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After the 8 November 2016 election of Donald Trump, and amidst the backdrop of ongoing protests at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, rumors circulated that the President-elect owned a stake in the Dakota Access Pipeline. On 29 November 2016 the blog Gothamist published a piece about Trump's stock in the pipeline's parent company, Energy Transfer Partners: On 25 November 2016, CBS reported that additional stock owned by Trump exacerbated the conflict: Most stories published in November 2016 cited financial disclosure forms filed in May 2016, well before Trump's Republican Party nomination and general election win. Both ETP (page 37) and Phillips 66 (page 43) were found in a 92-page long disclosure report published by CNN on 22 July 2015. On 19 May 2016, ABC scrutinized contents of a subsequent disclosure form; Trump announced that the document was filed on 17 May 2016. (ETP was again mentioned on page 37, and Phillips 66 on page 48.) ABC's report made note of the fact that Trump's stake in various companies did not appear to prevent him from criticizing them or their subsidiaries on the campaign trail, and speculated that such assets would be placed in a blind trust should he be elected. Interests in energy were noted, but ETP was not mentioned by name: It appears that a stake in ETP or Phillips 66 was just one of many that required attention prior to Trump's January 2017 inauguration. On 25 November 2016, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks addressed the claim with a general statement about handling potential business conflicts: However, on 22 November 2016, Hicks maintained that Trump had sold off his ETP shares months before: The shares were one of innumerable financial interests marked to go into a blind trust. Hicks also affirmed a goal of the immediate transfer of management of The Trump Organization and its portfolio of businesses to Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric Trump as well as a team of highly skilled executives. Although she maintained that Trump intended to transfer all business interests to family members or executives, she also said that ETP was unequivocally not one of those interests.
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