Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner made up to $640 million while working in the White House, watchdog group says

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner — former President Donald Trump's daughter and son-in-law, respectively — declined to take government salaries while working in Trump's White House, partly to sidestep anti-nepotism laws. But they earned between $172 million and $640 million in outside income while working in the White House, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) reported Monday, citing its review of financial disclosures.

That large range is due in part to income from up to four months before Trump and Kushner joined the Trump administration, and partly because their income was reported in broad ranges, CREW noted. Ivanka Trump reported more than $13 million in income from her stake in the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., which CREW calls "the locus of influence peddling in the Trump administration." The "the defining scandal of her time in office," though, is the 28 or more foreign trademarks approved for Ivanka Trump, more than half from China, while she served in the White House, often granted after beneficial actions by the Trump administration, CREW says.

Oddly, the Chinese government approved 16 new trademarks for Ivanka Trump, and Canada approved another one, months after she announced that her lifestyle brand was shutting down. Trump said in a 2018 government disclosure that "all operations" of her namesake business "ceased on July 31, 2018," CREW reports, but "we discovered that she still made up to $1 million from it in 2019 despite the fact that she claimed it no longer existed."

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The group also pointed to likely conflicts of interest with Ivanka Trump working on the federal Opportunity Zones program in 2018, even as her husband owned a significant financial stake in a company, Cadre, that offers Opportunity Zones investment vehicles. Kushner's controversial stake in Cadre was valued at between $5 million and $25 million when he entered the White House and $25 million to $50 million when he left, CREW said.