First Kushner Met With Financial Firms. Then They Gave Loans To His Business.
Jared Kushner speaks on his cellphone before a meeting between President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 25, 2018. Image by NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images
By Aiden Pink March 2, 2018
Jared Kushner’s family real estate business received hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from financial companies after their leaders met with Kushner in the White House, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
Joshua Harris, a founder of Apollo Global Management, met went to the White House multiple times to discuss infrastructure policy with Kushner, a senior adviser to his father-in-law President Trump. Months later, Apollo lent Kushner Companies $184 million to refinance its mortgage on a Chicago skyscraper. The deal was three times the size of the average property loan Apollo lends, according to security filings.
Additionally, Citigroup loaned Kushner Companies $325 million last year to finance Brooklyn office buildings, soon after bank CEO Michael Corbat discussed financial and trade policy with Kushner.
The former acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, Don Fox, told the Times that Kushner risked violating conflict of interest rules.
“This is exactly why senior government officials, for as long back as I have any experience, don’t maintain any active outside business interests,” he said. “The appearance of conflicts of interest is simply too great.” Kushner remains invested in his family firm.
Kushner’s access to top secret intelligence information was recently eliminated due to his inability to obtain a permanent security clearance, in part due to repeatedly filing incomplete conflict of interest forms. Special counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly looking at Kushner’s interactions with foreign businesses.
A spokesman for Kushner’s lawyer said in a statement to the Times that Kushner “has met with hundreds of business people” and “has taken no part of any business, loans or projects with or for” Kushner Companies since joining the White House.
Contact Aiden Pink at pink@forward.com or on Twitter, @aidenpink
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