A former chief ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush raised concerns Saturday that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s billionaire landlord could be trying to influence the senior White House advisers in a manner that would help him to build a sulfide mine in Minnesota that environmentalists call a threat to clean water.
The ex-White House ethics chief, University of Minnesota law professor Richard Painter, shared a recent City Pagesstory about the Chilean copper conglomerate Antofagasta’s plans to build a sulfide-ore mine in Minnesota’s Rainy River watershed, which drains into the protected Boundary Waters wilderness area.
Antofagasta is owned by Chilean businessman Andrónico Luksic, who bought a $5.5 million mansion in Washington, D.C., shortly after Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election. Luksic now rents that Kalorama neighorhood home to the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner for $15,000 per month, according to The Wall Street Journal.
View the complete May 4 article by Erica Kwong on the Newsweek website here.