White House senior adviser Jared Kushner [TRDataCustom] to date has kept 90 percent of his national real estate assets, according to an analysis of his ethics disclosures.
Although Kushner reportedly divested from marquee properties like 666 Fifth Avenue and the upcoming tower at Jersey City’s One Journal Square, he’s so far elected to keep the overwhelming majority of interest in a real estate empire that stretches from Manhattan to Missouri, the Washington Post reported.
But little more is discernible from the ethics disclosures, which mostly list difficult to trace shell companies. The Washington Post identified 124 residential properties Kushner has kept, with the value of his retained interest ranging between $132 million and $407 million.
Ethics experts question whether any of these assets will create conflicts of interests in Kushner’s domestic and foreign policy dealings at a time that he is following along the side President Donald Trump on a foreign tour that includes visits to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Belgium and Italy.
Kushner’s representatives admitted that the 36-year-old White House aide left out a number of assets he should have disclosed on his first ethics report, such as a stake in the real estate investment platform Cadre, owned through an LLC called BFPS Ventures. As such, they will file an amended report in the near future and have also stated it’s possible Kushner will sell more of his holdings.
It’s also difficult to determine what Kushner’s reasoning is for divesting some assets and not others is. The Washington Post was not able to obtain Kushner’s full ethics agreement from the Office of Government Ethics. When asked by reporters why Kushner had retained a stake in 30 Journal Square but divested from One Journal Square (the project for which sister Nicole Kushner Meyer traveled to China to woo potential EB-5 investors), Kushner’s representatives answered: “30 Journal Square is a separate project that did not pose the same complexities, including EB-5 financing, as One Journal Square.” [Washington Post] — Will Parker
(To view a list of properties owned by Kushner Companies in NYC, click here)