Jared Kushner failed to disclose conflicts of interest with Goldman Sachs, various billionaires

The president's son-in-law was not forthcoming when he was supposed to mention all of his important financial ties

By Matthew Rozsa

Staff Writer

Published May 2, 2017 5:10PM (EDT)

Jared Kushner (AP/Evan Vucci)
Jared Kushner (AP/Evan Vucci)

The family of Jared Kushner — son-in-law and adviser to President Donald Trump — may have ended the talks with that Chinese real estate company which posed a serious conflict of interest, but apparently there is a lot that Jared Kushner himself will have to change about his financial portfolio if he wants to claim he's honestly representing the public interest.

Kushner failed to mention on his government disclosure forms both his multiple loans from various banks on properties that he co-owns and his co-ownership of a real estate finance tech startup, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. The latter business, known as Cadre, makes Kushner a partner of Goldman Sachs bank as well as influential billionaires George Soros and Peter Thiel.

One of Kushner's lawyers, Jamie Gorelick, explained in a statement that Kushner's stake in Cadre is housed by a company called BFPS Ventures LLC, which he disclosed as owning in the appropriate government documents. While this is true, however, the documents did not mention Cadre. Gorelick says Kushner's connection to Cadre is disclosed in a revised version of the form that Kushner plans on making public once it has been certified by ethics officials.

Gorelick also claims that Kushner mentioned his co-ownership of Cadre with the Office of Government Ethics and had "resigned from Cadre’s board, assigned his voting rights, and reduced his ownership share."

In addition to his connection to Cadre, the Journal reports that Kushner has loans amounting to at least $1 billion from more than 20 different lenders to both properties and companies that he co-owns. Of this debt, Kushner has personally guaranteed $300 million of it.

 

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By Matthew Rozsa

Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer at Salon. He received a Master's Degree in History from Rutgers-Newark in 2012 and was awarded a science journalism fellowship from the Metcalf Institute in 2022.

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Donald Trump George Soros Goldman Sachs Jared Kushner Peter Thiel