Robert Walker Discusses Ethical Questions Surrounding Ivanka Trump’s DC Rental Home

March 9, 2017

Robert L. Walker, of counsel in Wiley Rein’s Election Law & Government Ethics Practice, was quoted in a March 8 article in The Wall Street Journal regarding the Washington, DC home that President Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, are renting from a company owned by Chilean businessman Andrónico Luksic.

Mr. Luksic also owns a mining company that is currently suing the U.S. government over a recently blocked proposal to build a mine in Minnesota. A White House spokeswoman told the Journal that Ms. Trump and Mr. Kushner are paying fair-market value to rent the home, had not met or spoken to its owner, and had not been aware of Mr. Luksic’s U.S. business interests.

Mr. Walker noted that there might not be an ethics problem if the couple are paying fair-market rent for the home. However, there is “a political-appearance question,” Mr. Walker added, because “deservedly or not, critics may still question the propriety of entering into any significant transaction with an individual with these apparent interests” before the Trump Administration.

The full article can be read here (subscription required).