Disclosure forms reveal
Trump’s White House stuffed with multimillionaires
By
Patrick Martin
3 April 2017
Four Trump White House aides have personal fortunes averaging half a billion dollars apiece, according to disclosure forms released Friday by the administration. The combined wealth of all 27 officials who hold the position “assistant to the president” or higher, comes to as much as $2.3 billion.
These figures demonstrate the real social constituency of the Trump administration, which, more than any other government in American history, is directly composed of the super-rich. According to one analysis of the forms for all 180 officials, only five Trump cabinet members are not millionaires (yet).
The inbred, dynastic character of the White House operation is underscored by the announcement last week that Trump’s daughter Ivanka will take an official position as adviser to the president with her own office in the West Wing. Her husband, Jared Kushner, already has an expanding portfolio of responsibilities, including US policy towards China and Israel, and a new initiative to promote “efficiency” in government, i.e., to slash federal workers’ jobs and wages.
Kushner is the youngest near-billionaire in the Trump administration stable, with a combined fortune, counting his own holdings and Ivanka’s, of as much as $740 million. Most of Kushner’s money derives from his family real estate holdings, which comprise a staggering 20,000 homes and apartments, mostly in New York and New Jersey, and 14 million square feet of office space.
Ivanka accounts for between $50 million and $100 million of that total, including $50 million for her cosmetics, jewelry and clothing brands, and a stake in the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, whose value is placed…