HERE’S A QUESTION: Do either Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry or his wife, Teresa Heinz, own any foreign property? Certainly the couple have plenty of American residences. There’s the $10 million Beacon Hill townhouse in Boston, for example. And the vacation ski lodge in Ketchum, Idaho. And the other vacation house in Nantucket. And then there’s the estate outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And finally, the mansion in Georgetown . The total value of Kerry and Heinz’s properties is estimated at around $33 million.
The key word here is “estimated.” Kerry has filed financial disclosure forms with the Senate Ethics Committee since 1984, but those forms only disclose a senator’s income-producing assets. Property isn’t included. And the tax returns Kerry’s campaign released in April contain information only on Kerry’s Beacon Hill townhome, of which Kerry owns a half-share. Of course Heinz’s tax returns would shed light on the number and value of the properties she owns. But she’s declined to release past returns–making her the first would-be first lady in history to do so.
In other words, John Kerry’s Senate financial disclosure forms are so vague, and Teresa Heinz Kerry’s fortune so large, that the future first couple could own any number of foreign properties. And the public wouldn’t know about it. Nor, for that matter, would Kerry’s own campaign.
“I’m not aware of any foreign properties,” a Kerry spokesman told me Thursday.
But let’s say there were foreign properties, I said. How would they be disclosed?
The spokesman sniffed. “I don’t know the first part of your question–the ‘if’,” he said. “So I don’t need to answer the ‘then’ part.”
His reluctance is understandable. On the topic of foreign property, the Kerry campaign feels that it’s been victimized. Last year Internet provocateur Matt Drudge linked to a story suggesting that in 2002 Teresa Heinz, the wife of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, had sold a $7.8 million villa in Lake Como, Italy, to the actor George Clooney. The story turned out to be false. Clooney had bought the villa, but from another member of the Heinz family, not Teresa. “No one tied to John Kerry owned [the villa],” says the Kerry spokesman. “It had something to do with Heinz’s ex-mother-in-law.” (Clooney, incidentally, donated $2,000 to the Kerry campaign in March.)
We may yet find out more about John and Teresa’s property holdings. On May 11 Heinz announced she would release the first two pages of her 2003 tax return when she files her taxes in October. Those two pages may contain more detailed information on Heinz’s property holdings. But it’s more likely they won’t.
Matthew Continetti is a reporter at The Weekly Standard.
