House Oversight Committee Democrats are demanding details on a White House review of whether top adviser Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of President Trump, violated ethics rules in connection with $500 million in loans from Wall Street to his family-owned firm, Kushner Cos.
While Kushner stepped down as CEO of the business to join the White House, his “refusal to divest his financial interests in Kushner Cos. and his work on matters that, at a minimum, appear to impact those interests, may be illegal” if he hasn’t taken the steps required under ethics rules, Oversight Ranking Member Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois said in a letter to White House Counsel Donald McGahn.
Noting that they were referred to McGahn by the Office of Government Ethics, the two requested more information on a review his office is conducting into loans from Citigroup and Apollo Global Management, reported by the New York Times in late February. Jared Kushner had previously met with Apollo co-founder Joshua Harris and Citi CEO Michael Corbat in the White House, the Times said, citing people it didn’t identify.
The letter follows nearly a month of heated questions from Democrats to the White House, Kushner’s firm and the two lenders over what transpired, aggravating an already rocky year for Kushner. Assigned a wide-ranging portfolio that ranges from Israeli-Palestinian peace talks to overseeing government streamlining and job creation, Kushner — the husband of Trump’s daughter Ivanka — has faced challenges including the loss of his top-level security clearance in addition to scrutiny of his company’s business dealings.
“It would be a serious matter if the loan provided to Kushner Cos. by Citigroup resulted in a violation of federal ethics laws,” Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Gary Peters and Tom Carper said in a March 8 letter to Citi’s Corbat.
The $325 million loan from Citi, completed in March 2017, helped finance a group of office buildings in the Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood known as Dumbo, shorthand for “Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.”
The loan from Apollo, for $184 million and completed in November of that year, was used to refinance a 31-story office building in the Chicago business district referred to as the Loop.
Both Apollo and Citi have said the loans were part of their normal operations, and not influenced by the White House meetings with Kushner.
Citi has counted Kushner Cos. as a client for decades, General Counsel Rohan Weerasinghe said in a letter to the Demcratic senators obtained by the Washington Examiner. The bank began working on the loan in question in late 2016, before Kushner was in the White House, and by the time Citi’s CEO met with Kushner on March 3, 2017, it was “far along the standard process and it had already received the preliminary credit, risk and business approvals,” the attorney wrote.
The transaction didn’t require Corbat’s approval, Weerasinghe added, and the CEO was unaware of it until it was reported in the Times. A Citigroup spokesperson declined to comment on Tuesday.
Apollo’s loan, meanwhile, represented only a fraction of the $4.3 billion in credit extended by the company’s commercial real estate business in 2017, Kevin Downey, an attorney for the company, wrote in a letter obtained by the Washington Examiner.
Harris, Apollo’s co-founder, never discussed any loans to Kushner Cos. when meeting with Jared Kushner, and the Chicago transaction was worked out between Apollo and the professional staff of Kushner Cos., which didn’t include any members of the family, Downey wrote.
The White House didn’t respond to a message seeking comment on the matter Tuesday.
McGahn’s office, for its part, has been non-responsive to requests from House Democrats on what steps have been taken to address claims about Kushner’s conflicts of interests, Cummings and Krishnamoorthi wrote, demanding information by April 10.
“Your silence is disturbing given the increasing number of allegations about Mr. Kushner using his role in the White House to benefit his family’s company,” they said.
