Trump official rakes in $150M tax-free with ‘ethics agreement’: report
President Donald Trump's commerce secretary Howard Lutnick is emulating his boss by transferring away "his ownership interests in multiple affiliated companies" to trusts that will benefit his adult children, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
Lutnick, a billionaire, served as chairman and chief executive of financial-services firm Cantor Fitzgerald until he was appointed to Trump's cabinet in February.
In keeping with "a government ethics agreement," Lutnick created the trusts to benefit sons Brandon Lutnick and Kyle Lutnick, "as well as Lutnick’s other adult children."
In addition, former Cantor Fitzgerald affiliates "agreed to buy back more than 16.4 million shares of its stock from Lutnick," leaving him $151.5 million richer.
Add to that $127 million from real-estate adviser Newmark Group, which agreed to buy back 11 million shares from Lutnick, the company's former executive chairman.
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"Lutnick won’t have to pay capital gains taxes on the sales as long as he puts the proceeds into Treasuries or a broadly based mutual fund — assets that don’t pose a conflict of interest," Bloomberg reported.
Brandon Lutnick, who serves as chief executive officer of Cantor Fitzgerald said in a statement, “Kyle and I are honored to continue building on our father’s legacy, leading Cantor Fitzgerald alongside the exceptional executive team we have in place today."
Donald Trump has come under fire for remaining in charge of his businesses despite transferring his assets to "a trust managed by his children while he is working overtime to lead the country to economic prosperity," according to a White House spokesperson.
The New York Times reported this month that sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. have raked in billions of dollars in recent deals that "directly benefit the president."
The deals include a luxury hotel in Dubai, a residential tower in Saudi Arabia, two cryptocurrency ventures, a new golf course complex in Qatar, and a new private club in Washington that "will personally benefit not only Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., but also President Trump himself," the Times reported.
Read The Wall Street Journal story here.
‘Confused libs’: Don Jr. flips out at backlash over his Biden cancer joke
Donald Trump Jr. accused Democrats of not being able to take a joke about former President Joe Biden's stage four prostate cancer.
In a post on X, Trump wondered how former First Lady Jill Biden, a doctor of philosophy, could have missed her husband's cancer and called it a "coverup."
"What I want to know is how did Dr. Jill Biden miss stage five metastatic cancer or is this yet another coverup?" he asked.
The president's son faced backlash online for failing to understand the difference between a PhD and a medical doctor.
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"I sometimes forget that part of the mental disorder of leftism is an inability to understand sarcasm," Trump wrote Monday in his defense. "So for the confused libs out there, I'm well aware that Jill Biden is a fake doctor, not a real one...Unlike the Dems who were calling for her to be Surgeon General in 2020."
Trump ended his missive with a clown face emoji.
