White House conducting internal investigation into $500 million Kushner loans

White House attorneys are conducting an internal probe of two loans totaling over $500 million to Jared Kushner’s family business from Citigroup and Apollo Global Management LLC.

The Office of Government Ethics (OGE) revealed the internal West Wing probe into whether the loans violated criminal or ethical statutes, in a letter to Illinois Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who sits on the House Oversight Committee.

The Office of Government Ethics told a Democratic lawmaker in the letter that the White House is probing whether a $184 million loan from the real-estate arm of Apollo Global Management LLC and a $325 million loan from Citigroup Inc. may have run afoul of the rules and laws governing the conduct of federal employees.

Both loans went to the Kushner Cos., the private real-estate company founded by Mr. Kushner’s father and run by members of his family. Mr. Kushner, who is President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and serves in a senior position in the White House, met with top executives of both Citi and Apollo before each loan was disbursed, the New York Times reported last month. –Wall St. Journal

“I have discussed this matter with the White House Counsel’s Office in order to ensure that they have begun the process of ascertaining the facts necessary to determine whether any law or regulation has been violated,” wrote the acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, David Apol. “During that discussion, the White House informed me that they had already begun this process.”

Rep. Krishnamoorthi requested that the OGE render an opinion over ethical questions in connection to Jared Kushner meeting with executives at a time in which both financial institutions provided backing to the Kushner family.

The transactions “raise serious ethical questions that need to be investigated,” Mr. Krishnamoorthi said in his letter to OGE, asking: “Do the above actions by Mr. Kushner constitute a breach of his ethical obligations to the American people?”

Citigroup responded to the inquiry last week – telling lawmakers that the loan was “completely appropriate,” and that Citi had been exploring the lending facility in late 2016 prior to CEO Michael Corbat and Jared Kushner’s March 3, 2017 meeting at the White House. The $325 million mortgage for a Brooklyn property owned by Kushner Co. and two partner firms closed on March 31.

Citi noted in their letter responding to Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s request (D-MA) that “the Kushner family has been a client of Citi for decades.”

The Kushner Co. also disclosed another $200 million Citigroup loan for a Jersey City, N.J. property called Trump Bay Street.

Apollo Global Management has yet to comment.

Jared Kushner had been running his family’s Real Estate empire prior to the 2016 election – after which he resigned from the company, sold his personal stake in various projects and moved assets to family members and others. Kushner does, however, retain a stake in several Kushner properties – including those which received the $500 million in loans.

Meanwhile, the White House probe comes as the company is being investigated by the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office and the SEC over a visa program known as EB-5.

What is EB-5 visa exactly? Wikipedia explains that the EB-5 visa provides a method of obtaining a green card for foreign nationals who can invest from $500,000 to one million dollars in a “new commercial enterprise” in the United States. The program has been criticized as akin to “U.S. citizenship for sale,” and it has come under scrutiny after a series of fraud and scandals.

As Mike Krieger from the Liberty Blitzkrieg blog noted last May, The Kushner Companies have been taking advantage of this program for years, and continue to do so despite Donald Trump being the current U.S. President.

As reported by The Washington Post:

Over several hours of slide shows and presentations, representatives from the Kushner family business urged Chinese citizens gathered at a Ritz-Carlton hotel to consider investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a New Jersey luxury apartment complex that would help them secure what’s known as an investor visa.

The tagline on a brochure for the event: “Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States.”

And the highlight of the afternoon was Meyer, a principal for the company, who was introduced in promotional materials as Jared’s sister.

…

Bloomberg News reported in March 2016 that the program has been used to the benefit both the Trump and Kushner family businesses. Before joining the White House, as chief executive of his family’s real estate company, Jared Kushner raised $50 million from Chinese EB-5 applicants for a Trump-branded apartment building in Jersey City, according to the report.

The OGE is tasked with helping executive branch officials avoid conflicts of interest, and their investigation will be of an advisory nature, rather than enforcement.

See the OGE’s letter below:

Letter to Congressman Krishnamoorthi re: Kushner by ZeroHedge Janitor on Scribd

Via Zero Hedge

---

Featured Image: angela n./Flickr

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Did Flynn"s Plea Deal Just Disprove Election Collusion

Submitted by iBankCoin

This whole charade with former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn reeks of desperation and makes clear that Mueller"s team has an empty hand. To summarize the plea agreement from the FBI Special Counsel’s “Statement of the Offense”:

• 
  
  On December 29, 2016, Flynn called a senior official of the Presidential Transition Team to discuss whether or not to talk to the Russians about recent U.S. sanctions imposed by Obama.
  
  


• 
  
  Flynn got the go-ahead from someone (does not name Trump) and called the Russian Ambassador, requesting that Russia not escalate the situation – asking that they only respond to the U.S. sanctions in a reciprocal manner.
  
  


• 
  
  On or about December 30 – the next day, Russian President Vladimir Putin released a statement indicating that Russia would not take retaliatory measures in response to U.S. sanctions.
  
  


• 
  
  Flynn lied about this on January 24 in a voluntary interview with the FBI
  
  


• 
  
  Flynn also lied to the FBI about calls he made to the Russian Ambassador and other countries to try and influence a UN resolution submitted by Egypt regarding Israeli settlements, stating he only asked the countries’ positions on the vote
  
  

ABC news takes it a step further, reporting from an anonymous source that “Donald Trump directed him to make contact with the Russians, initially as a way to work together to fight ISIS in Syria.” - though NBC News reports it was Trump"s son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner.

Observation and takeaways

• 
  
  The fact that Flynn spoke with the Russians in December, well after the election, has been known since February.
  
  


• 
  
  Mueller’s “Statement of Offense” establishes is that there wasn’t an existing backchannel between the Trump campaign and Russia – at least through Flynn, as it pertains to pre-election collusion. 
  
  


• 
  
  It’s perfectly reasonable to expect an incoming President to instruct his incoming National Security Advisor to establish a dialogue with a country like Russia over recent and contentious sanctions, as well as fighting ISIS in Syria.
  
  


• 
  
  If Flynn’s contact with Russia was related to “collusion” in regards to election meddling, he would be pleading guilty to an espionage conspiracy, not the “process crime” of lying to the FBI..
  
  


• 
  
  If Flynn were to now drop some new bombshell about greater Russian collusion, he would have lied to the FBI twice.
  
  

Grand irony: the underlying action that Flynn now admits he lied to the FBI about was urging de-escalation with a nuclear power, which is now no longer permissible pic.twitter.com/Vh4Nxz0nWK

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) December 1, 2017

As Andrew McCarthy of the National Review points out;

“when a prosecutor has a cooperator who was an accomplice in a major criminal scheme, the cooperator is made to plead guilty to the scheme. This is critical because it proves the existence of the scheme. In his guilty-plea allocution (the part of a plea proceeding in which the defendant admits what he did that makes him guilty), the accomplice explains the scheme and the actions taken by himself and his co-conspirators to carry it out. This goes a long way toward proving the case against all of the subjects of the investigation. That is not happening in Flynn’s situation. Instead, like Papadopoulos, he is being permitted to plead guilty to a mere process crime.

So why lie?

Why would Flynn lie about his contact with the Russians in late January, five days after the Inauguration? Was it because the nation had been whipped into an anti-Russia frenzy? Or, as some have suggested, does the rabbit hole go much deeper and there are aspects of the Trump-Russia story that haven’t been made public yet? Again, if that were known, Flynn would be pleading guilty to a much more serious crime.

That said, Flynn is facing a whopping six months in prison and a fine of up to $9,500 for lying to the Special Counsel.

Who’s next?

President Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he asked Russia’s Ambassador whether the Trump transition team could use Russia’s embassy to communicate with Moscow about Syria.

The meeting with the ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, “occurred in Trump Tower, where we had our transition office, and lasted twenty [to] thirty minutes,” Kushner wrote in an 11-page statement detailing his contacts with Russian nationals during the election and transition period.

 

“Lt. General Michael Flynn (Ret.), who became the President’s National Security Advisor, also attended … I stated our desire for a fresh start in relations.”

 

Kushner said Kislyak, whose tenure in the US ended this past weekend, asked whether there was “a secure line in the transition office to conduct a conversation” about the US’s Syria policy.

 

“General Flynn or I explained that there were no such lines,” Kushner wrote. But he said he went on to ask whether the Russian Embassy “had an existing communications channel … we could use where they would be comfortable transmitting the information they wanted to relay to General Flynn.” –Business Insider

And now it emerges that Kushner allegedly asked Flynn to contact the Russian Ambassador…

BREAKING: Jared Kushner is the “very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team” mentioned in the statement of offense against Michael Flynn, two people familiar with the matter tell @NBCNews https://t.co/4ZLASVAX9b

— NBC News (@NBCNews) December 1, 2017

So – unless there’s more than meets the eye, it appears that the coverup is far greater than the crime in regards to Flynn’s decision to lie to the FBI. And whatever the outcome, the hard bounce in the S&P 500 would seem to suggest this is perhaps another nothingburger and not quite the end of Drumpf.

The end of Drumpf? ???????? pic.twitter.com/rxoqWyfFTv

— ZeroPointNow (@ZeroPointNow) December 1, 2017

Trump Wants Kushner and Ivanka Out of Washington

[image: AP/Evan Vucci]

According to Vanity Fair, citing two unnamed Republicans, Trump is “frustrated with (son-in-law Jared) Kushner’s political advice in his capacity of senior advisor to the president, including his encouragement to back losing Alabama GOP candidate Luther Strange and to fire FBI Director James Comey, which Kushner denies.”

Trump urged Kushner and daughter Ivanka (first daughter and advisor to the president) to return to New York, “pressuring them to go,” according to an unnamed source.

He wants them out of the White House spotlight to avoid negative news coverage. They’re being investigated as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s witch-hunt Russiagate probe.

Reportedly, Trump told Ivanka: “Baby, you’re getting killed. This is a bad idea,” other White House staffers witnessing his comment, according to Vanity Fair.

Kushner’s influence is waning, Vanity Fair saying White House chief of staff John Kelly “clipped his wings” – under a system he instituted, requiring everyone go through him to see the president, including family members for official business.

Kelly reportedly was angered over Kushner’s trip to Saudi Arabia, meeting with crown prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS) days before his power grad, arresting hundreds of princes, ministers and business figures, making it appear the White House involved with orchestrating what happened.

In June, MBS ousted his predecessor, gaining control over Riyadh’s military, security and economic portfolios, becoming crown prince, the next Saudi king when his father steps down, expected any time because of his age and ill-health.

Trump expressed approval of MBS’ power grab, tweeting: “I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they know exactly what they are doing.”

“Some of those they are harshly treating have been ‘milking’ their country for years!”

Reportedly, Kushner and Ivanka are steering clear of chief of staff Kelly as much as possible since he established control over White House operations, including scheduling and daily activities.

According to knowledgeable legal experts, Kushner failed to list all foreign contacts he’s had on his national security clearance forms, nor a full account of his financial holdings and dealings.

Washington is no place for anyone wishing to maintain a low profile – nor New York for prominent figures like Trump and his family members since he entered the presidential sweepstakes.

Since elected, he’s been hounded by media scoundrels more than any other US president in memory, Kushner and Ivanka taking their share of criticism.

According to Vanity Fair, quoting an unnamed source close to the Trumps, Kushner and Ivanka are “in a world of s..t.”

He may seem cool, but he’s sweating, and she’s like her father. She’ll never acknowledge it and (will) blame the media. But she’s been working on her reputation forever, and now it’s going to suffer horrifically. And for what?”

Life in the Washington fishbowl has lots of minuses when things don’t go as planned and media coverage is negative.

The post Trump Wants Kushner and Ivanka Out of Washington appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

Special Counsel Mueller Now Probing Kushner"s Contacts With Israeli Officials During Transition, WSJ

In a startling illustration of just how expansive Mueller"s investigation of the Trump administration has become, the Wall Street Journal now reports that the Special Counsel"s team is looking into meetings that Jared Kushner may have conducted with Israeli officials in the days leading up to an important U.N. vote on the construction of settlements in disputed territories on December 23, 2016. 

Robert Mueller’s investigators are asking questions about Jared Kushner’s interactions with foreign leaders during the presidential transition, including his involvement in a dispute at the United Nations in December, in a sign of the expansive nature of the special counsel’s probe of Russia’s meddling in the election, according to people familiar with the matter.

 

The investigators have asked witnesses questions about the involvement of Mr. Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, in a controversy over a U.N. resolution passed Dec. 23 that condemned Israel’s construction of settlements in disputed territories, these people said.

 

Israeli officials had asked the incoming Trump administration to intervene to help block it. Mr. Trump posted a Facebook message the day before the U.N. vote—after he had been elected but before he had assumed office—saying the resolution put the Israelis in a difficult position and should be vetoed. Mr. Trump also held a phone conversation with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, whose government had written a draft of the resolution. Egypt proceeded to call for the vote to be delayed, but the resolution passed the following day, with the Obama administration declining to block it.

 

Investigators have also asked witnesses about Mr. Kushner’s role in arranging meetings or communication with foreign leaders during the transition, the people said. The special counsel’s mandate gives Mr. Mueller a broad directive to examine any matters arising from the Russia investigation.

These revelations raise new questions over whether Special Counsel Mueller may attempt to use the 1799 Logan Act to apply pressure on Kushner.

A 1799 law called the Logan Act also bars Americans from communicating with a foreign government to influence the government’s actions related to a dispute with the U.S., but no one has ever been successfully prosecuted under the law.

 

In a statement that Mr. Kushner gave to congressional committees in July, he wrote that at his father-in-law’s request, he served as the main point of contact for foreign countries at a time when it was clear Mr. Trump would be the Republican nominee.

Of course, Kushner is under investigation for a litany of other allegations of wrongdoing ranging from his meeting with a Russian lawyer to inaccuracies on his financial disclosure forms to his role in Comey"s dismissal.  Why do we get the sneaking suspicion that Mueller isn"t going to stop pursuing new angles on Kushner until something sticks?

Kushner "Forgot" To Disclose Contact With Putin Ally

After being accused in a letter earlier this week sent by the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee of failing to turn over emails from September 2016 pertaining to a range of topics including Wikileaks, it appears Kushner is being punished for his obstinance with a series of embarrassing leaks presumably from the same committee that publicly chastised him only days before (bonus points for subtlety). The new allegations are likely to provoke more spurious speculation that Kushner and other members of the Trump camp (Sessions etc.) perjured themselves during Congressional testimony.

According to the leaks, Kushner neglected to disclose that Aleksander Torshin, a powerful Russian central banker and former senator with ties to both President Vladimir Putin and Russian organized crime, had reached out to the campaign with a "dinner invite" and an offer to connect Trump with Putin. Kushner, who was on the email chain, reportedly instructed junior campaign aides to rebuff the meeting.

Aleksander Torshin

Also, when asked if he was aware of any contact between Wikileaks and the campaign, Kushner reportedly said he didn’t recall any contact, even though Donald Trump Jr. informed Kushner, and several other senior campaign staff, that Wikileaks had made contact. Kushner reportedly even forwarded Trump Jr.’s Wikileaks email to another campaign staffer, Hope Hicks.

Here’s NBC, which was first to report on the Torshin emails:

President Trump"s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, failed to disclose what lawmakers called a "Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite" involving a banker who has been accused of links to Russian organized crime, three sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.

 

An email chain described Aleksander Torshin, a former senator and deputy head of Russia"s central bank who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as wanting Trump to attend an event on the sidelines of a National Rifle Association convention in Louisville, Kentucky, in May 2016, the sources said. The email also suggests Torshin was seeking to meet with a high-level Trump campaign official during the convention, and that he may have had a message for Trump from Putin, the sources said.

 

Kushner rebuffed the request after receiving a lengthy email exchange about it between a West Virginia man and Trump campaign aide Rick Dearborn, the sources said.

 

Kushner responded to the email by telling Dearborn and the handful of other Trump campaign officials on the email that they should not accept requests from people who pretend to have contacts with foreign officials to aggrandize themselves, according Kushner"s lawyer, Abbe Lowell. Dearborn currently serves as a deputy chief of staff in the White House.

 

"Pass on this," Kushner responded, according to a letter Lowell sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday evening. "A lot of people come claiming to carry messages. Very few we are able to verify. For now I think we decline such meetings."

And here’s CNN on Wikileaks...

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner told congressional Russia investigators that he did not communicate with WikiLeaks and did not recall anyone on the Trump campaign who had, a source with knowledge of his testimony told CNN.

 

But Kushner did receive and forward an email from Donald Trump Jr. about contact Trump Jr. had with WikiLeaks, according to a new report this week and a letter from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

 

Kushner, President Donald Trump"s son-in-law, was asked in July during his closed-door congressional testimony if he had any contacts with WikiLeaks or its founder Julian Assange and he responded that he had not, according to the source. He also told Congress he did not know of anyone on the campaign who had contacted WikiLeaks.

 

A separate source familiar with Kushner"s interview with congressional investigators said he accurately answered questions about his contact and didn"t recall anyone else in the campaign who had contact.

Of course, Kushner isn’t the only person in Trump’s orbit to deny the Wikileaks’ contacts. When asked in October 2016 if the Trump campaign was “in cahoots” with Wikileaks, Mike Pence claimed “nothing could be further from the truth. But that’s beside the point. As Kushner’s lawyer Abbe Lowell is pushing back against the Judiciary committee, claiming there were no "missing documents," as the committee has alleged, while criticizing the panel"s leaders for going to the media on Thursday with their accusations.

"I would have assumed that, if there were any questions about our productions or exchanges, that would have been communicated to me directly before you made this a media event," Lowell wrote.

Lowell (who has, we imagine, racked up his fair share of billable hours this week) defended Kushner’s responses by pointing out that Kushner said he did not recall contact with Russian entities and Wikileaks, not that they didn’t happen. Kushner’s busy schedule ( he is, after all, in charge of a range of White House initiatives from streamlining the federal government to bringing peace to the Middle East) now, and during the campaign, when he was a senior political adviser, has made it impossible for him to remember many of these details, his lawyers have argued.

And while many on the left have been quick to cry perjury, proving that somebody deliberately lied when testifying about their recollections is notoriously tricky.

Lowell also pointed out in his rebuttal to the allegations that his client voluntarily testified before the House and Senate committees that are investigating Russian interference (or other malfeasance) related to the 2016 election.

Furthermore, Kushner endured grueling six-hour sessions, and answered every question he was asked.

"Mr. Kushner was asked if he had contacts with Wikileaks, Guccifer or DC Leaks and said no. He also said he did not know of such contacts by the campaign. From all I have now seen, his statement was accurate then as it is now. In over 6 hours of voluntary testimony, Mr Kushner answered all questions put to him and demonstrated that there had been no collusion between the campaign and Russia."

Kushner famously neglected to include meetings with Russian officials, including former ambassador Kislyak, during his security-clearance application, something his office confirmed was the result of a clerical error.

Unsurprisingly, Democrats have already capitalized on these embarrassing leaks to insist that Kushner return for more testimony – possibly in a public forum, which hints at the real reason these documents were leaked.

Full Kushner lawyer response to Senate Judiciary Committee letter calling Kushner’s document production “incomplete” pic.twitter.com/xSKqf3tIhl

— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) November 18, 2017

 Since the investigations began, Congress have been trying, unsuccessfully, to push Kushner to testify in a public hearing – an event that would inevitably create a media circus and allow Democrats on the committee a tantalizing opportunity for grandstanding. We imagine those calls will only grow louder as the coming holiday-shortened week begins.

Jared Kushner Reportedly Used Private Email For White House Business

As if the flow of news on this warm September weekend wasn’t hectic enough thanks to President Trump’s decision to pick a fight with professional sports, Politico is out with the latest bombshell report alleging some nefarious act was committed by one of Trump’s closest advisors, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Politico reports that, in an ironic twist, Kushner continued to use a private email account that had been set up during the transition to communicate with fellow administration officials during Trump’s first nine months in office, even as Trump continued to bash his former rival’s mishandling of classified information on a private server during her time at the State Department.

While Politico places the implication of wrongdoing front and center in its story, it waits until lower down to provide a key piece of context from the White House communications department: "Kushner sent less than 100 emails from this account, and those that were sent consisted mostly of quips about news items and minor commentary."

Liberals like to talk about the concept of false equivalence, especially in the context of how the media covered the Clinton email scandal vs. coverage of Trump’s more controversial pronouncements and business arrangements. That"s what this Kushner story appears to be. Judging by the description, it’s clear that Kushner didn’t rely on his private account to conduct public business, and only used it to send a handful of messages. More to the point, while he may have violated public-information guidelines, he did not improperly handle classified information.

“Mr. Kushner uses his White House email address to conduct White House business,” Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Kushner, said in a statement Sunday. “Fewer than 100 emails from January through August were either sent to or returned by Mr. Kushner to colleagues in the White House from his personal email account. These usually forwarded news articles or political commentary and most often occurred when someone initiated the exchange by sending an email to his personal rather than his White House address.”

Politico also noted that Kushner’s use of a private email account was part of a larger pattern of Trump administration aides using personal email accounts for government business. Kushner allegedly used the private account to communicate with Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, Gary Cohn and Josh Raffel.

Aides who have exchanged emails with Kushner on his private account since President Donald Trump took office in January include former chief of staff Reince Priebus, former chief strategist Steve Bannon, National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, and spokesman Josh Raffel, according to emails described to or shown to POLITICO. In some cases, those White House officials have emailed Kushner’s account first, said people familiar with the messages.

…and then there’s this, six paragraphs in.

There is no indication that Kushner has shared any sensitive or classified material on his private account, or that he relies on his private email account more than his official White House account to conduct government business. Aides say he prefers to call or text over using email.

And that"s not even the most glaring example of Politico"s tendency to leave key details that detract from the impression of wrongdoing until much later in the story.

Even further down, Politico admits that Kushner’s conduct may not violate the Presidential Records Act...

Private email traffic among White House aides — some of it sent between personal email accounts rather than to or from government addresses — could skirt the requirements of the Presidential Records Act, which requires all documents related to the president’s personal and political activities to be archived. Trump himself is not known to use email but occasionally has email messages to his assistant printed and presented to him.

…And, furthermore, that it couldn’t verify whether Kushner forwarded all work-related emails to his work account, which would render his behavior 100% legitimate. The White House is insisting he remained in compliance, and Politico hasn’t uncovered any evidence to discredit this claim.

Lowell said Kushner has adhered to government record-keeping requirements by forwarding all the emails to his account, though POLITICO could not verify that.

Other White House officials have also sometimes used personal accounts to correspond with Kushner and with each other, according to emails seen by POLITICO and people familiar with Kushner’s correspondence. They have also used encrypted apps like Signal and Confide that automatically delete messages, prompting former press secretary Sean Spicer in February to issue a warning to communications staffers that using such apps could violate the Presidential Records Act.

Politico then adds that private-email use in the Trump administration has been “somewhat common” despite Trump’s attacks on Clinton.

The use of personal email accounts in the Trump White House has been somewhat common, even though the president has been a harsh critic of Clinton’s private email habits, frequently leading “lock her up” chants as he traveled across the country on the campaign trail.

Politico also says Kushner and Ivanka Trump set up their private family domain late last year before moving to Washington from New York, according to people with knowledge of events as well as publicly available internet registration records. At the time, Kushner, who served as a senior campaign adviser, was expected to be named to a White House role, while Ivanka Trump was publicly saying she didn’t plan to work in her father’s administration, though she ended up taking an unpaid role with an office in the West Wing. People familiar with the account say it was primarily set up for personal use, but that Kushner has used it to communicate with acquaintances outside the White House about matters relating to Trump and the administration, according to people who have received messages.

Ivanka has an email account on the same domain, but there’s no indication she used her account for work purposes.

So is Kushner"s sending of work-related notes from his private email account a major violation on par with Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information? Or just another mainstream attack on Kushner, meant to dilute the Hillary Clinton email narrative?

Some Of Trump's Lawyers Concluded Kushner Should Step Down

In what will come as music from above to Steve Bannon, as well as numerous Donald Trump supporters who just happen to have a less than soft spot for his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the WSJ reports that "some" of the US President"s lawyers concluded earlier this summer that Jared Kushner should step down as senior White House adviser due to "possible legal complications" emerging from the ongoing Russia probe, and aired such concerns directly to the president, according to WSJ sources. 

The problems involving Kushner are largely familiar: he was the adviser closest to the president who had the most dealings with Russian officials and businesspeople during the campaign and transition, many of which are currently the object of Robert Mueller"s ongoing probe - Kushner said he had four such meetings or interactions. Additionally Kushner initially omitted to disclose any contacts with foreign officials as required on a security clearance form. He only updated the form later on several occasions to include what he has said were more than 100 contacts with foreign officials.

That said, the Trump"s lawyers were not united in their condemnation of Kushner.

John Dowd, who first joined the legal team in June and now heads it, said in an interview Monday that “to my knowledge” the proposal wasn’t taken to Mr. Trump. Mr. Dowd also said he did not side with some of his colleagues who believed Mr. Kushner needed to go.

“I didn’t agree with that view at all. I thought it was absurd,” Mr. Dowd said. “I made my views known.” He called Mr. Kushner “absolutely terrific” and “a great asset, real gentleman, a pleasure to work with.”

Yet despite the reticence of the pro-Kushner camp, the process appears to have been rather involved. By June, some members of the legal team aired their concerns to Mr. Trump including in at least one meeting in the White House. At this time, press aides to the legal team began to prepare for the possibility that Mr. Kushner would step down, "drafting a statement explaining his departure."

The one person whose opinion matters the most, however, was not convinced:

"Trump wasn’t persuaded that Mr. Kushner needed to leave. One person said Mr. Trump’s view was that Mr. Kushner hadn’t done anything wrong and that there was no need for him to step down."

The current fate of the Kush-lash is unclear, further complicated by the recent transitions inside Trump"s legal team itself which underwent a major overhaul in July.

The legal team has been reshuffled since it was first assembled in late May, after the Justice Department appointed Special Counsel Robert Mueller to oversee the federal probe of Russian interference in the U.S. election. In mid-July, Mr. Dowd took over leadership of the team from Marc Kasowitz, Mr. Trump’s longtime attorney.

Mr. Kasowitz in a statement said: “I never discussed with other lawyers for the President that Jared Kushner should step down from his position at the White House, I never recommended to the President that Mr. Kushner should step down from that position and I am not aware that any other lawyers for the President made any such recommendation either.”

For his part, while Kushner has repeatedly denied any links to Russia, writing in a July statement that “I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government,” some of Mr. Trump’s attorneys worried that "Mr. Kushner’s continued employment carried risks that could possibly involve other White House officials."

Events hit a crescendo on July 8, when news broke of the previously undisclosed June 2016 meeting that involved a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin, Kushner and Donald Trump Jr.

Anticipating that the meeting would become public, members of the legal team in June already had developed talking points to manage the political fallout—including a statement that would explain a potential Kushner resignation. The statement on behalf of Mr. Kushner expressed regret that the political environment had become so toxic that what he viewed as a standard meeting was becoming a weapon for Mr. Trump’s critics, according to two people familiar with the documents.

But, as events have since revealed, those talking points were never used, at least not yet, especially since they would prompt even more questions whether Kushner is departing as he is hiding something.

That said, now that this major media "trial balloon" has been leaked and the public has been duly put on notice, it is hardly inconceivable to assume that as Trump considers who to dump next ahead of the oncoming Mueller juggernaut, his own son-in-law may be next in the firing line. And should Jared be exit stage left, followed promptly by Ivanka, virtually nobody from Trump"s original team will be left standing, aside from Trump that is... and all the ex-Goldman guys of course.

Kushner: "Trump Campaign Was Too Incompetent To Collude With Russia"

President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and special adviser Jared Kushner has inadvertently produced a stunningly effective counternarrative to the allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to tilt the election in the former reality television star’s favor.

In response to a question asked during a private meeting with White House interns, Kushner joked that the shambolic Trump campaign was too disorganized and incompetent to pull off such a remarkable coup.

“They thought we colluded, but we couldn’t even collude with our local offices,” Kushner told congressional interns during a private talk at the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington on Monday afternoon. The remarks were first reported by the magazine Foreign Policy, which was provided a transcription of Kushner’s remarks by an unnamed source.

The legal ramifications of Kushner"s remarks weren"t lost on Foreign Policy, which noted that Kushner’s characterization of the campaign could lay the foundation for an effective defense should Special Counsel Robert Mueller decide to pursue criminal charges.

“For investigators attempting to determine whether Trump’s associates knowingly worked with Russia to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a defense claiming chaos and confusion might be the key difference between criminal behavior and incompetence.”

It might even be enough to satisfy Congressional investigators who’re looking into Kushner’s role in a June 2016 meeting organized by Donald Trump Jr. and UK publicist Ron Goldstone where the Trump was promised compromising material on Hillary Clinton, but instead received a pitch about repealing the Magnitsky Act. Kushner reportedly left the meeting after ten minutes, and claims he didn’t see the exchange about what Trump has described as an attempt to procure “opposition research” in an email chain forwarded to Kushner’s blackberry.

Kushner answered a question about Mueller’s investigation, though he appeared reluctant to speak in detail, essentially answering with a shrug.

“After his talk, Kushner answered questions from interns on issues including the investigation into the Trump campaign’s potential ties to Russia and his SF-86 clearance forms.

“We don’t know where it’s going,” he said, when asked about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia.”

Kushner also played down the many absences in his foreign travel and contacts disclosure form while applying for a security clearance. Kushner has previously said that the omissions were caused by a miscommunication between himself and one of his assistants. Kushner has since updated those forms multiple times to include meetings that were highlighted in media accounts.

“’There are 127 pages on the SF-86, but there are only two you guys have to worry about,’ he said. ‘Make sure you guys keep track of where you travel.’

Kushner said he didn’t track contacts because he didn’t expect to get into politics, though he worked on his father-in-law’s campaign from the early stages.”

According to FP, Kushner also bragged about Trump’s freeing of an Egyptian-American nonprofit worker who was being held in Cairo. The worker, Aya Hijazi, was freed after Trump publicly embraced Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

“Kushner said they made a ‘great deal’ with Sisi, who had ‘basically destroyed the Muslim Brotherhood,” by taking him aside and asking for a better arrangement.’”

Ironically, the account of Kushner’s remarks was leaked even after the intern director warned those present not to leak the contents of the speech, was meant to be off the record. The director had apparently heard a rumor that some of the attendees wanted to hand over notes to their congressional offices, which may have leaked them to journalists.

“I’m a lot more comfortable talking to you guys today ’cause there isn’t any press,” Kushner said.

It’s truly unfortunate that Trump fired Anthony Scaramucci before he could clean house at the White House internship program.
 

Even The Washington Post Admits "The Quest To Prove Russian Collusion Is Crumbling"

By Ed Rogers via The Washington Post,

While everyone is fixated on President Trump’s unbecoming and inexplicable assault on Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the media has been trying to sneak away from the “Russian collusion” story. That’s right. For all the breathless hype, the on-air furrowed brows and the not-so-veiled hopes that this could be Watergate, Jared Kushner’s statement and testimony before Congress have made Democrats and many in the media come to the realization that the collusion they were counting on just isn’t there.

As the date of the Kushner testimony approached, the media thought it was going to advance and refresh the story. But Kushner’s clear, precise and convincing account of what really occurred during the campaign and after the election has left many of President Trump’s loudest enemies trying to quietly back out of the room unnoticed.

Cable news airtime and in-print word count dedicated to the nonexistent collusion story appear to be dwindling. Democrats and their allies in the media seem less eager to talk about it, and when they do, they say something to the effect of “but, but, but … Kushner didn’t answer every question … He wasn’t under oath … There are still more witnesses … What about this or that new gadfly?” They are stammering. And it hasn’t taken long for news producers and editors to realize that the story is fading.

At last, the story that never was is not happening.

There are a few showstoppers from Kushner’s testimony that make it obvious to any fair-minded, thinking person that there was no collusion with Russia. In his own words, Kushner makes it clear that his actions were innocent but, at times, misguided and ill-conceived. He plainly states he had “hardly any” contacts with Russians during the campaign and found his June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and the infamous Russian lawyer to be an absolute “waste of time.”

Democrats and their allies in the media have exhausted themselves building a scandalous narrative surrounding the Russian lawyer meeting, but according to Kushner, the meeting was so useless that he “actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after [he] had been there for ten or so minutes and wrote ‘Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.”’ Maybe the collusion didn’t take very long, or maybe he realized what the lawyer had to say was a useless farce and he wanted to get on with his day.

Much to the dismay of Trump’s haters, Kushner’s account of events even further proves just how far the media has stretched the collusion story. When the campaign received an official note of congratulations from Russian President Vladimir Putin the day after the election, Kushner had to send Dimitri Simes of the Center for the National Interest an email asking for the name of the Russian ambassador so that he could reach out and confirm the message’s authenticity.

So, that’s that. If you can’t remember your handler’s name, you can’t be guilty of nefariously colluding with that person. How much collusion could Kushner have possibly done with someone whom he had so little communication with that he could not remember his name and did not know how to contact him?

Sure, there are others still in the crosshairs of the collusion-hunters, but Kushner has been the biggest target if for no other reason than he is the only one serving in the White House. Paul Manafort is a private citizen, and he departed the campaign before the general election campaign really started. Donald Trump Jr. is implicated only in the one ill-advised and now-shown-to-be-pointless encounter with a few gadflies. The media can knock itself out trying to find some left-behind paperwork or some other scrap to hang onto, but the dead end is in sight.

The quest for collusion is crumbling.

With the Democrats and their allies in the media beginning to walk away from the collusion story, the single biggest thing keeping this story alive is the president’s obsession with it. No doubt the issue will continue to be irresistible to some of Trump’s haters. Some will never believe the truth, no matter what else is revealed. But if Democrats and the president’s worst enemies can begin to silently acknowledge the obvious and move on, perhaps Trump can, too. Maybe now he will see the futility of continuing to whine, tweet, moan and seethe about the whole non-affair. Maybe the president will now see that he should leave Sessions alone so that he can get on with his work. Maybe he will let special counsel Robert S. Mueller III quietly do his job and the whole “Russian collusion” affair won’t even be a footnote in the retelling of the story of the Trump campaign.

BLUMENTHAL THEORIZES: CONSPIRACY CHARGES POSSIBLE FOR TRUMP WHITE HOUSE

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

Back in 1997, Harold J. Nicholson, a former employee for the CIA, was sentenced to 23 years in jail for conspiring with the Russian government. Tonight on Hardball, Sen. Blumenthal went off the deep end of his own conspiratorial bend -- proclaiming that both Flynn, Kushner and others in the Trump White House could succumb to conspiracy charges.

When discussing the matter of Flynn, the host, Chris Mathews, asked the Senator if he should be given immunity, so that he could spill the beans on the President -- inferring that Trump had something to hide that Flynn knew about. Both Blumenthal and Mathews then started to theorize, incredulously as if disconnected from the real world, a grande Russian scheme had taken place -- all at the behest of Trump, that could land Flynn 15 years in prison.

Mathews then staggered on, praising the press for providing the public with leaks, revealing what he deemed to be "Russian shenanigans", saying "the press should be commended".

"All these Russian things going, all the time, and the only reason why we know about them is the press."

Hmm, I wonder why democrats keep losing elections.

Jared Kushner Under Investigation By Special Counsel: Wapo

It must have been a slow news day for the Washington Post as the paper of record appears to be regurgitating the same headline it already reported nearly a month ago. In any event, WaPo would like you to know that more anonymous sources, presumably from Special Counsel Mueller"s team  (expect another furious Trump tweet in response) have leaked more details to the media, according to which Trump"s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is now being investigated by Mueller for potential ties to the "Russian interference" scandal.

Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller is investigating the finances and business dealings of Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, as part of the probe into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, according to officials familiar with the matter.

FBI agents and federal prosecutors have also been examining the financial dealings of other Trump associates, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Carter Page, who was listed as a foreign policy adviser for the campaign.

Wait, didn"t we already know this? Well yes: this seems to be pretty much the same headline that both the Washington Post and NBC ran nearly a month ago (see "Jared Kushner "Under FBI Scrutiny" In Russia Probe: NBC") and provides no additional details on why Kushner may be a person of interest in the investigation. Here is what NBC reported, and Wapo confirmed, on May 25th:

Jared Kushner, the president"s son-in-law and one of his senior advisers, has come under FBI scrutiny in the Russia investigation, multiple U.S. officials told NBC News.

Investigators believe Kushner has significant information relevant to their inquiry, officials said. That does not mean they suspect him of a crime or intend to charge him.

The FBI"s scrutiny of Kushner places the bureau"s sprawling counterintelligence and criminal investigation not only on the doorstep of the White House, but on the cusp of the Trump family circle. The Washington Post first reported last week that a senior White House official close to Trump was a "person of interest," but did not name the person.

While not discussed by the WaPo, perhaps the bigger issue here is that there now appear to be virtually daily leaks coming directly from Mueller"s team.  Which, if true, would put his team"s motives, if not credibility, into question as a result of leaks intent on adversely impacting the administration they"re investigating. 

Meanwhile, when asked for comment, Kushner"s lawyer apparently told the Washington Post he had no idea what they were even referring to.

“We do not know what this report refers to,” said Jamie Gorelick, a lawyer for Kushner. “It would be standard practice for the Special Counsel to examine financial records to look for anything related to Russia. Mr. Kushner previously volunteered to share with Congress what he knows about Russia-related matters. He will do the same if he is contacted in connection with any other inquiry.”

Another day, another headline and yet - still no facts and no evidence of wrongdoing. 

Ann Coulter Tells Hannity AG Sessions Needs To 'Come Out Swinging' As Entire Point Of Special Counsel Has Evaporated

Ann Coulter went on Sean Hannity"s radio show Monday to discuss Attorney General Jeff Sessions" upcoming testimony tomorrow in front of the Senate Intel Committee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Coulter said Sessions needs to "come out swinging" - defending his meetings with the Russian Ambassador, while making the case for dissolving the FBI"s Special Counsel investigation headed by former FBI head Robert Mueller - as it"s almost entirely based on now disproven allegations of obstruction and political revenge by President Trump which in Coulter"s words have "evaporated."

I"m depressed because Republicans are just instinctive losers. We"re going to see a replay of Donald Rumsfeld apologizing for Abu Ghraib - well that was the end of Donald Rumsfeld. That. Was. The. End. Do not apologize Republicans. Jeff Sessions needs to come out swinging and say "that was nonsense, I was trying to be nice - but I"m not recusing myself and I"m firing Mueller."

Coulter then puts the whole "met with the Russian diplomat" thing in context...

Coulter: Why did Jeff Sessions recuse himself Because he met wit the Russian Ambassador which every other senator has done? His job at the time - let"s play this back, he wasn"t Vice President, he wasn"t Steven Miller writing the speeches. He wasn"t even Roger Stone for Pete"s sake. His job was United States Senator.

Yes, he endorsed Donald Trump and introduced him at a few AL rallies. As his full time job, United States Senator, he met with the Russian Ambassador - as did a dozen democrats! That"s what you do, as you know and have probably surely talked about. Claire McKaskill was tweeting out about her meeting with the Russian Ambassador. Dianne Feinstein - there are pictures of them all meeting with the Russian Ambassador. There is nothing improper about Jeff Sessions meeting with the Russian ambassador - and on that, he recuses himself and they demand a special counsel on the false claim - which Comey allowed to sit out there, that Donald Trump himself was personally under investigation.

Jared Kushner is the only reason to continue investigating.

Coulter says that of all the people currently working in the White House, there"s nobody whose actions or connections justify the special counsel aside from Jared Kushner...

Coulter: The only one who"s a the White House is the President"s son in law. If he [Jared Kushner] leaves, there"s no basis for an independent counsel.

Lying MSM

Hannity: Sessions is gonna go in there tomorrow. And Sessions did his job as Senator, and the media is going to go insane and I assume the networks are going to cover this. I"ve never seen such outright lying to the American people by the press in my life, and I"m not sure what the answer is to get them to stop and maybe for a second, you know, just try to stand true to their mission of objectivity a little bit.

Coulter: Sessions has got to say the entire point of having an independent counsel has evaporated with James Comey"s eventual, reluctant admission that Trump is not under investigation - so he"s not recusing himself, he"s firing Muller...  ...the only possible downside is that the media will be hysterical! Will anyone notice the difference? They"ve been calling for his impeachment before he was sworn in!

Sean Hannity then confidently tells Coulter that Trump was bluffing about the tapes

Coulter:  On Friday on Lawrence O"Donnell they had an entire segment on "what if Trump destroyed the tapes?" So we"re already in never-never land on what if"s, and we must impeach...

Hannity: Ann, I can assure you - there are no tapes. That was Trump saying "I may have "em" to get in his head.

Coulter: It worked, it got Comey to tell the truth about a few major [things]... Trump himself wasn"t under investigation. The other part is the truth about what he said about Michael Flynn. I mean it"s so clear now even in Comey"s description of it...

Listen here:

  

Jared Kushner "Under FBI Scrutiny" In Russia Probe: NBC

Update:  Just like last week"s bombshells, the Washington Post managed to publish an almost identical confirmation of NBC"s story within minutes...almost like they coordinated...

And, just like NBC, the Washington Post was careful to hedge their salacious title (though multiple paragraphs down in the body of the article) by pointing out that Kushner is not technically a "target" in any investigation and has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

The Post has not been told that Kushner is a target — or the central focus — of the investigation, and he has not been accused of any wrongdoing. Target is a word that generally refers to someone who is the main suspect of investigators’ attention, though prosecutors can and do bring charges against people who are not marked with that distinction.

Breaking: Jared Kushner now a focus in Russia investigation https://t.co/h3WiyrIkC6

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 25, 2017

* * *

Last week when the Washington Post first reported that a senior White House adviser and "someone close to the president" was under scrutiny by investigators looking into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, we noted speculation from the Twittersphere suggesting that that "someone" might be Jared Kushner (see "Unnamed White House Official Under FBI Investigation In Russia Probe").  Now, at least according to NBC, and information garnered from more anonymous sources, it seems that speculation may have been accurate. 

Jared Kushner, the president"s son-in-law and one of his senior advisers, has come under FBI scrutiny in the Russia investigation, multiple U.S. officials told NBC News.

Investigators believe Kushner has significant information relevant to their inquiry, officials said. That does not mean they suspect him of a crime or intend to charge him.

The FBI"s scrutiny of Kushner places the bureau"s sprawling counterintelligence and criminal investigation not only on the doorstep of the White House, but on the cusp of the Trump family circle. The Washington Post first reported last week that a senior White House official close to Trump was a "person of interest," but did not name the person.

Not surprisingly, NBC"s report is lacking on actual facts on why Kushner may be a "person of interest" in the FBI"s inquiry but is long on innuendo as they point out that he met at least once in December with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, and he also met last year with a Russian banker, Sergey Gorkov.

Meanwhile, Kushner"s lawyer told NBC that he expects to cooperate if contacted in regards to any inquiry.

"Mr. Kushner previously volunteered to share with Congress what he knows about these meetings," Kushner"s lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, told NBC News. "He will do the same if he is contacted in connection with any other inquiry.

Of course, despite the sensational headline, NBC"s report still offers no facts to support their larger thesis of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign...but it does help advance the provocative narrative just a bit further...

Kushner Family Tells Rich Chinese: Invest $500,000 and Immigrate to the United States

By EconMatters

I was debating whether to put this post on our sister site Asia Pop Culture, but decided EconMatters.com seems a more appropriate place.  

Washington Post journalists attended the last Saturday presentation at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Beijing saw and heard the pitch to the rich Chinese -- They could obtain EB-5 investor visas to the U.S. if they invested at least $500,000 into one of the Kushner family’s development projects.

The presentation was reportedly delivered by Nicole Kushner Meyer, sister of Jared Kushner. As you know, Jared Kushner is the presidential adviser and son-in-law, husband of Ivana Trump.

Now what is EB-5 visa exactly? Wikipedia explains that the EB-5 visa provides a method of obtaining a green card for foreign nationals who can invest from $500,000 to one million dollars in a "new commercial enterprise" in the United States. The program has been criticized as akin to “U.S. citizenship for sale,” and it has come under scrutiny after a series of fraud and scandals.

According to the Post, the tagline on a brochure for the event:

“Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States.”

The New York Times reported that during the presentation, there was a slide describing Donald Trump as a "key decision maker" about the future of the EB-5 program.  So the potential investors were then advised to "invest sooner rather than later in case visa rules change under the Trump administration."

“Invest early, and you will invest under the old rules,” one speaker said.

A slide displaying President Trump as the key decision maker in the EB-5 program (graphic source: New York Times)

The highlight of the event was Meyer, a principal for the company, who was described in promotional materials as Jared Kushner"s sister.  Meyer told the audience of about 100 wealthy Chinese investors that the project "means a lot to me and my entire family."

The Post said it well in a nutshell:

".....the session Saturday demonstrated that the [Kushner] company is perceived as enjoying close ties to the Trump administration. Ethics laws prohibit government officials from profiting personally from their public-sector work."

Can this be any more obvious a ploy to cash in and take advantage of the Kushner family new proximity to power?

I"m not a legal and ethics expert....  But since Jared Kushner has indicated that he has divested from the family business, the loophole of the so-called Ethics Law could be that Jared"s sister is not exactly a "government official"?  So if the sister"s company benefits, it will not be on Jared?  I"m pretty sure the money will eventually find Jared.....

Anyway, I guess we will wait to see how the spin doctors will find a way out of this "incredibly stupid and highly inappropriate" mess as described by Richard Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer in President George W. Bush’s administration.  Well that is how the rich gets richer, and ........  

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Thank God 'The People' Are Back in Power: Kushner Family Pitches 'Invest $500k, Immigrate to America' Visa Program in China

Representatives from the Kushner family descended upon the Ritz Carlton in Beijing to pitch wealthy Chinese the EB-5 visa program aka crony capitalism.

Nicole Kushner, Jared"s sister, was alleged to be in attendance.

The pitch was “Invest early, and you will invest under the old rules,” according to the Washington Post.

The event, which was closed to foreign press, was hosted by the Chinese company Qiaowai -- who is working on behalf of the Kushner family for one of their projects in New Jersey.

It"s dubbed the "Kushner 1" project, like Airforce 1 only cooler: “This project has stable funding, creates sufficient jobs and guarantees the safety of investors’ money, read one of the promotional brochures.

The materials painted Jared as a "celebrity" in America, encouraging rich Chinese to trust their status and business acumen in America -- which is funny considering the ruinous state of their crown jewel property 666 5th avenue (extra anti-Christ). The Kushner"s are trying to restructure the 666 deal, bringing in Chinese insurance giant Anbang, in an effort to finance a massive expansion and conversion of the top floors into posh condos.

Thank God "the people", plumbers, electricians and all of the other rubes, are running America again. Get the wall up, unless of course all Mexican migrants are willing to fork over $500,000 to invest.
Content originally published at iBankCoin.com