Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Trump sold all his stocks, aide says
Amid worries of conflicts, sell-off in June claimed
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump sold all his shares in companies in June, his spokesman said Tuesday, a move that could have created a cash windfall as he ramped up to begin a costly general election presidential campaign that at the time he claimed he would personally support with “major contributions.”
The sell-off could help address conflict-of-interest worries about his stock portfolio, a sizable part of Trump’s financial life that was worth roughly as much as $40 million as of December 2015, a May disclosure filing shows.
Trump’s stock portfolio, the May filing shows, included shares in a number of banks, oil giants and other companies with business pending before the U.S. government and whose value could rise due to Trump’s decisions in office.
Those stock holdings, ethics advisers said, offered a potentially troublesome facet of Trump’s private finances that could entangle his public decision-making. Beyond comments to The Post, Trump representatives have not provided records of stock transactions or other details since the May filing.
Trump spokesman Jason Miller, who told The Post about Trump’s stock sale Tuesday morning, did not immediately answer why Trump had sold the shares or how much he sold them for. Trump will not be required by law to file another personal financial disclosure until May 2018.
Trump’s campaign had given no indication of the sale in the five months since it apparently took place in June. As president, Trump will be subject to the STOCK Act, a law passed in 2012 that requires elected officials, including the president, to publicly disclose any stock transactions worth at least $1,000 within 45 days.
The June stock sale would have coincided with a point when Trump was pouring money into his presidential campaign. During the Republican primary, Trump loaned his campaign $47 million of his own money. In June, as the general election began, he formally forgave the loan and began making cash infusions to his campaign, first donating $2 million on June 22.
Trump then gave $2 million a month from July to August before donating $10 million in October. Much of Trump’s campaign was ultimately funded by other donors. In all, Trump gave his campaign $66 million, federal filings show — short of the $100 million that he repeatedly said he was spending on his race.
Trump further telegraphed that he’ll take an interventionist role in the nation’s economy by first demanding the government cancel a multibillion-dollar order for new presidential planes and then hailing a Japanese company’s commitment to invest billions in the U.S.
After meeting with Trump on Tuesday at the president-elect’s Manhattan skyscraper, Japanese tech billionaire Masayoshi Son, said he will invest $50 billion in the United States and would “commit” to creating 50,000 new jobs over an unspecified time period.
The deal, however, is not new. The money will come from a $100 billion joint investment fund Son established in October using money from partners, including Saudi Arabia’s state-owned investment fund.
Son is the founder and chief executive of SoftBank, one of Japan’s largest technology outfits, which owns the U.S. mobile carrier Sprint.
The announcement is the latest instance in which Trump appears to be conducting economic policy via ad-hoc deal-making — sometimes taking credit whether he deserves it or not. Last week, the president-elect spoke at the Carrier furnace plant in Indianapolis after the company announced plans to keep 800 jobs at the plant instead of outsourcing them to Mexico. Trump quickly claimed he had saved those positions, even though the company is still shifting more than 1,000 jobs from that factory and another Indiana plant to Mexico.
Similarly, the week after the election Trump tweeted that he had dissuaded Ford Motor Co. from moving a Kentucky factory to Mexico. The claim was a stretch; Ford had no plans to move the plant and had already agreed to keep producing one model there, although it did back away from a plan to shift production of a small SUV from Louisville, Ky., to Cuautitlan, Mexico.
Trump quickly took credit for Son’s commitment Tuesday, writing on Twitter: “Masa said he would never do this had we (Trump) not won the election!”
Financial details about Son’s commitment and its time frame remain unclear.
Meanwhile, Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Tuesday advised state electors not to vote for him in an anti-Donald Trump protest.
Kasich, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for president, said he is not a candidate for president, the election was held and Trump was the winner.
Electors are pledged to candidates but allowed to change their votes, though they almost never do.
A quartet of Democratic electors from Colorado and Washington are trying to convince electors from both parties to unite behind another Republican because they say Trump is unfit to be president.