End Citizens United President Tiffany Muller released the following statement on new reporting showing that Donald Trump’s family business’ plans to cash in on his presidency:
“From overseas real estate deals to shady crypto schemes, Trump’s conflicts of interests are mounting and he’s not even in office yet. By eliminating ethical guardrails to prevent foreign investment in Trump’s businesses, his web of corruption will continue to expand while the American people pay the price.”
New York Times: Trump Organization Plans an Ethics Policy Without Banning Foreign Deals
Eric Lipton, Ben Protess, and David Yaffe-Bellany
12/5/24
Key sections:
- In the wake of Donald J. Trump’s election victory, his family business is poised to capitalize on his presidency with a variety of new ventures, according to a New York Times review of financial records and interviews with people knowledgeable about his finances. And unlike in his first term, the people said, the Trump Organization aims to issue a more limited ethics plan that is unlikely to significantly curb its growth.
- As the inauguration approaches, Eric Trump, Mr. Trump’s second son and the company’s de facto leader, is expected to forgo deals directly with foreign governments. But he is not planning to revive the promise the company made eight years ago to swear off all other foreign deals while his father occupies the White House.
- Without that guardrail — the centerpiece of the Trump Organization’s 2017 ethics plan — the company would be free to profit from an array of business in countries essential to American foreign policy interests. In the months leading up to Election Day, Eric Trump struck real estate deals in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and he has shown interest in new hotel projects in Israel and other countries across the Middle East, Latin America and Asia.
- World Liberty Financial, a new cryptocurrency platform that the Trumps helped create, recently received a lucrative investment from a Chinese entrepreneur, a deal that could ultimately pay the family about $22 million. The president-elect’s publicly traded social media company, which represents his single greatest source of wealth, is also open to foreign investment.
- The new ventures — both of which will face oversight from federal regulators appointed by the president — underscore how the company’s recent expansion created an even more complicated web of conflicts than in Mr. Trump’s first term. And much like the Trump administration, the Trump Organization will be unleashed in the second term, free to pursue new deals that could blur the lines between the presidency and the business.
- The company’s existing properties will also continue to mix business and politics like they did in Mr. Trump’s first term, when his supporters spent lavishly at his private Florida club, Mar-a-Lago.
- As president, Mr. Trump is exempt from civil and criminal conflict of interest laws that would otherwise require a senior federal official to sell holdings in companies that might benefit from his or her actions.
- Mr. Trump put his assets into a trust at the start of his first term, but his older sons remained in control of the company. And Mr. Trump still profits from family business operations.
- While the Trump Organization is not planning to restore its ban on all foreign deals, it is considering other ethical safeguards it adopted during the first Trump presidency, the people familiar said, as it seeks to blunt public outrage and potential lawsuits.
- The company is working on what it will call an ethics “white paper” that will detail those steps, including the prohibition on deals directly with foreign governments.
- The precise details of the white paper are subject to change until they are announced in the coming weeks.
- Eric Trump is currently working on Trump-branded projects in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, India, Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates. But his keynote speech to the Bitcoin conference on Tuesday will, more than any other recent move, encapsulate the complicated ethical environment the family is embracing this time around.
- In a late October filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the founders of World Liberty Financial listed Eric Trump, along with his brother, Donald J. Trump Jr., as “promoters” of the crypto platform. President-elect Trump is named, on a separate document, as the company’s “chief crypto advocate.” World Liberty Financial was created, in part, by Mr. Trump’s close friend, Steven Witkoff, a New York City real-estate executive who Mr. Trump has said he intends to appoint as his new Middle East envoy.
- Though the platform hasn’t officially launched, the company this fall began selling a digital currency called WLFI.
- One outside investment has already come to World Liberty Financial from Justin Sun, a Chinese-born cryptocurrency entrepreneur. The S.E.C. sued Mr. Sun last year, claiming that he fraudulently manipulated the price of his own cryptocurrency by rapidly buying and selling it to make it appear as if it was being actively traded.
- But the $30 million investment by Mr. Sun means that the Trump family will apparently get its first payout from the new venture. According to a document released by the company, the Trump family entity, DT Marks DEFI, is entitled to get 75 percent of net token revenues, suggesting this investment alone could generate a windfall worth up to $22.5 million for the Trump family.
- In September, World Liberty Financial announced that its tokens would be available only to accredited investors in the United States, citing the S.E.C.’s crackdown on crypto businesses. Now Mr. Trump’s administration could pave the way for the company to market its coins to a wider swath of the public.
- Mr. Trump this week announced he intended to nominate Paul Atkins to lead the S.E.C. Mr. Atkins is a pro-business conservative, who has served as a chairman of a cryptocurrency industry alliance that has called for a set of rules that would allow the industry’s growth to accelerate.
- Mr. Trump’s social media company also stands to gain from his presidency as its leadership considers starting a cryptocurrency payment service, according to a trademark application filed last month. The company is not run directly by the Trump family, but Donald Trump Jr. serves on the board of directors and President-elect Trump owns about $4 billion of its stock, making it his most valuable asset.
- The company itself, in a recent filing with the S.E.C., conceded that its stock value would rise or fall based on Mr. Trump’s public standing.
- Any new real estate deals, particularly when they involve overseas locations, will also raise questions as the Trump Organization continues to form partnerships around the world, including in Saudi Arabia and Oman, which play vital roles in a politically volatile region. A project with Dar Al Arkan, the real estate company, that is underway in Oman involves profit sharing with the government, which owns the land where the golf course, hotel and villas are selling for as much as $10 million.
- Although the opening of the resort destination is still at least three years off, the Trump Organization has already raked in at least $7.5 million from the Oman deal, financial reports from the last two years show.
- A separate development deal — including hotels, golf courses and residential communities — was announced in October for Vietnam.
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