Jared Kushner

[seemslikeadream]

So ... seven different investigations into Kushner business deals?

thanks I have to borrow that pic

Qatar Refused to Invest in Kushner’s Firm. Weeks Later, Jared Backed a Blockade of Qatar
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... -firm.html

SEC dropped probe shortly after company gave loan to Jared Kushner's family firm: AP
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sec-drops- ... mily-firm/

WSJ editorial board: Kushner and Ivanka should consider leaving White House
http://thehill.com/homenews/media/37642 ... hite-house

Mueller team asking if Kushner foreign business ties influenced Trump policy
by CAROL E. LEE, JULIA AINSLEY and ROBERT WINDREM

WASHINGTON — Federal investigators are scrutinizing whether any of Jared Kushner's business discussions with foreigners during the presidential transition later shaped White House policies in ways designed to either benefit or retaliate against those he spoke with, according to witnesses and other people familiar with the investigation.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's team has asked witnesses about Kushner's efforts to secure financing for his family's real estate properties, focusing specifically on his discussions during the transition with individuals from Qatar and Turkey, as well as Russia, China and the United Arab Emirates, according to witnesses who have been interviewed as part of the investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign to sway the 2016 election.

As part of the scrutiny of Kushner's discussions with Turks, federal investigators have reached out to Turkish nationals for information on Kushner through the FBI's legal attache office in Ankara, according to two people familiar with the matter. Separately, Qatari government officials visiting the U.S. in late January and early February 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, four people familiar with the matter said. The Qatari officials decided against cooperating with Mueller for now out of fear it would further strain the country's relations with the White House, these people said.

Kushner's family real estate business, Kushner Companies, approached Qatar multiple times, including last spring, about investing in the company's troubled flagship property at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York, but the government-run sovereign wealth fund declined, according to two people familiar with the discussion. Another discussion of interest to Mueller's team is a meeting Kushner held at Trump Tower during the transition in December 2016 with a former prime minister of Qatar, Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, or HBJ, according to people familiar with the meeting.

HBJ had been in talks with Kushner Companies about investing in its Fifth Avenue property, which is facing roughly $1.4 billion in debt that is due in 2019, these people said. Those talks with the company continued after Kushner entered the White House and stepped away from the business, but last spring HBJ decided against investing, these people said.

In the weeks after Kushner Companies' talks with the Qatari government and HBJ collapsed, the White House strongly backed an economically punishing blockade against Qatar, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, citing the country's support for terrorism as the impetus. Kushner, who is both President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser, has played a major role in Trump's Middle East policy and has developed close relationships with the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Some top Qatari government officials believe the White House's position on the blockade may have been a form of retaliation driven by Kushner who was sour about the failed deal, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. Saudi Arabia and UAE have long had a rivalry with Qatar.

The White House, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have said the blockade against Qatar is in retaliation for their government’s support for terrorism.

Any cooperation with Mueller's probe from foreign nationals or government officials would mark a significant new dimension to the investigation beyond what is currently publicly known.

While Kushner and his business dealings have long been a focus of the investigation, this line of questioning suggests Mueller could be building a case that directly links action he took after the election to his conduct as a senior adviser in the White House.

Kushner’s divestment from his family’s company before taking a job in the White House was limited. He allowed his brother to oversee his assets and transferred a trust to his mother, rather than removing his financial interests from his family. According to government ethics filings, he still holds as much as $761 million in real estate and other investments.

Discussions with Turks
It is unclear how successful Mueller's effort to reach Turkish nationals has been or what discussions Kushner had with Turks that are under scrutiny.

People familiar with the matter believe that Turkish President Recep Erdogan's son-in-law Berat Albayrak, who is also the country's energy minister, met with Michael Flynn, who would soon serve briefly as Trump's national security adviser, in New York in December 2016. Mueller's team has been investigating whether they discussed a possible quid-pro-quo deal. Flynn is cooperating with the Mueller investigation.

While Qatari officials were in Washington last month, they came armed with materials they said showed the UAE has worked against their government, including information involving Kushner, people familiar with the matter said. They debated for days whether to turn it over to Mueller but felt their meetings with U.S. officials had been productive and so decided against it, these people said.

Kushner Companies' discussions with the Qatari government about funding did not advance, the people familiar with the matter said. After the company's pitch during a meeting in April 2017, the government decided not to invest. The Intercept first reported Friday that Kushner's father, Charles Kushner, had held the meeting with the Qataris.

"It was not the right deal for us," said one Qatari official

During the transition Kushner had been negotiating with Chinese investors to secure needed financing for the Fifth Avenue building, including at least one meeting with the chairman of Anbang Insurance Group, but Anbang later said publicly that it would not invest in the building.

Kushner also met in New York with Cui Tiankai, the Chinese ambassador to the U.S., during the transition, but the content of the meeting is unknown.

Image: Senior adviser Jared Kushner sits behind U.S. President Donald Trump during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington
Jared Kushner with Donald Trump at the White House, Nov. 1, 2017. KEVIN LAMARQUE / Reuters
HBJ's potential investment had been contingent on Kushner Companies securing another half of the funding and withdrew after the Chinese investment fell through, people familiar with the matter said.

Asked for comment about Kushner Companies' meetings with HBJ, the Qatari wealth fund and Turkish nationals, Chris Taylor, a spokeswoman for the company said: "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."

Two people familiar with the matter said there's been outreach between Mueller's team and HBJ, though it's unclear in what form and if there have been substantive discussions between the investigators and the former Qatari prime minister.

Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Kushner's attorney, responded to questions from NBC News with a statement saying "time and time again, unnamed sources seeking only mischief have misled the media about what the special counsel is doing."

"They do it knowing the special counsel cannot and will not respond to inaccurate leads. This is just the latest example of this misinformation campaign," he said. "Mr. Kushner's role in the campaign and transition was to be a point person for completely appropriate contacts from foreign officials and he did not mix his or his former company's business in those contacts and any claim otherwise is false."

A spokesman for the special counsel's office declined to comment.

Kushner could face legal exposure if Mueller's team determines he is "making decisions in the White House that ultimately have an impact on his own financial position," said Ron Hosko, who retired in 2014 as head of the FBI's criminal division.

Under U.S. law, it is illegal to for any government employee, including someone being considered for an advisory role, to render advice based on financial interest.

Democratic lawmakers raised concerns about possible conflicts of interest in a December letter to Kushner, asking whether he used his upcoming position at the White House to secure financing for the indebted property.

Federal investigators, as well as lawmakers, have scrutinized Kushner's transition meetings with Russians and officials from the UAE, according to four sources. Kushner had a meeting with Sergey Gorkov, the head of a Russian bank that is under U.S. sanctions, which was held in the New York office of one of Kushner's friends, according to a person familiar with the meeting. Kushner has said he did not discuss sanctions with Gorkov, who has said they did.

He also met in December 2016 at Trump Tower with the UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and has been close with the country's ambassador in Washington. The crown prince broke protocol for that meeting by not flagging his U.S. trip for Obama administration officials, who only learned about it later from intelligence reports, according to people familiar with the matter.

It's unclear if Mueller has attempted to speak with any UAE, Chinese or Russian officials.

The Turkish embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A spokesman for the Qatari government declined to comment.

Representatives from the UAE and Chinese embassies in Washington did not respond to requests for comment
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white- ... mp-n852681

[American Dream]

Fox & Friends spent 22 seconds this week covering Jared Kushner. Here is what it covered instead.

https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/ ... ead/219542

[seemslikeadream]

THUG, MOB, ROGUE: TRUMP ORGANIZATION’S OWN DESCRIPTION OF ITS PANAMA HOTEL

March 2, 2018/17 Comments/in 2016 Presidential Election, Drug War, emptywheel, Financial Fraud /by empty wheel

While Trump and his son-in-law (and a number of his cabinet members) have clearly been profiting personally from Trump’s presidency (see my NYT op-ed on Jared’s woes), thus far their pursuit of self-interest hasn’t caused any international incidents (moving the US embassy to Jerusalem has come closest).

The scuffle between the Trump organization and the majority owner of the Panama City Trump hotel might just change that.

The problems go back aways (I’ll lay out some of the timeline below). But the short version is that the majority owner of the property, Orestes Fintiklis, got the other owners to vote to fire the Trump Organization in October, claiming the diminished brand and (importantly) a bad sales strategy is part of why the property is at less than 30% occupancy. The Trump Organization (screaming RICO) tried to force the matter into arbitration in December. And Fintiklis has now sued in SDNY to prevent that.

Things started getting crazy a week ago Thursday, when Fintiklis tried to fire the Trump employees, then cut off power, and then got the Panamanian government to side with him and arrest a Trump employed security guard. Significantly, the two sides are fighting over the control room and Fintiklis alleges that Trump employees are shredding documents.

Two people familiar with Fintiklis’s account said that, after his arrival, hotel employees barricaded office doors with furniture, and they added that documents were shredded. The two people said Trump Organization employees — including an executive who flew down from New York City — also blocked access to a control room that houses servers and surveillance-camera monitors.

This room, the two people said, is shared by the hotel operation and the managers of the residential side of the building, which is no longer operated by the Trump Organization.

I find that interesting given the Reuters report, from last November, describing how Ivanka put a Brazilian money launderer with ties to Russian organized crime, Alexandre Ventura Nogueira, in charge of many of the advanced sales in the project.

A Reuters investigation into the financing of the Trump Ocean Club, in conjunction with the American broadcaster NBC News, found Nogueira was responsible for between one-third and one-half of advance sales for the project. It also found he did business with a Colombian who was later convicted of money laundering and is now in detention in the United States; a Russian investor in the Trump project who was jailed in Israel in the 1990s for kidnap and threats to kill; and a Ukrainian investor who was arrested for alleged people-smuggling while working with Nogueira and later convicted by a Kiev court.

Three years after getting involved in the Trump Ocean Club, Nogueira was arrested by Panamanian authorities on charges of fraud and forgery, unrelated to the Trump project. Released on $1.4 million bail, he later fled the country.

He left behind a trail of people who claim he cheated them, including over apartments in the Trump project, resulting in at least four criminal cases that eight years later have still to be judged.

[snip]

When first approached by Reuters, Nogueira declined to answer questions. Writing on October 4, he said in an email: “Anything I would say could also damage a lot of important and powerful people. I am not sure I should do that.”

Later, Nogueira agreed to meet. In a lengthy interview, he described his contacts with the Trump family and his role in the Ocean Club project. He said he only learned after the Ocean Club project was almost complete that some of his partners and investors in the Trump project were criminals, including some with what he described as connections to the “Russian mafia.” He said he had not knowingly laundered any illicit money through the Trump project, although he did say he had laundered cash later in other schemes for corrupt Panamanian officials.

The role Nogueira played is similar to the one Sergey Millian played for a Trump property in LA, which basically amounts to artificially inflating the sales so as to be able to get the loans for the underlying property.

Two Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ranking Member Eliot Engel and Norma Torres, have decided to take this opportunity to ask the Trump Organization if it knew the Panama facility was being used as a money laundering vehicle.

With the possibility that Fintiklis will gain control of the facility before any records of money laundering get shredded, I want to look at the timeline the Trump Organization lays out in their statement on the fracas.

Just before the 2016 election, Fintiklis, who is Cypriot though has a residence in Florida, bought into a majority share in the hotel from the original owners. The Trump Organization could have blocked that sale but, no, they could not, because otherwise the hotel would go under.

In October 2016, the original developer of the Hotel, Newland International Properties Corp., notified Trump Hotels that it was actively negotiating a bulk sale of its remaining 202 units to a company controlled by Mr. Fintiklis. Because the Co-Ownership Regulations for the Hotel preclude any one person from owning more than ten units without Trump Hotels’ consent, Trump Hotels could have blocked the sale as a matter of right. Concerned, however, about the future of the Hotel and the fate of the Hotel’s highly dedicated and loyal staff, Trump Hotels agreed to allow the sale to proceed on one condition: that Mr. Fintiklis agree that he would not in any way attempt to interfere with Trump’s management of the Hotel or take any other steps to terminate its management agreement.

So weeks after Trump became President, Fintiklis agreed to the terms of the sale and eventually finalized the purchase in August.

In February 2017, Mr. Fintiklis agreed, in writing, to these terms and, in August 2017, closed on the purchase of the units, becoming the owner of 202 of the 369 hotel units.

At that time, last August, Fintiklis spoke in rosy terms of the deal, including the hotel operator (that is, Trump).

We are excited to welcome such an iconic property to our investment portfolio and we look forward towards working with the local team, the hotel operator and the Panama community, to establish the Property as the premier hotel in the country and the entire region.

The Trump Organization accuses Fintiklis of orchestrating a conspiracy to remove Trump Hotels from the property.

Unfortunately, within weeks of the closing, it became apparent to Trump Hotels that Mr. Fintiklis had other motives. Rather than abide by the clear terms of the agreement he had signed, Mr. Fintiklis had been conspiring with others to remove Trump Hotels as manager and fire most, if not all, of its loyal and dedicated employees. Looking back, it is now apparent that Mr. Fintiklis, in flagrant violation of the commitments he had made, never had any intention of keeping his word and had been plotting a takeover and termination of Trump Hotels all along.

On October 14, 2017, Mr. Fintiklis furthered his fraudulent scheme, calling a meeting of the hotel condominium under the false pretense of a “meet and greet” and used that moment to hold unlawful votes and declare Trump Hotels in default of the management agreement. Within minutes of the meeting concluding Mr. Fintiklis sent Trump Hotels a default notice and filed for arbitration to terminate the management agreement. Clearly, Mr. Fintiklis had been concocting and planning this scheme for months.

The Trump folks, too, emphasize that part of this fight is over the facility’s computer system.

Together, Mr. Fintiklis and Mr. Lundgren, over the past several days, have resorted to thug-like, mob style tactics, repeatedly attempting to force their way into Trump Hotels’ offices, infiltrate and disrupt its computer systems and threatening and intimidating any employee of the Hotel that resisted.

Now, the Trump Organization made less than a million dollars off management fees for this facility in the last year or so.

In his most recent personal financial disclosure, Trump said his company had received $810,000 in management fees over the preceding 15 ½ months.

They are not getting rich off this facility, certainly not rich enough to sustain the legal fight already brewing over retaining the contract.

These people are all douchebags and the brawling side show is fairly amusing. But it does seem that Fintiklis bought into something far more than a mostly empty hotel, and he’s now using it as leverage against the Trump family business.

The fight over the Trump Panama hotel seems to be as much about the fight over records that may show whether Ivanka knew she was involved in money laundering with Russian mobsters and Colombia narcotics traffickers as it is over who gets to run the mostly empty hotel.

Which is a reminder that it’s not just Robert Mueller who has Trump by the nuts.


https://www.emptywheel.net/2018/03/02/t ... ama-hotel/

[seemslikeadream]

1. YIKES

21 minutes ago
Report: Qatar Almost Gave Mueller Info on Kushner-UAE Meetings

REUTERS/CARLOS BARRIA
Qatari officials claim they have evidence of illicit influence conducted by United Arab Emirates authorities on Jared Kushner and others within the Trump inner circle, NBC News reports. Citing three sources close to official discussions, NBC says that evidence includes proof of secret meetings—but the Qataris opted to not give that information to special counsel Robert Mueller “for fear of harming relations with the Trump administration.” Lebanese-American intermediary George Nader and GOP donor Elliott Broidy both reportedly participated in the meetings, and Qatari officials are said to have weighed speaking to Mueller during a trip to Washington in late January-early February to share “details about Nader and Broidy working with the UAE to turn the Trump administration against Qatar.” Despite Qatari officials believing it had the Trump administration’s support during the June blockade on their emirate, they ultimately decided against taking the information to Mueller because they “felt the meetings with top advisers had been productive.” The Qataris also reportedly met with FBI Director Chris Wray during the trip, but did not share any information. Kushner’s support of the blockade of Qatar has come under scrutiny for being related to his business dealings, and as Nader is reported to be cooperating with the special counsel.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/report-qa ... e-meetings

Qataris opted not to give info on Kushner, secret meetings to Mueller

by Julia Ainsley, Carol E. Lee, Robert Windrem and Andrew W. Lehren
Mar 12 2018, 5:23 am ET
WASHINGTON — Qatari officials gathered evidence of what they claim is illicit influence by the United Arab Emirates on Jared Kushner and other Trump associates, including details of secret meetings, but decided not to give the information to Special Counsel Robert Mueller for fear of harming relations with the Trump administration, say three sources familiar with the Qatari discussions.

Lebanese-American businessman George Nader and Republican donor Elliott Broidy, who participated in the meetings, have both been the focus of news reports in recent days about their connections to the UAE and Trump associates.

It is unknown whether Qatari officials were the source of the recent news stories detailing activities by Nader and Broidy published by The New York Times and CNN.

NBC News previously reported that Qatari officials weighed speaking to Mueller during a visit to Washington earlier this year, and has now learned the information the officials wanted to share included details about Nader and Broidy working with the UAE to turn the Trump administration against Qatar, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

Qatari officials believe the meetings — as well as fallout from Qatari business dealings with Kushner — may have influenced President Trump's public endorsement of a blockade of Qatar by its neighbors that began last year.

A Qatari delegation came to Washington in late January and early February and met with Trump officials to discuss shared national security interests. Despite Trump's endorsement of the blockade in June, the Qataris felt the meetings with top advisers had been productive and decided against reaching out to Mueller in order to preserve the relationship, according to people familiar with the internal Qatari deliberations.

A spokesperson for the Qatari embassy in Washington said in a statement last week that Qatar won't be providing materials to the Mueller investigation.

The Qataris also met with FBI Director Chris Wray while they were in Washington, but never shared their information about the UAE's alleged influence on the administration.

Broidy, meanwhile, has accused Qatar of hacking his emails and distributing the contents to news organizations to discredit him. Qatar has denied that. Nader, who was stopped by federal agents at Dulles Airport near Washington in January, is now cooperating with Mueller's team.

Broidy was a top fundraiser for Trump in addition to being a member of Trump's inaugural committee and the Republican Jewish Coalition.

Nader helped organize a January 2017 meeting in the Seychelles, according to The Washington Post, and the Post says Mueller is investigating as an alleged attempt to set up a back channel of communications with the Russians.

Qatar vs. the UAE

The gathering of damaging information by the Qataris, their consideration of whether to speak to Mueller, and the alleged influence campaign inside the White House by the Emiratis are all evidence of how mounting tensions between the two tiny, wealthy Gulf nations are playing out in a high-stakes war of influence in Washington.

In June 2017, President Trump endorsed the decision led by UAE and Saudi Arabia to blockade Qatar, saying the Qatar was funding terrorism. On June 5, the president tweeted, "Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to horror of terrorism!" The blockade has cut the country off from shipments of food and medical supplies by land and sea.

Since then, according to Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) filings, both governments have greatly increased their hiring of American lobbyists, including some former Trump campaign officials.

Qatari officials believe Trump's verbal backing of the blockade was a form of retaliation by his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, whose family's negotiations with Qatari investors had recently fallen apart, according to several sources familiar with the Qatari government's thinking.

Trump, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have said the blockade is in retaliation for Qatar's support for terrorism. A spokesman for Kushner's lawyer told NBC News that Kushner was "a point person for completely appropriate contacts from foreign officials and he did not mix his or his former company's business in those contacts and any claim otherwise is false."

Qatari officials also believe the Trump administration may have been influenced by the meetings with Broidy and have documents that they say show the connection between Broidy and the UAE, according to several people familiar with the Qatari government's thinking.

According to the sources, the officials have information they claim details Nader's involvement in a December 2016 meeting that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the UAE had with Trump officials at Trump Tower, including Kushner, incoming national security advisor Michael Flynn and incoming chief strategist Steve Bannon.

The meeting took Obama administration officials by surprise when they learned about it in intelligence reports because the crown prince broke diplomatic protocol and did not alert them that he would be in the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia have long been rivals of Qatar, but their feud has escalated under the Trump administration.

Fourteen lobbying and public relations firms have publicly registered as agents of Qatar, UAE or Saudi Arabia since Trump's blockade endorsement last year, according to FARA data.

One firm that lobbied in favor of Qatar is Mercury Public Affairs, which worked with Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Manafort has since been charged by Mueller with money laundering, bank fraud and tax evasion. Mercury is believed to be an unnamed party in Manafort's charges, but so far faces no legal exposure. Manafort has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Another firm that worked for Manafort, the now-dissolved Podesta Group, lobbied on behalf of Saudi Arabia, and published a still-live web site that alleges Qatar is treacherous.

Trump's former campaign advisor Corey Lewandowski previously worked for Avenue Strategies Global, which alleged in a letter to the Justice Department that Saudi Arabia was violating FARA regulations. The firm is being paid $500,000 monthly for its contract with the Embassy of Qatar, according to FARA filings.

The widening rift between Qatar and UAE comes at a time when the White House is hoping to reduce tensions between the two countries and facilitate a resolution to issues that led to the blockade. Trump is expected to host separate meetings with the Saudi crown prince, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and the Qatari emir in coming weeks, in advance of an expected summit of Arab states this summer.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nation ... er-n855326

[seemslikeadream]

With everything we've learned about what Jared Kushner has done, it is impossible for the American people to trust him to put their interests above his own personal and financial interests.

25 Dems: Chief of Staff John Kelly must fire Kushner NOW.

25 House Dems to White House: Fire Jared Kushner Immediately
“It is impossible for the American people or their elected Representatives to have faith that Jared Kushner will put their interests above his own personal and financial interests”

Washington, March 14, 2018 | 0 comments

https://beyer.house.gov/news/documentsi ... mentID=781

[seemslikeadream]

Kushner Conflict Cloud Hovers Over Brooklyn Sale Linked to Japan

Caleb Melby
March 13, 2018, 3:00 AM CDT


Two months after Jared Kushner joined the White House as a senior adviser, his family firm sold a stake in a Brooklyn building to a unit of a company whose largest shareholder is the government of Japan.

The buyer of record in the $103-million deal for 175 Pearl St. was Normandy Real Estate Partners, a New Jersey-based investment firm. But documents filed in Tokyo show that it was operating on behalf of a subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. By law, the Japanese government owns at least a third of NTT, in effect a controlling share.


Kushner waits for the Trumps to arrive to a state banquet hosted by Abe at Akasaka Palace in Tokyo, Nov. 6, 2017.
Photographer: Doug Mills/The New York Times via Redux
Questions have been raised repeatedly whether Kushner, whose family business has been in search of overseas investors, might pursue a personal agenda while helping run U.S. policy. This is the first known deal with a government-affiliated firm since he entered the White House.

There’s no evidence the NTT company made the investment with a political intent -- it denies that, as do all the others involved -- or that there has been any political gain. However, this is the kind of deal that conflict-of-interest rules seek to limit: not only inappropriate entanglements and their appearance but situations where potential favors might one day be paid back. Officials like Kushner are expected under U.S. law to recuse themselves from government decisions that would have a “direct and predictable effect” on their financial interests.

Trade Policy

At the time of the March 31, 2017, deal, Kushner was helping his father-in-law, President Donald Trump, oversee trade policy. Since then, his security clearance has been curtailed and his portfolio narrowed. The Washington Post recently cited U.S. intelligence reports that officials in at least four countries have discussed ways to manipulate Kushner because of his family business. Japan was not among them. A spokesman for Kushner’s lawyer called the Post article inaccurate. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been looking into whether Kushner brought his family’s search for foreign investors into policy deliberations.


Photograph: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg
The Brooklyn transaction represented a premium of more than 60 percent on a price-per-square-foot basis over what Kushner Cos. and its partners paid four years earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The deal enabled the Kushner group to take larger ownership stakes in nearby buildings in Brooklyn’s chic Dumbo neighborhood that have signed tenants such as Etsy Inc. and WeWork Cos.

Kushner Cos. is now a co-owner with the NTT unit. The Japanese firm owns 23 percent of the building through limited liability companies plus more through a Normandy-controlled investment fund, a person familiar with the arrangement said. A day after the companies bought 175 Pearl St., the NTT company purchased a stake in Normandy itself. Kushner Cos. maintains a non-controlling share of less than five percent.

Still Vacant

Meanwhile, the property, connected to one of the Kushner-owned buildings by a pedestrian walkway, remains vacant. A person familiar with the building said talks with potential tenants are underway and final improvements are being made. A spokesman for the subsidiary, NTT Urban Development, said the company knew the deal involved Kushner Cos. The subsidiary describes itself as the real estate arm of NTT. It primarily operates in Japan and had only seven U.S. properties as of September 2016. Its purchase of 175 Pearl was the only one it made in New York City last year, the Tokyo documents, filed in February, show.


The Trumps and the Abes in Palm Beach, Florida on Feb. 10, 2017.
Source: Kyodo News via Getty Images
Normandy had previously done separate deals with both Kushner Cos. and NTT Urban Development. But it wasn’t until February 2017 that it approached NTT to do the deal with Kushner, the NTT unit’s spokesman said.

All involved deny any political component to the deal or involvement by Jared Kushner. A spokesman for Abbe Lowell, Kushner’s lawyer, said Kushner has had no role in the company since joining the White House 14 months ago and followed ethics advice on recusals and separating from his business. A Kushner Cos. spokeswoman said it only engaged with Normandy and wasn’t aware of a relationship with NTT. Kushner Cos. and Normandy said Jared Kushner played no part in the deal.

The NTT Urban Development spokesman said Normandy negotiated on its behalf, and the amount invested in the property was smaller than NTT’s other U.S. properties. A spokesman for the prime minister’s office in Japan said, “We are not aware of such a transaction.”

Yoshinori Ogawa, a senior strategist at Okasan Securities in Tokyo, said he doubts that the government influences NTT investments and added that subsidiaries of NTT make their own business policy.

Kushner divested some of his assets to family members to avoid conflicts with his White House role. He held onto others. His disclosure documents don’t note that his share of the company that sold 175 Pearl was divested as the filings do with many others.

Acute Concern

Trump’s victory was a source of acute concern in Japan. He ran a protectionist, Japan-bashing campaign, vowed to drop a Pacific trade deal, accused Tokyo of manipulating its currency, threatened to remove U.S. troops from the country and even suggested Japan might have to develop its own nuclear weapons. When Trump won, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe skipped a planned Peru visit and flew to New York to be the first head of state to personally congratulate the president-elect in a Trump Tower meeting that included Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who was still running Kushner Cos. at the time.

Trump warmed to Abe and, after taking office, White House officials asked Finance Minister Taro Aso to join Abe on his next visit for trade talks with Vice President Mike Pence. The Japanese leaders extended their push in a February 2017 trip to the White House, where Aso and Pence talked about economic cooperation. Afterward, Abe joined Kushner and other members of the Trump family aboard Air Force One for a flight to Mar-a-Lago, the Florida resort owned by the president.

NTT Urban Development and Normandy bought the Brooklyn property six weeks later from the Kushner group, which included Invesco Ltd. Atlanta-based Invesco had a majority stake in the property, which was operated by Kushner and Aby Rosen’s RFR Holding LLC.

Japan’s charm offensive hasn’t yielded much thus far. After Trump backed out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, trade talks came to an impasse until he announced steel and aluminum tariffs last week, a move that sunk shares of Japanese companies.

— With assistance by Maiko Takahashi, Isabel Reynolds, and Kazunori Takada
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... d-to-japan

[seemslikeadream]

Jared Kushner's Company Filed False NYC Housing Paperwork

(NEW YORK) — When the Kushner Cos. bought three apartment buildings in a gentrifying neighborhood of Queens in 2015, most of the tenants were protected by special rules that prevent developers from pushing them out, raising rents and turning a tidy profit.

But that’s exactly what the company then run by Jared Kushner did, and with remarkable speed. Two years later, it sold all three buildings for $60 million, nearly 50 percent more than it paid.

Now a clue has emerged as to how President Donald Trump’s son-in-law’s firm was able to move so fast: The Kushner Cos. routinely filed false paperwork with the city declaring it had zero rent-regulated tenants in dozens of buildings it owned across the city when, in fact, it had hundreds.

While none of the documents during a three-year period when Kushner was CEO bore his personal signature, they provide a window into the ethics of the business empire he ran before he went on to become one of the most trusted advisers to the president of the United States.

“It’s bare-faced greed,” said Aaron Carr, founder of Housing Rights Initiative, a tenants’ rights watchdog that compiled the work permit application documents and shared them with The Associated Press. “The fact that the company was falsifying all these applications with the government shows a sordid attempt to avert accountability and get a rapid return on its investment.”

Kushner Cos. responded in a statement that it outsources the preparation of such documents to third parties that are reviewed by independent counsel, and “if mistakes or violations are identified, corrective action is taken immediately.”


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President Trump Removes Secretary of State Rex Tillerson

“Kushner would never deny any tenant their due-process rights,” it said, adding that the company “has renovated thousands of apartments and developments with minimal complaints over the past 30 years.”

For the three Queens buildings in the borough’s Astoria neighborhood, the Kushner Cos. checked a box on construction permit applications in 2015 that indicated the buildings had zero rent-regulated tenants. Tax records filed a few months later showed the company inherited as many as 94 rent-regulated units from the previous owner.

In all, Housing Rights Initiative found the Kushner Cos. filed at least 80 false applications for construction permits in 34 buildings across New York City from 2013 to 2016, all of them indicating there were no rent-regulated tenants. Instead, tax documents show there were more than 300 rent-regulated units. Nearly all the permit applications were signed by a Kushner employee, including sometimes the chief operating officer.

Had the Kushner Cos. disclosed those rent-regulated tenants, it could have triggered stricter oversight of construction crews by the city, including possibly unscheduled “sweeps” on site by inspectors to keep the company from harassing tenants and getting them to leave.

Instead, current and former tenants of the Queens buildings told the AP that they were subjected to extensive construction, with banging, drilling, dust and leaking water that they believe were part of targeted harassment to get them to leave and clear the way for higher-paying renters.

“It was noisy, there were complaints, I got mice,” said mailman Rudolph Romano, adding that he also bristled at a 60 percent rent increase, a hike the Kushner Cos. contends was initiated by the previous landord. “They cleaned the place out. I watched the whole building leave.”

Tax records show those rent-regulated units that numbered as many as 94 when Kushner took over fell to 25 by 2016.

In Kushner buildings across the city, records show frequent complaints about construction going on early in the morning or late at night against the rules, improper or illegal construction, and work without a permit.

At a six-story walk-up in Manhattan’s East Village that was once home to the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, the Kushner Cos. filed an application to begin construction in late 2013 that, again, listed zero rent-regulated tenants. Tax records a few months later showed seven rent-regulated units.

“All of a sudden, there was drilling, drilling. … You heard the drilling in the middle of night,” said one of the rent-regulated tenants, Mary Ann Siwek, 67, who lives on Social Security payments and odd jobs. “There were rats coming in from the abandoned building next door. The hallways were always filled with lumber and sawdust and plaster.”

A knock on the door came a few weeks later, and an offer of at least $10,000 if she agreed to leave the building.

“I know it’s pretty horrible, but we can help you get out,” Siwek recalls the man saying. “We can offer you money.”

Siwek turned down the cash and sued instead. She said she won a year’s worth of free rent and a new refrigerator.

New York City Council member Ritchie Torres, who plans to launch an investigation into permit applications, said: “The Kushners appear to be engaging in what I call the weaponization of construction.”

Rent stabilization is a fixture of New York City that can bedevil developers seeking to make money off buildings. To free themselves of its restrictions, landlords usually have to wait until the rent rises above $2,733 a month, something that can take years given the small increases allowed each year.

Submitting false documents to the city’s Department of Buildings for construction permits is a misdemeanor, which can carry fines of up to $25,000. But real estate experts say it is often flouted with little to no consequences. Landlords who do so get off with no more than a demand from the city, sometimes a year or more later, to file an “amended” form with the correct numbers.

Housing Rights Initiative found the Kushner Cos. filed dozens of amended forms for the buildings mentioned in the documents, most of them a year to two later.

“There is a lack of tools to go after landlords who harass tenants, and there is a lack of enforcement,” said Seth Miller, a real estate lawyer who used to work at a state housing agency overseeing rent regulations. Until officials inspect every construction site, “you’re going to have this incentive for landlords to make life uncomfortable for tenants.”

New York City’s Department of Buildings did not comment in general about the false filings by the Kushner Cos., but said it disciplined a contractor who filed false documents while working on two of the Queens buildings, which are currently under investigation by a tenant-harassment task force. It added that the department is also ramping up its monitoring of construction, hiring 72 new inspectors under city laws recently passed to crack down on tenant harassment.

“We won’t tolerate landlords who use construction to harass tenants — no matter who they are,” spokesman Joseph Soldevere said.

Exactly how much money the Kushner Cos. earned from the buildings mentioned in the documents is unclear. Of those 34 buildings, only the three in Queens and a fourth in Brooklyn appear to have been sold. The company also likely made money by reducing the number of rent-regulated tenants and bringing in those who would pay more.

Jared Kushner, who stepped down as CEO of the Kushner Cos. last year before taking on his advisory role at the White House, sold off part of his real estate holdings as required under government ethics rules. But he retained stakes in many properties, including Westminster Management, the Kushner Cos. subsidiary that oversees its residential properties. A financial disclosure last year showed he still owns a stake in Westminster and earned $1.6 million from the holding.

Back in Queens, the mailman Romano was one of the few rent-regulated tenants who fought back.

He hired a lawyer who found out he was protected from the 60-percent rent hike by law, something Romano did not know at the time. And he said his rent, which was set to increase to $3,750, was restored to $2,350.

Romano is still in the building where he has lived for nine years, with his wife, four children and his guests from the construction days — the mice.

“I still haven’t gotten rid of them.”
http://time.com/5204940/jared-kushner-c ... -new-york/

[seemslikeadream]

Saudi Crown prince said he has Kushner 'in his pocket' after allegedly receiving sensitive information from the President's Daily Briefing

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly bragged about having White House senior counsel Jared Kushner “in his pocket” and may have used highly sensitive intelligence from the President’s Daily Briefing in his violent crackdown on dissent in Saudi Arabia, The Intercept reported Wednesday.

Three sources told The Intercept that Kushner had revealed names of Saudis disloyal to the crown prince.

“The Saudi figures named in the President’s Daily Brief were among those rounded up; at least one was reportedly tortured,” The Intercept explained.

Mohammed bin Salman also was said to have told UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed that Kushner was “in his pocket.”

Kushner communicates with both the Saudi and Emirati crown princes via Whats-App. A source claims that Kushner’s lawyers have since told him not to use the app for government business.

Kushner’s defense team denies leaking names of Saudi critics who were subsequently arrested and tortured.

“Some questions by the media are so obviously false and ridiculous that they merit no response,” claimed Peter Mirijanian, a spokesperson for Kushner’s lawyer Abbe Lowell. “This is one. The Intercept should know better.”

Jeremy Scahill, a founder of The Intercept whose name was not on the story’s byline, explained his take on the bombshell report.

“This is a huge story on how Kushner allegedly shared information from the President’s Daily Brief with Mohammed bin Salman about his internal opponents,” Scahill noted. “Looks like MBS used it to lethal consequences in his purge.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/saudi- ... d8.twitter

Saudi Crown Prince Boasted That Jared Kushner Was “In His Pocket”

March 21 2018, 4:09 p.m.
Until he was stripped of his top-secret security clearance in February, presidential adviser Jared Kushner was known around the White House as one of the most voracious readers of the President’s Daily Brief, a highly classified rundown of the latest intelligence intended only for the president and his closest advisers.

Kushner, who had been tasked with bringing about a deal between Israel and Palestine, was particularly engaged by information about the Middle East, according to a former White House official and a former U.S. intelligence professional.

In June, Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman ousted his cousin, then-Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, and took his place as next in line to the throne, upending the established line of succession. In the months that followed, the President’s Daily Brief contained information on Saudi Arabia’s evolving political situation, including a handful of names of royal family members opposed to the crown prince’s power grab, according to the former White House official and two U.S. government officials with knowledge of the report. Like many others interviewed for this story, they declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak about sensitive matters to the press.

In late October, Jared Kushner made an unannounced trip to Riyadh, catching some intelligence officials off guard. “The two princes are said to have stayed up until nearly 4 a.m. several nights, swapping stories and planning strategy,” the Washington Post’s David Ignatius reported at the time.

What exactly Kushner and the Saudi royal talked about in Riyadh may be known only to them, but after the meeting, Crown Prince Mohammed told confidants that Kushner had discussed the names of Saudis disloyal to the crown prince, according to three sources who have been in contact with members of the Saudi and Emirati royal families since the crackdown. Kushner, through his attorney’s spokesperson, denies having done so.

“Some questions by the media are so obviously false and ridiculous that they merit no response. This is one. The Intercept should know better,” said Peter Mirijanian, a spokesperson for Kushner’s lawyer Abbe Lowell.

On November 4, a week after Kushner returned to the U.S., the crown prince, known in official Washington by his initials MBS, launched what he called an anti-corruption crackdown. The Saudi government arrested dozens of members of the Saudi royal family and imprisoned them in the Ritz-Carlton Riyadh, which was first reported in English by The Intercept. The Saudi figures named in the President’s Daily Brief were among those rounded up; at least one was reportedly tortured.

The Saudi Embassy did not respond to questions from The Intercept. The White House referred questions to National Security Council spokesperson Michael Anton. Anton declined to comment, referring questions on Kushner’s discussions with MBS to Lowell.

It is likely that Crown Prince Mohammed would have known who his critics were without Kushner mentioning them, a U.S. government official who declined to be identified pointed out. The crown prince may also have had his own reasons for saying that Kushner shared information with him, even if that wasn’t true. Just the appearance that Kushner did so would send a powerful message to the crown prince’s allies and enemies that his actions were backed by the U.S. government.

One of the people MBS told about the discussion with Kushner was UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, according to a source who talks frequently to confidants of the Saudi and Emirati rulers. MBS bragged to the Emirati crown prince and others that Kushner was “in his pocket,” the source told The Intercept.

Access to the President’s Daily Brief is tightly guarded, but Trump has the legal authority to allow Kushner to disclose information contained in it. If Kushner discussed names with MBS as an approved tactic of U.S. foreign policy, the move would be a striking intervention by the U.S. into an unfolding power struggle at the top levels of an allied nation. If Kushner discussed the names with the Saudi prince without presidential authorization, however, he may have violated federal laws around the sharing of classified intelligence.

On November 6, two days after the detentions in the Ritz began, Trump took to Twitter to defend the crackdown:
https://theintercept.com/2018/03/21/jar ... in-salman/

[seemslikeadream]

Trump, Kushner, Russia — and the Blackstone Mystery

Something More for Robert Mueller to Investigate?


Donald J. Trump, Stephen A. Schwarzman

President Donald J. Trump introducing the Strategic and Policy Forum. Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chair of the Forum, is sitting next to the President. Photo credit: Adapted by WhoWhatWhy from The White House / YouTube
Like many powerful executives, Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of the giant private equity investment firm, Blackstone Group, has a history of dealing with international leaders that have controversial records. The Washington Post recently referred to Schwarzman as President Donald Trump’s “China whisperer.”

It was an interesting read on how Schwarzman is trying to influence the administration’s China policy. But it was also a curiously incomplete account of the ties he maintains across the world — including to Russia.

This is surprising in light of the keen scrutiny given to the ties other people close to Trump have to Russia — especially since, unlike some of the players in Russiagate, Schwarzman’s connections are at the very highest levels.

It must be stressed that everything presented below may just be business as usual, and not suggestive of anything illegal or unethical. But the particulars are striking enough to warrant a closer look. WhoWhatWhy has been exploring aspects of this story for nearly a year, and thought it time to lay out what we can tell you thus far.

A colorful character, whose large living graces the gossip columns, Stephen A. Schwarzman has been good friends with Trump for years. He chaired the president’s short-lived Strategic and Policy Forum.

Trump’s daughter and son-in-law were at Schwarzman’s legendary 70th birthday celebration representing Trump (who was with the Japanese Prime Minister) — and Schwarzman recently huddled with Trump at his Florida compound following a particularly tough week for the president.


Stephen A. Schwarzman, Jared Kushner, Dmitry Medvedev
Left to right: Stephen A. Schwarzman, Jared Kushner, and Dmitry Medvedev. Photo credit: Lishabai Yi / Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff / Flickr (CC BY 2.0), and World Economic Forum / Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Parallel to that friendship is business; Blackstone has been a significant force in Jared Kushner’s family real estate deals.

For some years, Schwarzman has also had a friendly relationship with the Kremlin.

In 2011, then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin kicked off the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), a $10 billion private equity fund aimed at boosting foreign investment in Russian companies and state assets, and turning Moscow into a global financial center. Schwarzman served on the international advisory board, which meets once a year to discuss the market environment, though it does not participate in the fund’s operational activities. “It’s always good to have friends when you are going to a place that you are not as familiar with,” Schwarzman announced upon joining the board. He left in 2014, as Trump was preparing for his presidential campaign.

Schwarzman has piloted Blackstone through international deals that have earned billions of dollars, employing precisely the kind of investments one would expect of an international private equity firm.

But Blackstone and Schwarzman made some unwanted news with the release, in November 2017, of the so-called “Paradise Papers” — hacked documents from the offshore law firm Appleby. Among the millions of documents released were a batch showing Blackstone had used offshore shell companies to hide income from UK tax collectors. As the Paradise Papers’ 2016 predecessor, the “Panama Papers,” show, Blackstone invests in InterTrust/Walkers Management Services, an offshore company in the Cayman Islands, which facilitates the filing and management of opaque offshore shell corporations.

Jared Kushner, New York, buildings
Old New York Times Building located at 229 West 43rd Street (top left). No. 2 Rector Street building (top right). Old Jehovah’s Witnesses printing warehouse in Brooklyn (bottom). Photo credit: Trxr4kds / Wikimedia, Can Pac Swire / Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0), and Timothy Vogel / Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Blackstone’s offshore financial holdings came into focus earlier this month with the growing attention to the Trump and Kushner families’ large foreign financial entanglements. Is Blackstone just one more brick in the Trump/Kushner oligarchical support network — or something more?

Several experts we showed our material to — including a former senior Senate investigator and an IRS investigator, both with experience dealing with international finance and money laundering — agreed that this all bears a closer look.

Here is a timeline of interesting developments: They show the degree of interconnection among key players propelling Trump (with his still mysterious pro-Putin bent) into the White House. Again, we are not aware of any wrongdoing and are not asserting that any took place.

The Rundown

.

2011

.

A new Kremlin-backed infrastructure financing entity — the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) — opens in 2011. Russians sign up several high-powered international advisors, including Schwarzman, and another Kushner lender, Leon Black of Apollo Global Management.

Putin hand-picks Kirill Dmitriev — a former Goldman Sachs banker — to run the RDIF, initially set up as a part of the VEB, a bank that will later figure in the investigation of Russian help to Trump’s campaign.

2013

.

June

Schwarzman’s firm begins lending to the Kushner Companies. Over time, it will become one of the firm’s biggest lenders, providing more than $400 million in financing in four separate deals.

Blackstone, along with Deutsche Bank AG, provides loans for Kushner and CIM Group to purchase a Manhattan office building at 2 Rector Street.

Related: Deutsche Bank: A Global Bank for Oligarchs — American and Russian, Part 1

October

The Kushner Companies and real estate investment firm RFR purchase five of six Jehovah’s Witnesses warehouse and printing properties in Dumbo — an upscale Brooklyn neighborhood — for $375 million, in what becomes the borough’s largest transaction of the year. Natixis Real Estate Capital loans Kushner’s consortium, which included Blackstone, $249 million to finance the deal. (Blackstone was among the undisclosed partners.)

2015

.

The Kushners purchase the retail space of the old New York Times building in New York City for $296 million. Four years earlier, Blackstone had purchased the upper 12 floors of the old building, which are used for offices, for $160 million.

2016

.

August

Kushner Companies and partners buy the iconic Watchtower building in downtown Brooklyn. (Formerly the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ world headquarters, it is not to be confused with the organization’s other properties that the Kushner Companies bought in 2013). They receive $376 million in loans from a Blackstone-controlled company. This sum represents the largest loan made for such a purchase in New York City that year.

November

Trump is elected president. Blackstone’s real estate whiz, Jon Gray, is briefly in contention to be Treasury secretary.

December

Trump appoints Schwarzman to serve on the President’s Strategic and Policy Forum. But, like Trump’s “Voter Fraud Commission,” this group will have a short life and be disbanded in the first year of Trump’s term. (There is some disagreement between the White House and Schwarzman over just who pulled the plug first: the members or the White House. It was not an acrimonious split, but rather recognition by both that the commission really had not been given anything important to do.)

Also in December, Russian officials announce the privatization of the Russian state oil company, Rosneft. The company’s chief executive calls it the largest privatization in Russian history.

2017

.

January

Just days before Trump takes office, his associate and advisor Erik Prince meets with Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian representing Putin, in the Seychelles islands. This is the same Dmitriev who ran and still runs the Russian investment fund that Schwarzman advised.

The Seychelles meeting will become of apparent interest to Special Counsel Robert Mueller as something more than the unplanned encounter Prince originally claimed it to be.

March

Blackstone has positioned itself better than almost any other private-equity firm to capitalize on Trump’s victory, particularly his long-stated plan to use private money to leverage around $200 billion in public funds for domestic infrastructure projects.

Though no longer part of Trump’s now defunct business council, Schwarzman continues to advise Trump on policy issues ranging from trade to infrastructure.

May

Schwarzman, who became chair of Trump’s business-advisory council in December, is seen in Saudi Arabia with both Trump and Kushner during a presidential visit.

Just a few days after Saudi Arabia pledges $20 billion to Blackstone Group’s record infrastructure fund, the Trump administration reveals its 2018 budget proposal, including his long-awaited $1 trillion infrastructure plan.

Blackstone expects to use the $40 billion in its infrastructure fund to invest in $100 billion of projects. Company president Tony James tells the New York Times that this deal could allow Blackstone to “establish overnight a leadership position” in infrastructure. Blackstone’s stock rises more than seven percent when the Saudi deal is announced.

(Later that year, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, Bin Salman’s cousin, reportedly tells confidants that Kushner shared with him the names of allegedly disloyal Saudis.)

September

Kushner meets with an official of Apollo, the investment firm of Leon Black — another Putin advisor — at the White House. (Black and Kushner were already friendly, having sat together at the US Open just prior to the 2016 election.)

Six weeks after the White House meeting, Apollo extends a $184 million loan to the Kushners. As ABC News reported, the SEC advised Apollo it had concluded its inquiry on December 23, 2017. As is customary, no reason was given.

2018

.

January

Trump vigorously criticizes and stalls a round of sanctions against Russia that Congress passed in July 2017; in January, he had declined to impose additional restrictions. However, as it is clearly impossible to overturn the sanctions, Trump and Trump-friendly firms with ties to Russia have long since pivoted to lucrative opportunities elsewhere.

March

The Apollo loan attracts the attention of congressional Democrats. On March 8, a group of four Democratic lawmakers, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (MA), Thomas Carper (DE), Gary Peters (MI), and Rep. Elijah Cummings (MD), send a letter to Apollo CEO Leon Black demanding all the documentation Apollo has on this loan, including “ … whether any debt financing provided by Apollo involves any foreign financing or guarantees; and whether any entities lending to Kushner’s companies are owned or controlled by foreign companies.”

The Rosneft Deal

.

The controversial so-called “privatization” of a portion of the Russian oil company, Rosneft, to Glencore PLC is one of the most opaque deals of this decade. Glencore (short for Global Energy Commodity Resources) is an Anglo–Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company with headquarters in Baar, Switzerland, and a registered office in Saint Helier, capital of the British tax haven island of Jersey.

International oil industry analysts have dubbed the $11 billion 2016 deal a “sham transaction” designed to move Russian state money to persons and places unknown. It is one of the most complex and opaque transactions we have ever tried to unravel. What little we know is troubling. What we don’t know possibly even more so.

Reached for comment on the deal, a spokeswoman for Blackstone stated categorically that, “Blackstone played no part in the Rosneft deal.”

That careful characterization, however, does not address all actual or possible links between Blackstone and Roseft. Here are some examples:

Ivan Glasenberg — a longtime friend of Schwarzman, who is on the board of the nonprofit Schwarzman Scholars — serves as Glencore’s CEO.
Glasenberg holds a seat on Rosneft’s board of advisors.
Peter Grauer, until recently a Blackstone director, just retired from Glencore’s board of directors.
Key parts of the Rosneft deal were handled by an offshore law firm, Walkers Management Services.
Walkers is part of the offshore services provider, InterTrust.
Blackstone acquired a large stake in InterTrust in 2012.
The key limited-partnership shell, QHG Cayman Ltd., shared the same Cayman Islands address as Walkers Management Services.
Nine days after the Rosneft deal, the QHG Cayman assets moved to another shell, QHG Shares Pte. Ltd. (Jack Boldarin, Walkers’ managing partner in London, told Reuters the law firm would not be able to confirm whether any company was its client or to comment further.)
In April 2017, Putin awarded Russian state honors to executives at Glencore plc, in recognition of the $11 billion deal to buy a stake in Rosneft.
A request for comment, and for an interview with Schwarzman, made to the Blackstone media relations office, was acknowledged but not addressed by press time.
https://whowhatwhy.org/2018/03/28/trump ... e-mystery/

At least five Kushner business dealings have faced inquiry from Mueller, the IRS, the DOJ, and the SEC.

[seemslikeadream]

House Democrats call for FBI to probe into Kushner's ties to Saudi crown prince

Report: Saudi prince said Kushner 'in his pocket'

Washington (CNN)Six House Democrats are calling on FBI Director Christopher Wray to investigate whether President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior White House aide Jared Kushner leaked classified information to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, according to a letter obtained by CNN.

The call comes after The Intercept, citing three sources, reported that the Saudi prince -- known casually by his initials, MBS -- told confidantes after their meeting last year that Kushner had discussed Saudi leaders who are disloyal to the crown prince.
"We request the FBI open an immediate investigation to determine if these reports are accurate and to explore the extent to which information and sources may have been comprised," reads the letter from Democratic Reps. Ted Lieu, Gerald Connolly, Donald Beyer, Pramila Jayapal, Peter Welch and Ruben Gallego.

The letter notes that the "integrity of classified information" falls within the purview of the FBI but that "while the President has the authority to declassify and share information, the President's advisers do not."

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According to The Intercept, one person "who talks frequently to confidants of the Saudi and Emirati rulers" told the publication that MBS bragged to United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed that Kushner was "in his pocket." The publication added that the information on the Saudi royals not loyal to him was contained within the President's Daily Brief, a document presented to the President every day that Kushner lost access to earlier this year when near security clearance rules were instituted by chief of staff John Kelly.

Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Kushner's lawyers, denied the initial report.

"Some questions by the media are so obviously false and ridiculous that they merit no response. This is one," he said.

After news of the letter broke, Mirijanian said the allegations at the basis of the letter have "been debunked as false many times."

"But that does not stop some congressional Democrats from seeking to revive it for purely partisan reasons," Mirijanian said. "Add this to the pile of frivolous actions some in Congress have taken instead of conducting real business for Americans."

Multiple White House officials declined to comment on the new letter to Wray, Trump's pick to lead the FBI.

Kushner, the White House aide tasked with leading negations in the Middle East on a host of issues, has fostered a close relationship with MBS for months, White House officials have said. Early in Trump's presidency, Kushner correctly viewed MBS was ascendant, a view validated when the prince's 82-year-old father, King Salman, handed over some power to the prince.

Kushner, in an effort to deepen that bond, took an unannounced trip to Saudi Arabia in October, where he met directly with the crown prince.

Democrats close the letter with a direct appeal to Wray: "We urge the department to investigate these allegations, and we appreciate your attention to this matter."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/29/politics ... index.html

wray will probably just go after the leakers to The Intercept instead

Minneapolis FBI agent charged with leaking classified information to reporter

Politics Mukhtar M. Ibrahim · Mar 28, 2018

A Minneapolis FBI agent has been charged with leaking information.

A Minneapolis FBI agent who started his career with the agency as an intern in 2000 has been charged with leaking classified information to the news website the Intercept. The Intercept
A Minneapolis FBI agent who started his career with the agency as an intern in 2000 has been charged with leaking classified information to the news website The Intercept.

Terry James Albury, who was assigned as Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport liaison working on counterterrorism matters, was charged this week by the Justice Department's National Security Division with one count of "knowingly and willfully" transmitting documents and information relating to national defense to a reporter for a national news organization. Albury was also charged with a second count of refusing to hand over documents to the government.

Albury is the second person charged with leaking secret documents to The Intercept. In June 2017, an intelligence contractor was charged with leaking a classified report about Russia's interference in the 2016 election to The Intercept, the first criminal leak under President Trump.

The Justice Department has vowed to crack down on leaks that it contends undermine national security.

Albury's attorneys, JaneAnne Murray and Joshua Dratel, said in a statement that their client, the only African-American FBI field agent in Minnesota, was "driven by a conscientious commitment to long-term national security and addressing the well-documented systemic biases within the FBI."

"Terry Albury served the U.S. with distinction both here at home and abroad in Iraq," the statement read. "He accepts full responsibility for the conduct set forth in the Information."

• Related: U.S. contractor arrested after leak of Russia hacking report

A request for a search warrant filed in Minneapolis federal court against Albury did not identify the news outlet, but a review by MPR News found the documents described in the search warrant that Albury leaked exactly match the trove of FBI documents posted by The Intercept.

In January 2017, The Intercept published a series titled "The FBI's Secret Rules," based on Albury's leaked documents, which show the depth and broad powers of the FBI expansion since 9/11 and its recruitment efforts.

The Intercept made two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the FBI in late March 2016. The requests contained specific information identifying the names of documents that were not available to the public. In addition, the FBI identified about 27 secret documents published by The Intercept between April 2016 and February 2017.

"The FBI believes that the classified and/or controlled nature of the documents indicates the News Outlet obtained these documents from someone with direct access to them," according to the warrant. "Furthermore, reviews of the FBI internal records indicate ALBURY has electronically accessed over two thirds of the approximately 27 documents via trusted access granted to him on FBI information systems."

One of The Intercept's FOIA requests, dated March 29, 2016, asked for copies of a specific document classified as secret. The document, titled Confidential Human Source Assessing, gives tips for agents on how to cultivate informants.

Ten months later, the news outlet posted the same document it requested to its website and to DocumentCloud, a repository of public documents.

The FBI said it believes that The Intercept had a copy of the document and others before making the FOIA request. The Intercept then "used its knowledge of such documents to create the FOIA requests," according to the warrant.

According to a review done by the FBI, Albury and 15 other individuals had also accessed the same document from an FBI classified network between August 2011 and March 29, 2016, the date of The Intercept's FOIA request.

The search warrant said Albury took 11 screenshots of the document on Feb. 19, 2016, one month and 10 days before The Intercept's FOIA request.

• 2017: Trump takes on entrenched practice of Washington leaks

"To date, a review of FBI records has revealed no indication that any individual other than ALBURY both accessed this document and conducted cut and paste action," the warrant said.

An FBI audit found that Albury had accessed several documents from FBI systems classified as secret that were published by The Intercept, according to the warrant.

Albury, who was hired by the FBI in 2001, a year after finishing his internship there, to conduct surveillance operations, became an agent in 2005 and was assigned to the FBI Minneapolis Field Office. The Justice Department has not yet responded to MPR News' request for Albury's employment history at the FBI.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/03/2 ... nformation

[seemslikeadream]

As predicted. Kushner gave the Saudis a list of ”enemies” to arrest. Clearly Trump authorized this divulging of classified information. He also likely tasked NSA & Treasury Intel to target those Saudi civilians for MBS.

EXCLUSIVE: Saudi crown prince bragged that Jared Kushner gave him CIA intelligence about other Saudis saying 'here are your enemies' days before 'corruption crackdown' which led to torture and death

Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman met with Jared Kushner in October
Salman has since bragged about using classified intelligence from Kushner as part of a crackdown on 'corrupt' princes and businessmen in Saudi Arabia
He said the intelligence from Kushner included information on those who were disloyal to Salman and who were his 'enemies', insiders tell DailyMail
Kushner's attorney's spokesman said it was 'false' that the president's son-in-law passed on secrets and that he was 'well aware of the rules'
The crown prince launched his crackdown on corruption in November, days after he met Kushner for talks in Riyadh
Hundreds were rounded up, including princes from rival parts of the Saudi royal family and some of the country's wealthiest businessmen
But the crackdown saw accusations of torture and at least one reported death
By Ryan Parry West Coast Correspondent For Dailymail.com and Josh Boswell For Dailymail.com

Published: 09:23 EDT, 5 April 2018 | Updated: 10:58 EDT, 5 April 2018

Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman bragged of receiving classified US intelligence from Jared Kushner and using it as part of a purge of 'corrupt' princes and businessmen, DailyMail.com can disclose.

The de facto ruler of the Middle East's largest economy is currently on a US tour which has seen him meet President Donald Trump in the White House, hold talks with a string of the country's richest and most influential people and book the entire Four Seasons in Beverly Hills for himself and his entourage.

Sources have told DailyMail.com that the prince – known by his initials MBS – has been boasting about his close relationship with the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, and the intelligence which he has told his circle Kushner passed to him.

Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has been boasting about his close relationship with the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner (pictured), sources tell DailyMail.com
Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has been boasting about his close relationship with the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner (pictured), sources tell DailyMail.com

Kushner was said to have a late night meeting discussing intelligence with Salman in October. Kusher and Salman are pictured above with Ivanka Trump at the Murabba Palace in Riyadh last May
Kushner was said to have a late night meeting discussing intelligence with Salman in October. Kusher and Salman are pictured above with Ivanka Trump at the Murabba Palace in Riyadh last May

Relationship: Jared Kushner took part in a lunch at the White House last week which his father-in-law threw for Mohammed bin Salman
Relationship: Jared Kushner took part in a lunch at the White House last week which his father-in-law threw for Mohammed bin Salman

The crackdown on 'corruption' in the Saudi kingdom was led by MBS and began in November, days after he had met Kushner for talks in Riyadh.

But it saw allegations of torture as hundreds were rounded up, including princes from rival parts of the Saudi royal family and some of the country's wealthiest businessmen.

DailyMail.com revealed a photograph showing the detainees sleeping on the floor of a ballroom at the Riyadh Ritz Carlton, and disclosed that some had been tortured.

The New York Times later reported that one of the detainees had died from his injuries.

Most are said to have reached 'settlements' with the Saudi government, and MBS himself boasted in a 60 Minutes interview that the government had regained at least $100 billion from them.

Kushner claimed through his attorney Abbe Lowell that it was a 'false story'.

Peter Mirijanian, Lowell's spokesman, said: 'The alleged exchange never happened. Mr Kushner was and is well aware of the rules governing information and follows those rules.'

Despite Kushner's denial sources have told DailyMail.com how MBS boasted in private that Kushner was the source of intelligence used in the round-up.

He also told members of his circle that the intelligence included information on who was disloyal to him. There is no way to independently verify the truth of the boast.

'Jared took a list out of names from US eavesdrops of people who were supposedly MBS's enemies,' said one source, characterizing how MBS spoke about the information.

'He took a list out of these people who had been trashing MBS in phone calls, and said 'these are the ones who are your enemies'.

The crackdown saw allegations of torture as hundreds were rounded up, including princes from rival parts of the Saudi royal family and some of the country's wealthiest businessmen, and brought to the Riyadh Ritz Carlton
The crackdown saw allegations of torture as hundreds were rounded up, including princes from rival parts of the Saudi royal family and some of the country's wealthiest businessmen, and brought to the Riyadh Ritz Carlton

DailyMail.com revealed a photograph showing the detainees sleeping on the floor of a ballroom at the Riyadh Ritz Carlton, and disclosed that some had been tortured. The New York Times later reported that one of the detainees had died from his injuries
DailyMail.com revealed a photograph showing the detainees sleeping on the floor of a ballroom at the Riyadh Ritz Carlton, and disclosed that some had been tortured. The New York Times later reported that one of the detainees had died from his injuries

'MBS was actually bragging about it in Saudi Arabia when it happened, that he and Jared sat up until 4am discussing things, and Jared brought him this list.'

The Riyadh source said: 'They sat for several hours together. They literally laid out the future map of the entire region, that's why they stayed up to the early hours of the morning from the afternoon before.'

The intelligence allegedly discussed during Kushner's visit to the Middle East last October was said to have came from U.S. wiretaps on conversations between Arab royals in hotels in London, in major U.S. cities and even on yachts docked close to Monte Carlo, a favorite playground of the super-rich.

A separate source told DailyMail.com that it was being said in the Gulf that the president's son-in-law took a copy of information from the daily intelligence briefing provided by the intelligence community to the White House, and shared its contents with MBS.

The intelligence named several family members who were opposed to his rise, it was said.

'Kushner got hold of an intelligence briefing,' said the Riyadh palace source, recounting the version which originated with MBS. 'At that time he had a high level of security clearance and had access to that. He copied it and provided its contents to MBS.

'The CIA are doing their job by briefing the president on what is happening internationally.

'This is a briefing by the CIA to tell the president that some members of the Saudi royal family are plotting in this and that country.

'Kushner took that part of the briefing and flew to Saudi Arabia to impress MBS.'

Salman is currently on a US tour which has seen him meet President Donald Trump in the White House and hold talks with a string of the country's richest and most influential people. He's pictured above with Microsoft founder Bill Gates at the Gates residence in Seattle on March 30
Salman is currently on a US tour which has seen him meet President Donald Trump in the White House and hold talks with a string of the country's richest and most influential people. He's pictured above with Microsoft founder Bill Gates at the Gates residence in Seattle on March 30

Salman (second from left) also met with Richard Branson, (left) Founder of Virgin Group, during a visit to Virgin Galactic in Mojave, California, on April 1
Salman (second from left) also met with Richard Branson, (left) Founder of Virgin Group, during a visit to Virgin Galactic in Mojave, California, on April 1

And on this final leg of the trip, which was his first since taking over as the de facto leader of the kingdom, the crown prince booked all 285 rooms of the Four Season in Beverly Hills
And on this final leg of the trip, which was his first since taking over as the de facto leader of the kingdom, the crown prince booked all 285 rooms of the Four Season in Beverly Hills

Trump thanks Crown Prince Salman for Saudi investments in US



The disclosure comes after The Intercept reported that Kushner had a late night meeting with Salman and discussed the names of Saudis who opposed his power grab.

MBS bragged to his closest regional ally, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed – the de facto joint ruler of the United Arab Emirates - and others that Kushner was 'in his pocket,' a source told The Intercept.

Access to the president's daily brief is closely guarded, but Trump has the legal authority to allow Kushner to disclose information contained in it as the president is the ultimate declassifying authority and legally free to do so at any time.

However if Kushner, 37, had passed on names to the Saudis, the move would be a stunning intervention by the US into the internal affairs of an allied nation.

If Trump's son-in-law, however, discussed the names with the Saudi prince without Trump's specific permission, he may have violated federal laws around the sharing of classified intelligence.

Kushner's access to intelligence is an issue which has come to bedevil the White House.

He has been unable to secure a permanent security clearance, for reasons which remain unknown.

In February chief of staff John Kelly moved to prevent any White House official with only interim security clearance from having access to top secret/sensitive compartmented information, meaning Kushner can only access 'top secret' material.

As a result he no longer had access to the daily intelligence briefing.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed it would not affect his ability to do 'the important work he has been do'.

Jared Kushner loses top secret security clearance in February


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... gence.html

[seemslikeadream]

Trump Lawyer Helped Recruit Corporate Client With Ties to Kushner Probe

U.S. Immigration Fund LLC, which supplied Chinese investors to Kushner Cos., is among clients Michael Cohen delivered to Squire Patton Boggs

Julie Bykowicz May 9, 2018 5:46 p.m. ET
After Donald Trump’s election, Michael Cohen began generating business both through his relationship with Squire Patton Boggs and through his own firm, Essential Consultants LLC. Above, Mr. Cohen, center, leaving a New York City courthouse last month.
Under a 2017 contract with Squire Patton Boggs, Mr. Cohen was paid $500,000 a year to help it drum up business, prosecutors said in a recent filing in federal court in New York, where Mr. Cohen is under investigation for potential bank fraud and campaign-finance violations. He also received a cut of any fees it collected from clients he referred.

Among five clients Mr. Cohen delivered to Squire Patton Boggs—before the firm terminated the contract with him in early March—was U.S. Immigration Fund LLC, according to court filings and Nicholas Mastroianni II, U.S. Immigration Fund’s chief executive. The Florida company connects businesses with foreign investors through a U.S. visa program.

After Mr. Trump’s election, Mr. Cohen began generating business both through his relationship with Squire Patton Boggs and through his own firm, Essential Consultants LLC.

Mr. Cohen formed Essential Consultants in October 2016 and used it to pay $130,000 to Stephanie Clifford, an adult-film actress known professionally as Stormy Daniels, to prevent her from publicly discussing an alleged sexual relationship with the president. Mr. Trump denies that relationship.

Federal agents and prosecutors in New York are examining whether Mr. Cohen violated any laws in his efforts to raise cash and conceal negative information about Mr. Trump, including the payment to Ms. Clifford, The Wall Street Journal has reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents raided Mr. Cohen’s premises last month.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections, referred the ​Cohen investigation to federal prosecutors in Manhattan, the Journal previously reported.

Mr. Cohen didn’t respond to a request for comment.

U.S. Immigration Fund last year organized a trip to China for several Kushner Cos. officials, including Mr. Kushner’s sister Nicole Meyer, to seek investors for commercial-and-residential towers in Jersey City, N.J., the Journal has reported. Ms. Meyer pitched potential investors on participating in a program known as EB-5, which provides permanent U.S. residency to immigrants who invest at least $500,000 in certain job-creating businesses.

Kushner Cos. relied on U.S. Immigration Fund, which has pooled foreign funds for some of the largest developments in the EB-5 program, and a Chinese company to arrange the investor presentation. The project had been listed on U.S. Immigration Fund’s website, but the company ended its involvement with the Kushner Cos. development after the negative publicity from the presentation, Mr. Mastroianni said.

After company officials returned to the U.S., the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission opened investigations into the Kushner Cos. use of EB-5, the Journal has reported.

Prosecutors in the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office have obtained video footage of Ms. Meyer’s investor presentation in China, which also featured a photo of Mr. Trump and references to the president and Mr. Kushner, according to people familiar with the matter. Though aspects of Ms. Meyer’s presentation were made public through news reports at the time, there was no full accounting of her remarks, and investigators were able to review her presentation by obtaining a cellphone video from her husband, who also attended the trip.

Through its general counsel, Kushner Cos. has said it “fully complied with its rules and regulations and did nothing improper” with regard to the EB-5 program.

A spokesman for the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office, John Marzulli, said, “I can’t confirm or deny an investigation.”

Federal prosecutors handling the investigation suggested to Kushner Cos. in recent weeks that the company isn’t a target of their probe in the EB-5 case, according to a person briefed on the matter, and have told company officials that their involvement in the future will likely be limited to serving as possible witnesses.

People familiar with the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office, however, say the office doesn’t consider anyone a target of an investigation until the office is poised to charge them.

U.S. Immigration Fund had partnered with Kushner Cos. on another Jersey City project a few years earlier, raising $50 million for a luxury apartment complex that was spearheaded by Jared Kushner, according to U.S. Immigration Fund’s website. Mr. Kushner was CEO of the company until he resigned to accept his White House position.

Mr. Mastroianni, U.S. Immigration Fund’s CEO, said in an interview that he met with Mr. Cohen in the attorney’s Rockefeller Center office last year. Mr. Cohen put him in touch with Edward Newberry, a top lobbyist in the Washington, D.C., office of Squire Patton Boggs, Mr. Mastroianni said.

Squire Patton Boggs has received $370,000 from U.S. Immigration Fund to lobby Congress and the administration on reforming the EB-5 visa system, according to lobbying reports. The firm hasn’t represented the company on any legal matters, according to a firm spokesman.

U.S. Immigration Fund and developers have beat back efforts by lawmakers to change EB-5 rules to ban the program’s use to finance projects in wealthier areas instead of in rural and high-unemployment areas.

Squire Patton Boggs described its work for the company as lobbying on “reform of the immigrant investor EB-5 program,” in the firm’s June 2017 lobbying registration statement.

Mr. Mastroianni donated $150,000 last year to a joint fundraising committee in support of Mr. Trump’s re-election, according to Federal Election Commission records. Mr. Mastroianni’s family also gave $100,000 to Mr. Trump’s inauguration fund, records show.

Separately, it emerged Tuesday that Mr. Cohen’s own firm, Essential Consultants, received $500,000 in 2017 from an investment fund linked to a Russian oligarch and additional large payments from companies including AT&T Inc. and Novartis AG , according to a person familiar with the matter and spokespeople for the companies.

The payments were revealed in a memo released Tuesday by Michael Avenatti, a lawyer for Ms. Clifford. Mr. Avenatti declined to comment.

It is unclear where Mr. Avenatti got the information about Mr. Cohen’s bank transactions. The Treasury Department’s inspector general is investigating whether suspicious-activity reports related to Mr. Cohen were “improperly disseminated,” a spokesman for that office said Wednesday.

Under federal law, banks are required to flag transactions that appear to have no business or apparent lawful purpose or that deviate inexplicably from a customer’s normal bank activity. Suspicious-activity reports are filed to the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, where federal investigators can access them.

It is a crime to disclose the existence of a suspicious-activity report or related information to any third parties.

AT&T Inc. said Tuesday it paid Essential Consultants in 2017 for “insights” into the Trump administration at a time when the telecommunications giant needed government approval for an $85 billion takeover of Time Warner Inc.

Mr. Avenatti’s memo also alleged that Novartis AG made several payments to Mr. Cohen. The pharmaceutical company said in a statement that it entered a one-year contract with Mr. Cohen’s Essential Consultants in February 2017, and paid it $1.2 million. He was to provide advice related to U.S. health-care policy matters, the company said, adding that it cooperated with the special counsel’s request for information last November.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-lawy ... 1525902417

[seemslikeadream]

Saudi Arabia reportedly saw Jared Kushner as an impressionable target

There may be more to the Mohammed bin Salman-Jared Kushner relationship than meets the eye, according to a New York Times report.

Rachel WithersDec 8, 2018, 4:31pm EST

As further details emerge over how Russian officials attempted to form connections with those in Donald Trump’s orbit for political influence, a new report indicates that Saudi Arabian leaders were making concerted efforts of their own, cultivating valuable connections with a key figure in Trump world: Jared Kushner.

Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and one of his senior advisers, has formed a close bond with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman — one that “did not happen on [its] own,” according to a New York Times report published Saturday.

The detailed report, written by David D. Kirkpatrick, Ben Hubbard, Mark Landler, and Mark Mazzetti, tracks the story of how the two men in their thirties came to have such a close friendship that Kushner regularly chats privately on the phone with the crown prince, even calling him by his first name, much to the chagrin of senior American officials. The Times reports that Saudi Arabia saw Kushner as a viable, impressionable target, and began what the reporters describe as “the courtship of Mr. Kushner”:

Prince Mohammed and his advisers, eager to enlist American support for his hawkish policies in the region and for his own consolidation of power, cultivated the relationship with Mr. Kushner for more than two years, according to documents, emails and text messages reviewed by The New York Times.

A delegation of Saudis close to the prince visited the United States as early as the month Mr. Trump was elected, the documents show, and brought back a report identifying Mr. Kushner as a crucial focal point in the courtship of the new administration. He brought to the job scant knowledge about the region, a transactional mind-set and an intense focus on reaching a deal with the Palestinians that met Israel’s demands, the delegation noted.

This delegation was followed up by a series of meetings and personal recommendations that Kushner reach out, including from MBS ally Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi. Though initially suspicious of Saudi Arabia’s motivations, Kushner soon put his concerns aside, drawn in by proposals and initiatives that aligned with his Israel-Palestine priorities and the administration’s anti-violent extremism ones.

Senior government officials reportedly hold major concerns over the relationship, and if the report is accurate, they are probably right to. Three former officials told the Times that they felt Kushner was “susceptible to Saudi manipulation,” given his “political inexperience”:

Senior officials in the State Department and the Pentagon began to worry about the one-on-one communications between Prince Mohammed — who is known to favor the online messaging service WhatsApp — and Mr. Kushner. “There was a risk the Saudis were playing him,” one former White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Efforts to impose rules and procedures ensuring National Security Council staff members take part in all calls with foreign leaders supposedly failed to make a difference, with the two men still chatting informally over call and text.

Kushner’s close relationship with MBS has been helpful at times, but the connection is also believed to have fundamentally shaped US policy toward both Riyadh and the region. Council on Foreign Relations fellow and former Middle East envoy Martin Indyk told the Times that their “bromance” has shaped US policy toward the kingdom, including over its feud with Qatar and the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen.

The fresh scrutiny of the Kushner-bin Salman relationship comes in the wake of the October murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the CIA has since concluded was committed on MBS’s orders.

Trump has refused to condemn the crown prince, while Kushner and the prince continue to chat informally, according to sources on both sides. According to the Saudi source, Kushner has even advised MBS on “how to weather the storm, urging him to resolve his conflicts around the region and avoid further embarrassments.”
https://www.vox.com/2018/12/8/18132042/ ... nyt-report

[seemslikeadream]

Deutsche Bank Willing To Report Jared Kushner’s ‘Suspicious Transactions’ To Robert Mueller: Report

By Jessica Kwong On Friday, January 19, 2018 - 19:14

U.S. president's senior advisor Jared Kushner is seen during a welcome ceremony at the presidential palace in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on May 23, 2017. Photo: THOMAS COEX/AFP/Getty Images
A German bank reportedly has evidence of “suspicious transactions” related to Jared Kushner’s family accounts and is willing to hand the information over to Russia probe special counsel Robert Mueller.

The board chairman of the banking giant Deutsche Bank, Paul Achleitner, called for an internal investigation and found troubling results, German business magazine Manager Magazin reported in its print edition released on Friday.

Deutsche Bank—a major lender to President Donald Trump and his son-in-law and senior White House advisor Kushner, according to Mother Jones—provided the results to the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, which is Germany’s bank regulatory agency and referred to as BaFin.

“Achleitner’s internal detectives were embarrassed to deliver their interim report regarding real estate tycoon Kushner to the financial regulator BaFin,” states the Manager Magazin story translated from German to English. “Their finding: There are indications that Donald Trump’s son-in-law or persons or companies close to him could have channeled suspicious monies through Deutsche Bank as part of their business dealings.”

No details on the suspicious money transfer were reported. The bank is worried about what the results will mean for its image, according to Manager Magazin.

“What BaFin will do about [the bank’s findings] is not the bank’s greatest concern,” the German magazine reported. “Rather, it’s the noise that U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller … will make in his pursuit of Trump. For he will likely obtain this information—a giant risk to [the bank’s] reputation.”

The bank’s investigation into Kushner and his family business are ongoing and have been complicated by technical issues internally, the magazine story states.

Neither Kushner’s personal attorney nor the bank have commented.

Kushner is already wrapped in problems with Deutsche Bank.

Federal prosecutors last month reportedly subpoenaed the bank for records relating to Kushner Companies, his family-run business. It was not known if the records involve Kushner or are tied to Mueller’s probe into possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russians in the presidential election.
https://www.newsweek.com/deutsche-bank- ... ssion=true

Deutsche Bank: A Global Bank for Oligarchs
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40823

[seemslikeadream]

The Sparrow Project
‏
6:43 PM - 27 Feb 2018
THREAD // JARED KUSHNER BACKGROUND:

Over the past 3 weeks two sources provided The Sparrow Project with tips related to Jared Kushner's security clearance and inability to pass an FBI background check


These tips on Jared Kushner's clearance were provided to us by intermediaries but originated from what appears to be a former WH staff person(s).


These tips related to why Jared Kushner was unable to obtain permanent top secret security clearance and provide a possible reason why he was unable to pass his FBI background check.


It is important to underscore that any tip originating from the White House or former WH staff should be considered with the utmost caution. The WH internally is even more divisive then they project, backstabbing is real, and fake tips have become a real problem.

These tips should be handled with the same caution, but the developing story around Jared Kushner has introduced a new variable.


The tip centers on Jared Kushner's beleaguered 666 5th Avenue property and US authorities interception of a phone call wherein Jared attempts to unload a portion of that property.


The source was unclear as to who was the target of the phone intercept, but they implied the individual speaking to Jared Kushner may likely have been the target of the intercept. The call was immediately flagged by the FBI.


According to one source this call took place at some point during the transition, and that the individual on the other end was "a Saudi National, or a Qatari"...


When pressed on the "either or" part the source made it clear that they are uncertain if more than one phone call has become the target of FBI scrutiny — Implying that additional calls may have been discovered after the initial intercept accidentally caught the first one.


The source further clarified that the intercepted material from the first accidentally intercepted call (and the possible subsequent calls) was now with the Mueller investigation. This made it impossible for the FBI to make the recommendation for security clearance.


The result was Jared Kushner's temporary interim clearance that Kelly downgraded today. But this was the least troubling element of the source's allegation regarding Kushner.


It was unclear to what extent the source was projecting their own analysis on the Jared Kushner tip, but they intimated that Mueller may be investigating whether the dubious Saudi Arms Deal may have included a possible caveat regarding something to do with 666 5th Avenue.


I must underscore that this part should be viewed as conjecture at best, and will absolutely need to be verified by journalists before claiming it is a fact. But, if true it would be explosive.



At the heart of this Jared Kushner security clearance downgrade story is a silent cosign that he is under investigation. Something we all sort of assumed, but at the end of the day it has little to do with the public's prevailing #TrumpRussia interests.


It is a story of debt, how that debt made Jared Kushner vulnerable to foreign influence, and they he made it easy by going to them first.


Several media outlets have started to produce versions of this same story, with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and China being used interchangeably when referring possible investigation avenues being pursued. It may be all of them. This source may have shared only a piece they saw.

It is my opinion that we will see this thread further clarified in the weeks and months ahead, but three things will remain in whatever story emerges on the other side: ...

Jared Kushner's debt, Donald Trump's nepotism, and the unfettered kleptocracy of this administration.
https://twitter.com/sparrowmedia/status ... 0023822336

Officials rejected Jared Kushner for top secret security clearance, but were overruled

Jan. 24, 2019, 7:14 PM CST
By Laura Strickler, Ken Dilanian and Peter Alexander

WASHINGTON — Jared Kushner's application for a top secret clearance was rejected by two career White House security specialists after an FBI background check raised concerns about potential foreign influence on him — but their supervisor overruled the recommendation and approved the clearance, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.

The official, Carl Kline, is a former Pentagon employee who was installed as director of the personnel security office in the Executive Office of the President in May 2017. Kushner's was one of at least 30 cases in which Kline overruled career security experts and approved a top secret clearance for incoming Trump officials despite unfavorable information, the two sources said. They said the number of rejections that were overruled was unprecedented — it had happened only once in the three years preceding Kline's arrival.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information, said the Trump White House attracted many people with untraditional backgrounds who had complicated financial and personal histories, some of which raised red flags.

Kushner's FBI background check identified questions about his family's business, his foreign contacts, his foreign travel and meetings he had during the campaign, the sources said, declining to be more specific.

The White House office only determines eligibility for secret and top secret clearances. As a very senior official, Kushner was seeking an even higher designation that would grant him access to what is known as "sensitive compartmented information," or SCI. That material makes up the government's most sensitive secrets, including transcripts of intercepted foreign communications, CIA source reporting and other intelligence seemingly important for Kushner, whose job portfolio covers the Mideast and Mexico.

The CIA is the agency that decides whether to grant SCI clearance to senior White House officials after conducting a further background check.

After Kline overruled the White House security specialists and recommended Kushner for a top secret clearance, Kushner's file then went to the CIA for a ruling on SCI.

After reviewing the file, CIA officers who make clearance decisions balked, two of the people familiar with the matter said. One called over to the White House security division, wondering how Kushner got even a top secret clearance, the sources said. Top secret information is defined as material that would cause "exceptionally grave damage" to national security if disclosed to adversaries.

The sources say the CIA has not granted Kushner clearance to review SCI material. That would mean Kushner lacks access to key intelligence unless President Trump decides to override the rules, which is the president's' prerogative. The Washington Post reported in July 2018 that Kushner was not given an "SCI" clearance. CIA spokesman Timothy Barrett said, "The CIA does not comment on individual security clearances."

"What you are reporting is what all of us feared," said Brad Moss, a lawyer who represents persons seeking security clearances. "The normal line adjudicators looked at the FBI report…saw the foreign influence concerns, but were overruled by the quasi-political supervisor."

"We don't comment on security clearances," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said when asked for comment.

NBC News was unable to reach Carl Kline for comment. Kushner's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, had no comment.

The sources said they did not know whether Kline was in communication with senior political White House officials. They say he overruled career bureaucrats at least 30 times, granting top secret clearances to officials in the Executive Office of the President or the White House after adjudicators working for him recommended against doing so.

The reasons for denying a clearance can include debts, a criminal past or questions about foreign entanglements. Anything in a person's background that could make them vulnerable to blackmail can be a factor.

Kushner's application followed the normal path for security clearance. It passed a "suitability review" in the White House and then went to the FBI for a background investigation.

Following the FBI investigation, the case went back to the White House office of personnel security, where a career adjudicator reviewed the FBI information, including questions about foreign influence and foreign business entanglements, the sources said.

The Washington Post, citing current and former U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports on the matter, reported last February that officials in at least four countries had privately discussed ways they could manipulate Kushner by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience.

Among those nations discussing ways to influence Kushner to their advantage, according to the current and former officials, were the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico, the Post reported.

On the basis of potential foreign influence, the adjudicator deemed Kushner's application "unfavorable" and handed it to a supervisor.

The supervisor agreed with the "unfavorable" determination and gave it to Kline, the head of the office at the time, who overruled the "unfavorable" determination and approved Kushner for "top secret" security clearance, the sources said.

"No one else gets that kind of treatment," Moss said. "My clients would get body slammed if they did that."

Sources also told NBC News career employees of the White House office disagreed with other steps Kline took, including ceasing credit checks on security clearance applicants. The sources said Kline cited a data breach at the credit reporting firm Equifax.

Kline is the subject of an October 2018 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint viewed by NBC News that was filed by Tricia Newbold, a current employee. Newbold has a rare form of dwarfism and the complaint alleges Kline discriminated against her because of her height.

Her complaint states that in December 2017, Kline moved security files to a new location which was too high and out of her reach and told her, "You have people, have them get you the files you need; or you can ask me."

Tricia Newbold has filed an EEOC complaint against Carl Kline, alleging he discriminated against her because of her height.
Her attorney, Ed Passman, told NBC News, "My client has been subjected to ongoing discrimination by a ruthless supervisor who was destroying the personnel security division by granting security clearances over the objections of civil servant recommendations."

In a letter to her family obtained by NBC News, Newbold described Kline's behavior towards her as "aggressive," involving "emotional and psychological abuse" starting in July 2017, a few months after he took over the office.

In the same letter, Newbold wrote that she also had serious concerns about how Kline "continuously changes policy" and makes "reckless security judgments". She added that Kline's decisions "if disclosed, can cause embarrassment and negative attention to the administration."

Newbold raised concerns about Kline's behavior with her second level supervisor regarding his "hostility and integrity" according to the EEOC complaint.

The EEOC confirmed to Newbold’s attorney that an investigation of her claims was conducted. He is now waiting to hear if his client will be granted a hearing.

The House Oversight Committee, now run by Rep. Elijah Cummings, D.-Md., announced yesterday that it is digging into how Kushner obtained his security clearance.

Laura Strickler

Laura Strickler is an investigative producer in the NBC News Investigative Unit based in Washington.

Ken Dilanian is a national security reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Peter Alexander is a White House correspondent for NBC News.

Julia Ainsley, Carol E. Lee and Courtney Kube contributed.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald ... d_nn_tw_ma

PEOPLE ARE GOING TO JAIL