Bush staffers reveal 2003 investments
From John King
CNN Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration's annual financial disclosure forms were released Tuesday, showing modest investments by some staffers and voluminous holdings by others.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan reported investments valued at no more than $15,000.
But economic adviser Stephen Friedman reported holdings worth tens of millions of dollars.
The forms are required each year from senior aides to the president (roughly for those whose titles include assistant or deputy assistant to the president).
Friedman, a top official at the Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs before joining the administration, is assistant to the president for economic policy and director of the National Economic Council.
Like members of Congress, the senior aides are required to report the value of their assets on forms that offer ranges, not exact values. The most recent filings cover calendar year 2003 and were required to be filed with the Office of Government Ethics last month.
McClellan reported holdings in the Damon Estate Trust valued at between $1,000 and $15,000. He reported income on that investment in the range of $1,001 to $2,500. McClellan's report ran just five pages and detailed wedding gifts he received last year, a small bank loan and a modest credit card balance.
Friedman's form ran nearly 70 pages and included tables detailing how he divested himself of a significant number of holdings when he joined the White House staff. Such divestitures are often required or recommended by government attorneys to avoid conflicts of interest or perceptions of conflict of interest.
In just one fund alone, the Goldman Sachs Financial Square Federal Fund, Friedman listed assets worth between $25 million and $50 million. Another Goldman fund he held was listed as valued in the range of $5 million to $25 million, and he also reported a Goldman money market account in the $5 million to $25 million range.
Other items of note in the forms reviewed Tuesday night by CNN:
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joseph Hagin listed ownership of a rental house back home in Cincinnati, Ohio, that he valued in the $1 million to $5 million range, along with a mortgage on that property of between $250,001 and $500,000.Senior political adviser Karl Rove reported selling rental properties in Austin and Ingram, Texas and paying off the mortgages on both. He also reported a new mortgage in the range of $100,001 to $250,000 for construction of a house in Rosemary Beach, Florida. Rove's interest rate on that construction loan is 4 percent, according to his form. Rove's holdings include some 16 stock and bond funds, five of them with values in the $100,001 to $500,000 range.White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card owns homes in Maine and Massachusetts and has put a good deal of his holdings in state municipal bonds.Communications Director Dan Bartlett twice sold First Midwest Bancorp stock last year, with one of those sales in the $50,001 to $100,000 range. His report showed his holdings in the bank to be valued at between $250,001 and $500,000. Bartlett also listed Time Warner stock as among his assets, valued at between $15,001 and $50,000.Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, reported among six pages of listings more than 50 accounts and funds, checking and savings accounts at Bank of America valued at between $500,001 and $1 million.National security adviser Condoleezza Rice's assets include a Stanford University pension fund valued at between $500,001 and $1 million, and a money market fund valued at between $250,001 and $500,000. Rice also listed a mortgage, dating back to 1998, with a fixed interest rate of 6.375 percent and a balance in the range of $250,001 and $500,000.
