President Donald Trump Children 1 Education Georgetown Law (2007) | Preceded by Position established Spouse Lauren Tanick Political party Republican Party | |
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Parents Aleksandr Epshteyn, Anna Shulkina Similar Thomas J Barrack Jr, Jackie Evancho, Katrina Pierson, Bakari Sellers Profiles | ||
Boris Epshteyn (born 1982) is a Russian-born American Republican political strategist, investment banker, and attorney. He was a senior advisor to Donald Trump's 2016 campaign for President of the United States, and previously worked on the McCain-Palin campaign. Following Trump's election, he was named Director of Communications for the Presidential Inaugural Committee.
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Early life and education
Epshteyn was born in 1982 in Moscow, Soviet Union into a Russian Jewish family. In 1993 he emigrated with his family to the United States; his family moved to Plainsboro, New Jersey. In June 2013, Epshteyn marked the passing of Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg by publicly thanking him for creating legislation that helped Epshteyn's family to emigrate to the United States: "...... passed in 1990 [which] loosened the restriction on refugee states and thereby allowed for tens of thousands of Jews like me from the former USSR to come to America".
Epshteyn is a graduate of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service (BSFS, 2004). During his time as an undergraduate at Georgetown, Epshteyn became a brother of the Eta Sigma chapter of the Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) fraternity. He graduated from the Georgetown University Law Center with a law degree.
Career
Following his graduation from law school, Epshteyn was part of the Finance practice of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy New York. He worked on securities transactions, private placements, and bank finance.
In 2008, Epshteyn was a communications aide with the McCain-Palin campaign. While at the campaign, he was part of a rapid response task force which concentrated on issues related to the Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
Epshteyn was Managing Director of Business and Legal Affairs at the boutique investment bank West America Securities Corporation. He is Managing Director of Business and Legal Affairs for investment banking firm TGP Securities. In October 2013, Epshteyn moderated a panel at the investment conference "Invest in Moscow!" The panel was composed mainly of Moscow city government officials, including Sergey Cheremin, a city minister who heads Moscow’s foreign economic and international relations department.
Trump campaign
During the 2016 US Presidential campaign, Epshteyn acted as a senior advisor to the Donald Trump campaign, making frequent television appearances as a Trump media surrogate on Trump's behalf.
In September 2016, Epshteyn responded to a question from MSNBC's Hallie Jackson by offering a new explanation for why a portrait of Trump — paid for by the Donald J. Trump Foundation — wound up on display at Trump National Doral Miami, a Trump-owned for-profit golf resort in Florida. Epshteyn said, "There are IRS rules which specifically state that when a foundation has an item, an individual can store those items — on behalf of the foundation — in order to help it with storage costs." "And that's absolutely proper." Epshteyn's explanation was, in effect, that Trump hadn't used his foundation to buy some art for his resort, which would be self-dealing. Instead, Trump's resort was helping the foundation — which has no employees or office space of its own — to store one of its possessions.
In September 2016, the media watchdog organization Media Matters for America criticized CNN, Fox News, and PBS for failing to disclose Epshteyn's "financial ties to the former Soviet Union, which include consulting through Strategy International LLC for 'entities doing business in Eastern Europe' and moderating a Russian-sponsored conference on 'investment opportunities in Moscow.'"
In an October 2016 New York Times article, three political commentators said in separate interviews that Epshteyn "often acted in a rude, condescending manner toward show staffers, makeup artists and others." Joy Reid, an MSNBC show host, said "Boris is abrasive. That is who he is both on the air and off."
Epshteyn co-hosted the Trump Campaign Facebook Live coverage before and after the final Presidential debate. He also anchored "Trump Tower Live", the Trump Campaign Facebook live nightly program.
Trump administration
Epshteyn became a special assistant in the Trump administration. He wrote Trump's controversial statement for Holocaust Remembrance Day in January 2017, which omitted any mention of the Jewish people. Following criticism of the omission, press secretary Sean Spicer defended the statement as written by "an individual who is both Jewish and the descendent of Holocaust survivors."
2014 arrest
Following a bar fight in Scottsdale, Arizona in 2014, Epshteyn was charged with misdemeanor assault. The charge was dropped after he agreed to undergo anger management counseling and perform community service.
Personal life
Epshteyn married Lauren Tanick Epshteyn, a sales manager at Google, in 2009. They have one child. Epshteyn is friends with Eric Trump, who also attended Georgetown University.