White House restores financial disclosure page after CBS News inquiry

The White House's financial disclosure page, which outlines the financial records of President Trump and top White House officials, went offline without explanation on Friday afternoon. The page, accessible at whitehouse.gov/disclosures, contains mandatory disclosures required by law, such as the president's annual financial disclosure form and periodic stock transaction reports. It includes financial data for the president, vice president, and over a hundred White House staff members.

The page's disappearance was discovered by CBS News, which uses an automated system to monitor ethics disclosures across the government, with checks occurring every 30 minutes. The page remained accessible at 3:01 p.m. on Friday but returned a 404 error at the next check at 3:31 p.m., indicating its removal. Despite this, the disclosure documents themselves remained online. CBS News inquired about the page's removal via email without receiving a response from the White House.

Following CBS News's story, the ethics monitor flagged the page's restoration between 4:31 and 5:01 p.m. ET, with the page going live at 5:00 p.m. ET. The page's reactivation included a new file: a report on the president's stock trades, which had been publicly available on the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) website since October 8. The White House has previously posted similar stock reports within days of their appearance on OGE's site.

Under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 and the 2012 STOCK Act, the White House is required to file financial disclosures and periodic stock reports. While the president and vice president file their reports with OGE, reports from top White House aides and Senate-confirmed officials are sent to the agency as well. However, many of these reports have not been published on OGE's website.

CBS News found discrepancies in September, discovering that over 110 of the roughly 180 officials listed on the White House page were absent from OGE's records. The financial disclosures on the page have revealed thousands of stock transactions made by the president's accounts since the year began, involving companies impacted by his policies.

The White House maintains that the president is not involved in managing his portfolio and that his financial decisions are handled by outside financial advisers.