage units in Ohio. Cohn also reported more than $1 million in income from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China — something the White House has said he is in the process of divesting along with his Goldman holdings.

Bannon, a former executive at Breitbart News, holds assets worth between $11.9 million and $53.9 million and disclosed $1.15 million in income for 2016 and part of this year, according to the report released Friday.

He was paid more than $125,000 in consulting fees for work on behalf of Cambridge Analytica, a data firm that advised political candidates, during the reporting period. He earned $191,000 while serving as executive chairman at Breitbart.

The report shows that Bannon holds no equity in Breitbart, a politically conservative news outlet that is known both for its vocal support for Trump and incendiary articles about race, religion, sexual orientation and political correctness.

Bannon’s assets include multiple rental real estate properties and stakes in entertainment companies — but no common stock, mutual funds or bonds, according to the 12-page disclosure report released by the White House.

CASH FLOW

Other influential administration officials reported substantial personal wealth.

Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, for example, pulled in $508,268 in salary and bonuses in the past 12 months from the Republican National Committee, where he served as chairman until joining the White House. The committee also covered his rent in Washington, which cost the committee another $57,274.

Katie Walsh, former deputy chief of staff, served as Priebus’ deputy until her resignation last week to work for a pro-Trump advocacy group. She earned more than $320,000 as chief of staff at the Republican National Committee last year and another $280,000 from a political fundraising firm, The Laymont Group.

Kellyanne Conway, who became the first female campaign manager to lead a successful presidential drive, built up a net worth as high as $40 million even before being named counselor to the president.

That figure derived mostly from her investments and her salary at her personal political consulting firm, The Polling Company/WomanTrend.

Conway earned, through her company, slightly more than $800,000 in business income for her work in 2016. The business is worth between $1 million and $5 million, according to her disclosure statement.

Most of Conway’s assets, more than $31 million, are held in cash or money-market accounts — likely because she had to sell most of her investments before taking a job in the White House. She does still own stock in drug giant Pfizer, snack-food companies Kraft Heinz and Mondelez, and tobacco companies Altria and Philip Morris. Those stock holdings are minor — less than $200,000 — compared with her net worth.

Conway gave speeches or provided political consulting services to dozens of political interest groups, mostly advocating conservative causes. She also gave a paid speech to Point 72 Asset Management, the firm owned by billionaire hedge-fund manager Steven Cohen.

And Dina Powell, a veteran of President George W. Bush’s administration who now serves as senior counselor for economic initiatives and deputy national security adviser for strategy, was paid $4 million in salary, benefits and bonuses by Goldman Sachs, for which she was once president of the foundation. She had assets worth between $6.2 million to $19.4 million.

In all, a senior White House official said filings would be available for roughly 180 staff members as of Friday night — though the website allows for requesting them one at a time. Public filers include White House employees earning $161,755 or more and those holding “commissions of appointment” from the president, according to federal ethics rules. That includes unpaid officials, like Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

Information for this article was contributed by Matea Gold, Rosalind S. Helderman, Amy Brittain, Tom Hamburger, Drew Harwell, Jenna Johnson, Michael Kranish, Robert O’Harrow, Ashley Parker, Lisa Rein, Steven Rich and Allan Sloan of The Washington Post; by Julie Bykowicz, Chad Day, Stephen Braun, Jack Gillum, Michael Biesecker, Ted Bridis, Bernard Condon and Ken Sweet of The Associated Press; and by Justin Sink, Caleb Melby, Dakin Campbell and Bill Allison of Bloomberg News.