WASHINGTON – Days after announcing that he would not be putting his business assets into a blind trust, President-elect Donald Trump is meeting with billionaire real estate developer Steven Roth who co-owns two of his buildings.
Roth is to meet with Trump Friday afternoon, according to the schedule provided by spokesman Sean Spicer during a conference call with reporters Friday morning. Spicer did not immediately respond to a Huffington Post query regarding the nature of the meeting.
CEO of Vornado Realty Trust, Roth has done business with Trump for decades. Vornado currently owns 70 percent to Trump’s 30 percent of two buildings: one in San Francisco and the other on Sixth Avenue in midtown Manhattan.
Roth attended Trump’s April 20 victory party celebrating his win in the New York primary, where Trump praised him effusively. He was later named as a campaign adviser, although Roth said in a September interview that he didn’t really spend much time on it.
Trump said in a news conference on Wednesday that he was handing over control of his businesses to his two adult sons. Ethics experts say that move is insufficient to eliminate conflicts of interest, and that Trump should put his assets into a blind trust, where he neither knows about or has any control over them during his presidency.