Professor Charles Tiefer wrote about the just-released “Paradise Papers” in a Sunday column for Forbes that, as of noon on Monday, had received more than 75,000 hits.
The huge trove of documents — 13.4 million records covering decades of deals — lays out the offshore financial machinations of some of the world’s richest people and ties Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross Jr. to Kremlin-linked firms.
Read “’Paradise Papers’ Disclosures of Trump Administration-Russia Ties Warrant Congressional Hearings” (Nov. 5, 2017).
According to news reports, the papers were leaked from Appleby, one of the world’s largest offshore law firms, and were obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists with partners including The Guardian, the BBC and The New York Times.
Of the Commerce secretary, Tiefer wrote: “Ross has been devious – at best – with the Senate, which confirmed him to his Cabinet post. His ethics agreement filed in January 2017 was supposed to be a clean breast of his financial holdings, and, one would think, particularly his Russian connections. It is now clear that it fell well short of that.”
Learn more about Professor Tiefer.
Read the report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
UPDATES/University of Baltimore School of Law 