Minnesota environmental groups are raising eyebrows after the Wall Street Journal reported President Trump’s daughter and son-in-law are renting a Washington D-C house from the owner of the Chilean company spearheading the controversial Twin Metals mining project in northern Minnesota. Jon Nelson, co-chair of Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness says, “I think there’s plenty of things there that would bring some concern that there’s some influence trying to be achieved between Antofagasta [the Chilean company] and our administration.”
The Wall Street Journal reports a spokesman for the company’s owner said “categorically” there was no relationship between the house rental and the mining dispute in Minnesota, and that the president’s daughter and her husband were paying “absolute market value” in rent. Twin Metals is suing the federal government over its preliminary refusal to renew two key mineral leases for the project.