Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Jared And Ivanka Face Ethics Minefield Over $741M Empire

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump could face an ethics minefield over their estimated $741 million real estate and investment empire, which they have maintained even as they plunge into key roles at the White House.

Ethics experts say the couple is legally barred from taking actions that could benefit the farflung empire, which could be particularly difficicult since real estate attracts foreign investors, the New York Times reported.

Donald Trump may be able to claim he is expempt from many conflict of interest rules as president. His daughter and son-in-law, who are serving as top advisors, have no such claim.

“Donald Trump can evade legal responsibility even if the conflicts of interest remain,” said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal nonprofit group, told the paper. “His daughter and son-in-law don’t have that escape hatch.”

Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s assets were revealed in a late night document dump on Friday.

Their lawyer insists that they pose no real conflct threat because White House policy is unlikely to affect the value of real estate holdings.

Critics counter that Chinese and other foreign entities may seek to exploit potential deals to win leverage with Trump or his relatives.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.