New York Times Quotes Matthew Sanderson on Ethics Concerns Involving Trump's Son-in-Law Becoming Senior Adviser

After President-elect Donald J. Trump announced Monday that he would appoint his son-in-law, the real estate investor Jared Kushner, as a senior White House adviser, lawyers for Mr. Kushner said he would sell many of his assets to avoid myriad potential conflicts of interest.  But because he plans to sell to his brother or to a family trust controlled by his mother, some ethics lawyers interviewed questioned how meaningful the divestiture would be.

Matthew T. Sanderson, a lawyer at Caplin & Drysdale and former general counsel to Senator Rand Paul’s presidential campaign, said that, ideally, the transactions would be independent of the person selling the asset.

But as outlined by Ms. Gorelick, Mr. Sanderson said, the plan falls short of that standard. Not only does Mr. Kushner intend to sell the assets to his brother, Joshua, a venture capitalist, and to a trust controlled by his mother, Seryl, but his mother and siblings are the beneficiaries of the trust.

“It sounds like a shell game to me,” Mr. Sanderson said.

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Excerpt taken from the article "Jared Kushner Will Sell Many of His Assets, but Ethics Lawyers Worry" by Susanne Craig and Maggie Haberman for The New York Times.