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Kamala Harris accused of violating her own ethics pledge as approval rating sinks to record low

May 20, 2021 | | Print Article

Vice President Kamala Harris’ favorability rating is hitting a new low as she is accused of keeping assets hidden in a family trust which seems to violate an ethics pledge she made during the 2020 presidential campaign.

Harris released a financial disclosure on Monday that indicates she has assets tucked away in a tax-advantaged family trust. She has apparently been a trustee of the KDH/DCE family trust since 2017. The filing states that the trust’s assets “are not reportable.” This ostensibly hides some of her holdings from public view.

The disclosure is inconsistent with Biden and Harris’ campaign promise to provide transparency concerning this issue. They pledged to work hand-in-hand with Congress to “eliminate the trust loophole in existing financial disclosure law.” Biden claimed he would “require that any member of his Administration who is a beneficiary of a discretionary trust disclose all of its holdings.”

“This loophole has allowed many senior officials — including President Trump — to avoid disclosing significant financial interests,” states the pledge.

This comes to light as a recent YouGov poll shows that the vice president’s net approval rating is ten points underwater among voters and 25 points underwater with Independents. A staggering 36 percent of voters, in general, have a “very unfavorable” opinion of the vice president.

Charles C.W. Cooke at the National Review roasted Harris and said her unpopularity was no surprise:

Still, that Harris is unpopular should come as no great surprise, given that she somehow manages to combine into a single package a transparent insincerity, an unvarnished authoritarianism, and a tendency toward precisely the sort of self-satisfied progressivism that helped the Republicans to limit their losses at the last general election. If her apologists wish to, they can pretend that the reaction Harris yields is “gendered” or “systemic” or “inequitable” or whatever other bastardized academic term is fashionable this week, and they should feel free to knock themselves out doing so. Deep down, though, they must know that America isn’t the problem here. The problem is that Harris is a phony. It remains the case that, throughout her entire public career, almost nobody has looked at Kamala Harris and thought, “Yes, she’s the person we need to lead us.” Sure, she’s won a couple of elections. But even in deep blue California, she has struggled. Her 2010 victory in the attorney general’s race was decided by just 74,000 votes out of more than 9.6 million cast, and ended up being so close that it took three weeks before the result was finally clear. There is a reason that, having been picked as Biden’s running mate, Harris was quickly shoved offstage.

The disclosure of Harris’ assets held in trust will likely not add to her popularity on either side of the political aisle. It is unclear why she has not been held accountable given the pledge she made to report her assets.

A family trust is also referred to as a living trust. It gives cover to married couples with tax benefits that permit them to maximize their federal estate tax exemption. It is an ideal option for people who own real estate in multiple states and is used as a form of asset protection.

The trust may obscure the vice president’s holdings but some of the assets can be determined through the use of public sources, according to Fox News.

Washington, D.C. property records indicate that Harris and her husband used the KDH/DCE trust to buy a luxury condo in 2017. The condo is currently listed for sale on Zillow for nearly $2 million.

The trust is also connected to real estate in San Francisco. City property records show the KDH/DCE family trust was a grantee of a condo purchased for $489,000 in 2004 while Harris was attorney general in California. The loft’s value has nearly doubled since then and Zillow states it was sold in March for $860,000.

The trust was also used as a vehicle to transfer the couple’s multimillion-dollar Brentwood, California home. It was reportedly purchased for $2.7 million in 2012 by Harris’ soon-to-be husband. They married in 2014 and the home was rolled over into the trust. It is now valued at $5.2 million.

The real estate in the trust now has an estimated combined worth of $7.2 million.

Both Biden and Harris released tax returns earlier this week. Harris’ returns show an adjusted gross income of $1,695,225. Biden’s show an adjustable gross income of $607,336. The vice president also donated 1.6 percent of her reported income to charity in 2020.

Harris’ unpopularity and perceived hypocrisy were highlighted on Twitter:

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