Mr. Icahn is “very concerned about what is happening in Indonesia,” Mr. Adkerson told reporters in Indonesia last month, adding
that he was “confident the U. S. government will want to see Freeport treated fairly.” (Both Mr. Adkerson and Mr. Icahn said that Mr. Icahn, who controls two of eight seats on the company’s board, had not directly intervened with the Trump administration on this matter.)
Icahn Raises Ethics Flags With Dual Roles as Investor and Trump Adviser -
By ERIC LIPTONMARCH 26, 2017
WASHINGTON — Since Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor, was named by President Trump as a special adviser on regulatory matters, he has been busy working behind the scenes to try to revamp an obscure Environmental Protection Agency rule
that governs the way corn-based ethanol is mixed into gasoline nationwide.
It is a campaign that fits into the charge Mr. Trump gave Mr. Icahn, to help the nation “break free of excessive regulation.” But there is an additional detail
that is raising eyebrows in Washington: Mr. Icahn is a majority investor in CVR Energy, an oil refiner based in Sugar Land, Tex., that would have saved $205.9 million last year had the regulatory fix he is pushing been in place.
“This is a mile out of bounds by any standard,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, who, along with other Democrats, is sending a letter Monday to Mr. Icahn, the Office of Government Ethics
and the Department of Justice to object to Mr. Icahn’s dual roles, and to ask new questions.
During his campaign, Mr. Trump repeatedly boasted of his ties to Mr. Icahn — calling him “my very dear friend” and citing Mr. Icahn’s support as a sign
that “many of the great businesspeople are endorsing me.”
His fortune, $16.6 billion, according to a Forbes estimate, is greater than those of all the other members of Mr.
Trump’s cabinet combined, with investments in companies as diverse as Hertz, Xerox and PayPal, as well as A.
