Mueller Zeros In On Jared’s Murky Web Of Overseas Ties

Ivanka Trump, second from right, the daughter and assistant to President Donald Trump, is seated with her husband White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, right, during a dinner with President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, at Mar-a-Lago, Thursday, April 6, 2017, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
FILE - In this Thursday, April 6, 2017, file photo, Ivanka Trump, second from right, the daughter and assistant to President Donald Trump, is seated with her husband, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, right, ... FILE - In this Thursday, April 6, 2017, file photo, Ivanka Trump, second from right, the daughter and assistant to President Donald Trump, is seated with her husband, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, right, during a dinner with President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. Earlier in the day, Ivanka Trump's company received provisional approval from the Chinese government for three new trademarks, winning monopoly rights to sell Ivanka brand jewelry, bags and spa services in the world's second-largest economy. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) MORE LESS
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Special counsel Robert Mueller’s interest in Jared Kushner’s myriad foreign business dealings has come into greater focus in recent days. Fresh reports have aired new details on how, exactly, his work for his family’s struggling real estate firm during the 2016 presidential campaign and transition have left him vulnerable to foreign interests seeking leverage with the U.S. government.

Mueller is drilling down on Kushner’s business interactions with individuals not only from Russia, but from the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey, and China, according to NBC News.

One major concern: Kushner’s efforts to secure financing for his family’s flashy Manhattan commercial investment property, 666 Fifth Avenue. Though Kushner divested his interest in the building, which remains mired in $1.2 billion debt, when he joined the White House as a senior advisor in January 2016, he “retained the vast majority of his interest in Kushner Companies.”

And he met with a number of foreign officials during the transition, as his family’s firm frantically searched for a financial lifeline. Mueller’s team is reportedly interested in whether those contacts later influenced the Trump administration’s policy decisions.

At least four countries have discussed ways to manipulate the top White House adviser, as the Washington Post reported last week.

News that Mueller is homing in on Kushner comes as the latter’s interim security clearance was downgraded, curbing his access to highly classified information. Kushner had previously come under scrutiny for repeatedly updating his financial filings and list of foreign contacts.

Here’s TPM’s comprehensive look at which countries’ ties to Kushner we know the feds are interested in, and what questions they may have.

The United Arab Emirates

Mueller has taken a particular interest in Kushner’s interactions with individuals from the United Arab Emirates, according to NBC.

The New York Times on Saturday reported, citing unnamed sources familiar with the discussions, that Mueller’s team is looking into the role a Lebanese-American businessman played during President Donald Trump’s campaign and transition.

According to the New York Times, Mueller’s team has questioned George Nader, the businessman in question, and has also asked witnesses about the possibility that the U.A.E. might have directed money to support Trump’s campaign in order to buy influence.

Nader met frequently with Kushner and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon in the early months of Trump’s presidency, according to the New York Times. Nader also visited the White House numerous times and received a detailed report from top Trump fundraiser Elliot Broidy about a private meeting Broidy had with Trump, according to the New York Times.

WASHINGTON, DC – George Nader speaks at a conference sponsored by “Middle East Insight” magazine in June 1998. (Screencap via C-SPAN)
BEVERLY HILLS, CA – Fred Sands (L) and Elliot Broidy (R) attend Dedication And Celebration Dinner For The Fred Sands Institute Of Real Estate At Pepperdine University. (Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Pepperdine University)

The Washington Post reported last week, citing unnamed current and former U.S. officials familiar with reports on the subject, that officials in the U.A.E., as well as those in other countries, privately discussed ways to manipulate Kushner to the U.A.E.’s advantage. It was not clear if the U.A.E. officials or those in the other countries listed — China, Israel and Mexico — acted on those discussions.

Qatar

In July 2017, the Intercept reported that Jared Kushner and his father Charles Kushner tried to negotiate with Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, a billionaire and formerly Qatar’s foreign minister and prime minister, on a deal worth $500 million.

<<enter caption here>> on April 16, 2013 in Berlin, Germany.
BERLIN, GERMANY – Qatar Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani speaks to the media following talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Chancellery on April 16, 2013 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

The Intercept reported last week, citing two unnamed sources in the financial industry, that Charles Kushner met with Qatari Finance Minister Ali Sharif Al Emadi in April 2017 to discuss financing for the Kushners’ office building at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The Kushner family has sought several deals to refinance the property, which is in dire financial straits.

According to the report, Charles Kushner met with Al Emadi at the St. Regis Hotel in New York for 30 minutes, but Al Emadi did not attend a follow-up meeting the next day, held at 666 Fifth Avenue, in person.

WASHINGTON, DC – Qatari Minister of Finance Ali Sharif Al Emadi speaks at the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., January 27, 2015. (JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

Not long afterward, in June 2017, Trump announced his support for four gulf states who implemented a blockade against Qatar. One of those states was the U.A.E.

Trump’s support — and Kushner’s, according to NBC News — was in direct contradiction of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s call for the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt to “ease the blockade” against Qatar.

According to NBC News, Qatari officials “considered turning over to Mueller what they believe is evidence of efforts by their country’s Persian Gulf neighbors in coordination with Kushner to hurt their country,” but ultimately did not do so because they feared doing so would put further strain on Qatar’s relationship with Trump’s administration.

Chris Taylor, a spokeswoman for Kushner Companies, told NBC News, “To be clear, we did not meet with anyone from the Qatari Government to solicit sovereign funds for any of our projects. To suggest otherwise, is inaccurate and false.”

Turkey

NBC News reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, that Mueller’s team is investigating discussions Kushner had during the transition with individuals from Turkey, though it is not clear what those discussions were.

According to NBC News, Mueller’s team is also looking into whether Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn discussed a potential deal with Turkish President Recep Erdogan’s son-in-law Berat Albayrak in December 2016 during the presidential transition. Albayrak is also Turkey’s minister of energy and natural resources.

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN – Turkey’s Energy and Natural Resources Minister Berat Albayrak speaks during the opening session of Fourth Ministerial Meeting of the Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council in Baku, Azerbaijan on February 15, 2018. (Photo by Resul Rehimov/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Flynn in December 2017 pleaded guilty to a charge of making false statements to the FBI and is cooperating with Mueller’s investigation.

Russia

A central question of the Mueller investigation is whether Trump campaign officials like Kushner promised Russian officials more favorable policy in exchange for assistance with their electoral victory. But one Russian meeting Kushner held might directly touch on his own financial interests.

In December 2016, Kushner hosted Sergey Gorkov, chief of Russian state-owned bank Vnesheconombank, for a meeting at Trump Tower. The bank, known as VEB, has been under strict U.S. sanctions since 2014, and Gorkov is an alum of Russia’s so-called “spy school,” the Academy of the Federal Security Service.

MOSCOW, RUSSIA – JANUARY 13, 2017: Sergey Gorkov, chairman of the executive board at Vnesheconombank, at the 8th Gaidar Forum. (Photo by Sergei SavostyanovTASS via Getty Images)

Mueller’s team is trying to get to the bottom of exactly why Kushner took the meeting with such a controversial figure and what they discussed, according to the New York Times. Investigators are reportedly probing whether he sought Russian financing for 666 Fifth Ave. in exchange for lifting sanctions against VEB and other Russian companies, per that report.

The various parties have offered strikingly different explanations for the sit-down. While the bank and Kremlin have said Kushner held the talks in his capacity as head of Kushner Cos., the Trump administration insisted Kushner was acting as a transition official at the time.

Trump’s son-in-law failed to include the meeting on his initial application for a security clearance, which requires applicants to list all contacts with foreign officials over the past seven years. Kushner’s then-attorney said the omission was an error.

China

666 Fifth Ave. crops up yet again in Kushner’s interactions with China. Just one week after Trump’s election, Kushner met with executives of Chinese conglomerate Anbang Insurance, including chairman Wu Xiaohui.

BOAO, CHINA – MARCH 25: Wu Xiaohui, Chairman and chief executive officer of Anbang Insurance Group Co., attends the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2017 on March 25, 2017 in Boao, China. Chinese insurance regulator on February 23, 2018 announced a decision to take over Anbang Insurance Group for a year in light of the company’s former chief Wu Xiaohui being prosecuted for economic crimes. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

The two parties were close to securing a deal for Anbang to invest in the luxury office tower, but talks collapsed in March 2017.

CNN has reported that Mueller’s team wants to know what was discussed in their talks. According to the Washington Post and New Yorker, China is among the countries that have discussed how to seek leverage over the Trump administration through Kushner.

Other China-related projects have also come under scrutiny. This January, Kushner Cos. abandoned efforts to secure funding from wealthy Chinese investors for a planned mixed-use tower in Jersey City. Kushner’s sister Nicole Meyer explicitly mentioned her ties to the White House in a presentation to prospective investors in Shanghai last May. At the event, she talked up the so-called EB-5 program, which offers temporary U.S. visas to foreigners who invest at least $500,000 in certain U.S. real estate projects. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have reportedly subpoenaed documents from Kushner Cos. about its reliance on EB-5s.

Canada

Ivanka Trump has been spared much of the federal scrutiny paid to her husband, with one notable exception. CNN revealed last week that FBI counterintelligence officials are probing the financing and negotiations of the Trump Tower International Hotel and Tower in Vancouver—a project she spearheaded. It is unclear if the probe has any relation to Mueller’s investigation.

One current and former U.S. official told CNN that the FBI has questions about the development of the tower, which opened in February 2017 and was developed by big-name developer Joo Kim Tiah. Tiah is a member of one of Malaysia’s wealthiest families and head of the Holborn Group, his family’s Canada-based development company.

VANCOUVER, BC – FEBRUARY 28: TA Global CEO Joo Kim Tiah attends the Trump International Hotel And Tower Vancouver Grand Opening on February 28, 2017 in Vancouver, Canada. (Photo by Phillip Chin/Getty Images for Trump International)

Both Tiah and Ivanka Trump have acknowledged coordinating closely on the 2015 launch of a Trump-branded VIP service for condo residents, per CNN. Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten noted that the Trump Organization only had a licensing deal with the building and did not finance it or sell individual units.

The company offered a similar explanation after the Wall Street Journal reported last year that federal investigators were probing the financing of another Canadian project: Trump International Hotel and Tower in Toronto.

Per the Journal, investigators were interested in the hundreds of millions of dollars Trump’s former business partner, Alex Shnaider, received from Vnesheconombank for a separate asset sale shortly before funneling money into the Toronto project. One personal familiar with the probe told the Journal that all interactions between Trump, his associates, and the bank are under scrutiny. There is no indication that Ivanka Trump is under scrutiny in relation to the Toronto project.

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Notable Replies

  1. They really thought no one would notice?
    Their actions decry their stupidity.
    Steve Schmidt nailed it on the Hayes show last night.
    He said " In any other administration Republican or Democrat a person who couldn’t get a security clearance would be marched to the front gate of the White House banished never to return. Kushner was holding meetings in the White House with people who loaned his company 500 million.
    The level of corruption in this White House has never been seen before. This is Zimbabwe 30 years ago not the United States of America"

  2. 666 Fifth Avenue. Though Kushner divested his interest in the building, which remains mired in $1.2 billion debt,

    Could you explain that a bit more? Is Kushner still on the hook or is he out from under?

  3. Remember when the Republicans had a seizure about the Clinton Foundation? I know it now seems like a long, long time ago.

  4. Jared is indicted and convicted. Ivanka divorces him. Ivanka is indicted but (probably) doesn’t serve time. Wave Dem 2018 midterms. Jared flips on Donald for a reduced sentence. Donald tries to throw him under the bus, fails. Resigns for reasons of “ill health.” Pence is confirmed as POTUS, lamest of lame ducks due to his own legal exposure.

    None of the above is a guarantee, but it seems likelier on an hourly basis.

  5. Avatar for deuce deuce says:

    Chickens are roosting?

    At last?

    The stench needs to be so overpowering as to bring over the backing of the Republican side of the body politic to acceptance of the cleansing of the coop.

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