Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
News that House Democrats may be investigating the cash infusion the Kushner Companies' 666 Fifth Avenue New York office tower received in summer 2018, is the latest Trump administration headache. The Wall Street Journal and other mainstream media are also pointing the finger at this senior White House official's indirect connection to foreign money since Kushner has been assisting in Middle East policy on behalf of the U.S. government.
Representative Maxine Waters from California, who’s been hot on the trail of President Donald Trump since before his election, is joined by other senior political figures in pushing for yet another investigation. Waters told Axios that she and Elijah Cummings, chair of the House Oversight Committee, had been having private discussions about investigating a deal that debt bailed the Kushner family out of a disastrous 666 Fifth Avenue investment of $1.8 billion back in 2007. Back in August, Brookfield Asset Management said they had taken 99-year lease on 666 Fifth Avenue, the troubled Midtown tower owned by the family of Donald Trump’s son-in-law.
Jared and his father Charles Kushner had already sold 666 Fifth’s most valuable asset — the Fifth Avenue retail space — for upards of $520 million, the proceeds of which went to pay down the staggering debt. The investment was a bad one from the start since only 30% of the building was leased at the time of the sale. Then when the recession hit, new tenants became as scarce as the proverbial hen’s teeth. When longtime tenants began an exodus, the Kushners were really in a pickle.
The deal got on Representative Waters’ radar when it was discovered that Qatar Investment Authority is Brookfield's second-largest investor. To further exacerbate the situation, it was about the same time that Brookfield finalized the acquisition of Westinghouse Electric, a nuclear power company. Last month the House Oversight Committee released a report alleging members of the Trump administration proposed selling nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia over the objections of top national security advisors. TIME and other mainstream media covering the investigation opened amid claims by unnamed whistleblowers who said there were “abnormal acts” performed by the White House during the run-up to building nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia.
Trump senior advisor with regard to developing a Middle East peace plan and economic proposals involving the Saudis is his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. So, the discovery that Qatar is now a major investor in Kushner’s affairs wreaks of bad news for a Trump administration already besieged by
