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New reporting has revealed that President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff owns over $100,000 in stock of Palantir, the shady firm said to be tapped by the Trump administration to create an unprecedented mega-database of Americans’ data, in the latest instance of a likely conflict of interest and corruption within the White House ranks.
Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s fascist immigration policy, owns between $100,000 and $250,000 in stock in Palantir, according to a new financial disclosure first reported by watchdog group Project on Government Oversight (POGO).
Palantir is a major contractor for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), meaning that it is likely that Miller’s ownership of Palantir stock represents a major conflict of interest. Experts told POGO that even if he hasn’t directly had dealings with Palantir through his work, the firm is too close to the policies he oversees for him to own the stock without the appearance of impropriety.
“If he hasn’t stepped over the line, he’s just on the verge of it,” said Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel for Democracy Defenders Fund who formerly worked in ethics roles in the federal government, per POGO.
Palantir’s relationship with ICE runs deep. The Peter Thiel-backed firm has provided deportation and other enforcement services for the agency since the Obama administration, and won a $30 million contract from ICE this April to build a new deportation tool for the agency.
The firm’s influence is spread across agencies, with a $795 million contract awarded to the Department of Defense recently.
Further, as a recent New York Times report found, Palantir and its Foundry software may actually be deployed in some way in at least four different federal agencies. The goal of the partnership with Palantir, the report says, is to create a centralized database to gather and compile vast amounts of information on all Americans — a wide-reaching project that critics have said is unprecedented and a “surveillance nightmare.”
Similarly, though he’s well-known for his role in immigration policy, Miller also has vast authority within the administration. His “portfolio covers almost every issue Trump is interested in,” The Wall Street Journal recently reported. “Even some posts at cabinet agencies have been described by administration officials as reporting directly to Miller, effectively bypassing cabinet secretaries.”
When asked about Miller’s ownership of Palantir stock, the White House fell back on its usual excuse, saying that Miller would recuse himself from matters if there was a conflict of interest. However, the White House also said this about Elon Musk, who reports found used his time as a “special government employee” to massively enrich his own wealth and expand the influence of his companies within the government.
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