Trump family profits from blockbuster deal in Central Asia despite backlash due to ‘proof problem’: expert

After the Trump Organization, led by President Donald Trump’s eldest sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, made a controversial investment in a construction company that now stands to profit from a rare earth minerals deal funded by the U.S. government.

While the deal raises suspicions, one securities attorney says evidence of wrongdoing is likely impossible to find and acknowledged that critics have a “proof problem.”

“Well, the question is whether President Trump would have known about his sons’ investments in this company, and I think the answer would be ‘no’ unless the sons told them,” Andrew Stoltmann, a Chicago-based securities and investment fraud attorney, told Fox News Digital.

“Look, they are private investors,” he continued. “They are not government employees. So, to the extent they make a passive investment in a company or an entity, there are no real duties to disclose this information.”

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump U.S. look on as President Donald Trump and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen announce a US-EU trade deal after a meeting at Trump Turnberry golf club on July 27, 2025 in Turnberry, Scotland. U.S. President Donald Trump is visiting his Trump Turnberry golf course, as well as Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeenshire, during a brief visit to Scotland from July 25 to 29. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

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The controversy stems from a tungsten mining deal in Kazakhstan, which primarily involves U.S.-based investment company Cove Capital, and the company’s mining affiliate, Cove Kaz Capital Group. Between 2023 and 2024, Cove Capital negotiated with the Kazakh government to take a 70% share in the country’s state-owned tungsten mining deposits.

Tungsten is a rare earth mineral that is critical to building military equipment, including missiles and fighter jets. The lion’s share of the earth’s supply of the mineral is owned by China and Russia. Trump, since returning to office, has made it a strategic national security priority to secure a long-term supply of the resource.

In August 2025, through an investment vehicle created by Dominari Securities, which is housed in Trump Tower in New York, the Trump brothers purchased a minority interest in a construction company Skyline Builders, which at the time was publicly traded on the NASDAQ under the ticker SKBL.

U.S. President Donald Trump motions to reporters after getting off Air Force One on July 22, 2026 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

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In June of that year, Cantor Fitzgerald, founded by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, underwrote a $46.8 million loan to a company called ASP Isotopes. ASP Isotopes is owned by businessman Paul Mann. Lutnick’s company is now controlled by his sons, Brandon and Kyle Lutnick, who took over when their father became a government official.

At about the time of underwriting, the Trump brothers were investing in Skyline Builders, a wholly-owned ASP Isotopes subsidiary that acquired voting control of Skyline Builders.

On Nov. 6, 2025, Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, met with Trump and announced that the Central Asian country had awarded a tungsten mining contract to the United States. The Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), which provide government financing for international projects, penned letters of interest totaling up to $1.6 billion in financing for the deal. Cove Kaz Capital was selected as the firm to do the majority of the mining.

The deal has not officially been inked, and is under a standard review process by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

the wilderness and steppe landscape in Issyk-Kul lake Region, a Jeti-Oguz and Tong district, Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, with far view of town (Getty Images)

Earlier this spring, Skyline Builders completed a reverse merger with Cove Kaz Capital, creating a company called Kaz Resources, which is now listed on the NASDAQ as KAZR. Skyline Builders owns 20% of Kaz Resources after a $20 million investment.

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Critics have suggested — albeit without evidence — that the Trump brothers schemed to invest in Skyline Builders with foreknowledge that Kazakhstan would opt to award the billion-and-a-half-dollar tungsten deal to the United States, instead of other countries, and in turn Kaz Resources would secure the contract. The Trump organization vehemently denies that characterization, and says the investment made by the brothers through Dominari Securities in Skyline Builders was completely passive, made before the tungsten deal was done and made without the knowledge that Kazakhstan would award the mining contract to the United States in the first place.

Even without wrongdoing, Stoltmann said the appearance of impropriety could cause headaches.

“The $64,000 question is pretty much what Trump knew and when he knew it — and look, the optics are bad,” he said. “You have the president’s sons investing in a company that is eventually awarded a very large contract, and so it certainly raises eyebrows, it raises suspicions, and it’s certainly clear why this has caused an uproar. But a lot of times, this is more thunder, this is more noise, a tempest in a teapot, as I like to say.”

An aerial drone photo shows grassland in the Akmola region in northern Kazakhstan on Aug. 17, 2024. (Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images)

In discussing potential ramifications, Stoltmann said members of the political left who are frenzied over the deal will have trouble finding proof of wrongdoing, as Trump would have no way of knowing about his sons’ investment unless they told him about it.

“But this is where the proof problem comes in,” said Stoltmann.

“It’s fun to have conjecture. It’s fun to theorize, and it’s fun to discuss this, but I don’t think there’s any duty of disclosure when you are a passive Investor in a company, and that’s where President Trump would most certainly say, ‘I don’t know all the things my sons do.'”

As for the Lutnick brothers, Stoltmann noted that Cantor Fitzgerald stood to financially benefit from underwriting and advisory fees when they helped finance the loan for Mann, whose company now owns a majority voting stake in Kaz Resources.

“You most certainly need a Wall Street brokerage firm or bank to help finance some of this, but more importantly, to do the underwriting,” Stoltmann said. “We have reverse mergers, we have mergers and we have multiple shell companies coming into the equation. When you do that, you need a bank, you need a brokerage firm. And that’s where Cantor Fitzgerald comes in.”

Howard Lutnick joined the Trump administration as Commerce Secretary in 2025 after co-chairing Trump’s transition team. (Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

In the way of political ramifications, Stoltmann warned that if Democrats regain control of the House and Senate in November, the Trump brothers will likely face heat from the president’s political opponents for any business deals that they think can come under scrutiny.

“You’re going see a tsunami of subpoenas trying to get the phone records, the communication records, the emails of the Trump boys and President Trump and everybody associated with this deal,” he predicted. “So look, is there potential legal liability this situation? Yes, there is. I don’t think there is for President Trump, though.”

“You know, clearly, at least by all appearances, it seems like his sons were passive investors, and the sons would say, ‘look, we’re worth a couple hundred million dollars. We have passive investments in dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of different companies. This is all pure than Caesar’s wife,’ but it certainly raises some suspicions.”

The White House reiterated that the president does not directly manage his investment holdings, and that they are instead managed by independent third-party financial institutions.

The $16.5 billion nuclear plant project was signed during high-level bilateral talks in Astana between Putin and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. (Getty)

“This is the same, tired narrative that Democrats have pushed against President Trump, his family, and his administration for a decade,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said. “President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public – which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media. There are no conflicts of interest.”

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Cantor Fitzgerald emphasized that it had no interaction at all with Kaz Resources or Skyline Builders.

“Cantor is a natural partner for companies raising capital to meet growing demand for critical minerals, a spokesperson said. “Cantor’s involvement is limited to supporting capital raises in the public markets and does not include participation in negotiations with the current or any prior administration.”

The Trump Organization and Commerce Department did not return Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.