John,

We know there's been a lot of overwhelming news lately — but while everyone’s focused on the headlines, there’s a critical story slipping under the radar: many Trump appointees have missed deadlines to disclose their finances. However, much of what we *do* know is alarming.

Several appointees’ personal finances and past employment pose significant ethics issues, which we’ll break down below. It’s pretty clear that the Trump administration would rather these issues go unnoticed, but CREW won’t let that happen.

John, I want to share four stories we’ve been tracking that haven’t gotten the air time they deserve:

First, there’s Tom Homan, who served as Trump's acting director of ICE during his first term. He received an undisclosed amount in fees consulting for the GEO Group — one of the two companies that operates the majority of immigrant detention facilities.

Now, Trump tapped him to be border czar — leading the efforts to detain and deport millions of immigrants, even pushing to expand the country’s immigrant detention system. Those efforts directly benefit GEO Group, which received new government contracts this year.

Second, there’s Trump’s director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett. Hassett just reported holding a stake in the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase worth between $1 million and $5 million.

It’s not clear whether Hassett will divest the stake in Coinbase — and if he doesn’t, that would pose a real conflict of interest given his work as a top economic aide to Trump.

Third, there’s a Texas oil executive who Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has given sweeping power to overhaul the Interior Department.

Tyler Hassen's last job was as an oil executive making $4 million a year. But Hassen has not been confirmed by the Senate and has not divested many of his stock holdings as he’s been granted this huge task and significant authority. That raises real ethics concerns.

Finally, there’s Attorney General Pam Bondi, who signed a memo endorsing the legality of Qatar’s $400 million luxury jet gift for Trump, despite previously lobbying for Qatar.

Her failure to recuse herself from the Qatar matter given her financial ties to the foreign government poses ethical concerns. The American people deserve answers, so CREW is working to uncover whether she received ethics guidance on her involvement.

John, these are just four people out of hundreds in the Trump administration. Unfortunately, many Trump appointees haven’t disclosed their finances yet, as the law requires. That means, there could be countless other ethics issues that we don’t yet know about.

CREW is committed to an ethical and transparent government, so we’re not letting any of these conflicts fly under the radar, and we’re not going to let any appointees get away with the illegal secrecy or conflicts of interest.

But our work takes time and resources, and we can’t do it without your help, John.

Thank you,

Robert Maguire
Vice President for Research and Data
CREW