“Mr. Soros’s family office said it had invested [in Kushner’s business] in early 2015 before Mr. Trump declared his presidential candidacy.” Kushner’s business “Cadre also secured a $250 million line of credit from the family office of Mr. Soros, a top Democratic donor.”
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“Immigration” was solved in Nov. 2016 election with unconditional promise of a wall, so why is White House holding meetings about it in 2019? If Trump wants to ignore the Nov. 2016 election then that’s what The Hill should be writing about:
1/25/19, “Head of Koch-affiliated group praises Kushner after immigration reform talks,” The Hill, Julia Manchester
“The president of the Libre Initiative, on Friday, praised his meeting with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner on immigration and President Trump’s proposed southern border wall as “constructive” and “productive.”
“It was very constructive, productive. We felt Jared was an honest broker,” Daniel Garza told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton on “Rising.”
The Libre Initiative is a conservative, Latino non-profit that is affiliated with the Koch Network.
The White House hosted the Libre Initiative, along with other Latino organizations including the League of United Latin American Citizens, and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, to discuss immigration reform, in hopes a broader deal could help end the partial government shutdown which is now in its second month.
“We’re trying to get to a space where we can all find agreement,” Garza said. “Where the left gets to a win by getting their priority. Presumably, that’s their priority, the DACA kids.”
“And the right gets their priority, which is what the president is asking for, $5.7 billion which includes infrastructure along the border,” he said.
President Trump has demanded $5.7 billion for his long-promised border wall, but Democratic lawmakers have refused the funding request.
Trump on Saturday proposed a deal that would have provided three years of legislative relief for about 700,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program recipients in exchange for funding for a steel barrier at the border. Democrats, though, rejected that proposal. ”
Added: National Review article about wonderful Jared and Koch Brothers:
Sat., 1/26/19, “Can the Koch Network and Jared Kushner Come Up with a Big Immigration Reform Deal?” National Review, Jim Geraghty, Indian Wells, California
“This morning, the Koch Seminar Network – more often referred to as “the Koch network” or “the shadowy Koch brothers” by gravely-voiced attack ad announcers – kick off their three-day winter meeting with the government at least temporarily reopened but the landscape in Washington deeply unsettled.
Thursday, Daniel Garza, the president of one of the Koch network’s affiliate groups called the Libre Initiative, met at the White House with officials in the administration to discuss a larger deal on immigration reform. Libre Institute president Daniel Garza told HillTv hosts the meeting, which included leaders of other Latino groups, was “very constructive, productive. We felt Jared [Kushner] was an honest broker.”
Kushner has proven the network’s most valuable negotiating partner in the White House, playing a key role in the criminal justice reform legislation passed late last year. Ideas in that legislation, particularly anti-recidivism programs in federal prisoners, were the centerpiece of last year’s winter meeting.
But two of the open questions as the Koch donors gather at the luxury resort outside Palm Springs are just how much can get done in Washington with divided government [not so– entire government agrees on open borders] and the jockeying for position in 2020 starting already, and just what kind of a deal President Trump is willing to accept. [“Deal?” The deal was made in the Nov. 2016 election.] Last year Brian Hooks, president of the Charles Koch Foundation and Charles Koch Institute, applauded the administration’s proposal of “legal certainty” for Dreamers, and indicated the network hoped the administration could go a step further for the Dreamers: “A path to citizenship is enormous incentive to continue to contribute to this country.” This year, the network is expected to push for a permanent solution to the Dreamers’s current legal status.
Politics makes strange bedfellows; this will put the Koch network on the same side as many Democratic lawmakers who have decried their allegedly sinister influence for many years. [Which was just for show. Everyone in the Beltway is on the same “side”-open borders]. Earlier this month, Congressional Democrats rejected the administration’s offer of three years of legislative relief for about 700,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program recipients in exchange for $5.7 billion in steel barriers. Democrats appear unwilling to accept a temporary reprieve for the Dreamers in exchange for a permanent structure on the border.
Immigration is certain to come up at some point during the winter meeting, but the main focus in the coming days will be the theme “unleash the potential in everyone,” with an emphasis on programs, organizations and legislative proposals that address problems such as chronic unemployment, drugs and addiction, and poverty.
The Koch network boasts, with some strong evidence, that it has become one of the most consequential forces in American politics, with what it calls a “permanent grassroots infrastructure in 36 states.” Besides the Libre Initiative, the network includes the most visible arm, Americans for Prosperity; Generation Opportunity, which focuses on Millennials; Concerned Veterans for America, which addresses veterans’ issues; and Stand Together, which endeavors to build social capital.
But 2018 was a rough year for some of the network’s favorite political allies. Governor Scott Walker lost in Wisconsin, and Nevada attorney general Adam Laxalt failed in his bid for governor. Five of Americans for Prosperity’s eight “policy champions” in the U.S. House of Representatives lost in 2018. But the Koch Industries Political Action Committee donated to most of the winning 2018 GOP candidates — Governors Ron DeSantis of Florida, Doug Ducey of Arizona, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Mike DeWine of Ohio and Greg Abbott of Texas, as well as senators Rick Scott of Florida, Mike Braun of Indiana, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota (despite the network saying they would not support his heavily-favored Senate bid because he was backing the administration’s tariffs) and Ted Cruz of Texas.
Another lawmaker who has addressed the winter meeting in past years, Kentucky governor Matt Bevin, is up for reelection this year and he appears to be in for a tough fight.”
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Added: Jared’s chosen connections:
Jared Kushner’s interests “include loans totaling at least $1 billion from more than 20 lenders, to properties and companies part-owned by Mr. Kushner…. He has also provided personal guarantees on more than $300 million of the debt….Deutsche Bank and RBS are among entities to whom he’s given personal guarantees.…Cadre also secured a $250 million line of credit from the family office of Mr. Soros, a top Democratic donor.….Mr. Soros’s family office said it had invested [in Kushner’s business] in early 2015 before Mr. Trump declared his presidential candidacy.”…Kushner has business “ties to a broad swath of U.S. and foreign banks, private-equity firms, real-estate companies and government-owned lenders.”…
May 3, 2017, “Trump Adviser Kushner’s Undisclosed Partners Include Goldman and Soros,” Wall St. Journal, Jean Eaglesham, Juliet Chung, Lisa Schwartz
“Investments show ties to major finance and technology names.”
“Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, is currently in business with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and billionaires George Soros and Peter Thiel, according to people familiar with the matter and securities filings.
The previously undisclosed business relationships with titans of the financial and technology worlds are through a real-estate tech startup called Cadre that Mr. Kushner cofounded and currently partly owns.
Goldman and Messrs. Soros and Thiel, as well as other billionaires’ firms, also have stakes in the company, which is based in a Manhattan building owned by the Kushner family’s company, according to people close to Cadre.
The Cadre stake is one of many interests—and ties to large financial institutions—that Mr. Kushner didn’t identify on his government financial-disclosure form, according to a Wall Street Journal review of securities and other filings. Others include loans totaling at least $1 billion, from more than 20 lenders, to properties and companies part-owned by Mr. Kushner, the Journal found. He has also provided personal guarantees on more than $300 million of the debt, according to the analysis.
In his disclosure form filed earlier this year, Mr. Kushner didn’t identify Cadre as among his hundreds of assets. The Journal identified his Cadre stake through a review of securities and other filings as well as interviews with people familiar with the company and Mr. Kushner’s finances.
Jamie Gorelick, a lawyer representing Mr. Kushner, said in a statement that his stake in Cadre is housed in a company he owns, BFPS Ventures LLC. His ownership of BFPS is reported on his disclosure form, although it doesn’t mention Cadre.
Ms. Gorelick said the Cadre stake is described in a revised version of his disclosure form that will be made public after it has been certified by ethics officials. She said Mr. Kushner has previously discussed his Cadre ownership with the Office of Government Ethics and that Mr. Kushner has “resigned from Cadre’s board, assigned his voting rights and reduced his ownership share.”
A spokesman for the Office of Government Ethics didn’t respond to a request to comment.
Ms. Gorelick said it is “very normal” for a financial-disclosure form to be revised and that the form was prepared by Mr. Kushner’s lawyers on his behalf. A White House spokeswoman referred questions to Mr. Kushner’s lawyer.
Trevor Potter, a Republican former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, and other ethics experts said investments such as Mr. Kushner’s ownership of Cadre typically need to be disclosed. They said Mr. Kushner didn’t appear to violate disclosure rules by not publicly reporting his business-related debts and guarantees. But they said such arrangements ideally should be disclosed, in part because they could force Mr. Kushner to recuse himself from certain issues involving the lenders.
“Anything that presents a potential for the conflict of interest should be disclosed so that the public and the press can monitor this,” Mr. Potter said.
Ethics experts’ concern is that Mr. Kushner’s business connections could jeopardize his impartiality in certain areas and that, absent disclosures, the public is in the dark about potential conflicts.
Mr. Kushner’s rapidly expanding responsibilities range from working on a Middle East peace deal to making the federal government operate more efficiently. As a senior federal official, he is bound by ethics laws that require him to recuse himself from matters that would directly affect his financial interests.
Ms. Gorelick, who was deputy attorney general in former President Bill Clinton’s administration, said Mr. Kushner will “recuse consistent with government ethics rules.”
Mr. Kushner, the 36-year-old scion of a real-estate family, agreed with federal ethics officials to divest himself of more than 80 assets after he and his wife, Ivanka Trump, were hired by her father, President Donald Trump, as senior aides. White House officials have said some of the sales were needed to avoid potential conflicts between Mr. Kushner’s far-reaching job duties and his personal financial interests.
Mr. Kushner is retaining more than 200 other assets, worth a total of at least $116 million, according to his disclosures. These are mostly apartments and office blocks around the U.S. Like his father-in-law, he has declined to put these assets in a blind trust, which ethics experts regard as the cleanest way to avoid conflicts of interest. Someone close to Mr. Kushner said there are practical problems that made a blind trust not a realistic option.
Mr. Kushner co-founded Cadre in 2014 with his brother, Joshua Kushner, and Ryan Williams, a 29-year-old friend and former employee of Kushner Cos., the family-controlled business that Mr. Kushner ran until recently. Cadre markets properties to prospective investors, who can put their money into specific buildings or into an investment fund run by Cadre, which collects fees on each deal.
To get off the ground, Cadre turned to a Goldman Sachs fund and a number of high-profile investors. Among them were the venture-capital firms of Mr. Thiel, Silicon Valley’s most prominent supporter of the GOP president, and Vinod Khosla, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems Inc., according to Cadre’s website. Personal backers include Chinese entrepreneur David Yu, co-founder with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Jack Ma of a Shanghai-based private-equity firm, hedge-fund manager Daniel Och and real-estate magnate Barry Sternlicht, people close to Cadre said.
Cadre also secured a $250 million line of credit from the family office of Mr. Soros, a top Democratic donor who Mr. Trump criticized during his presidential campaign, the people close to the company said. Mr. Soros’s family office is also an investor in Cadre.
The investors declined or didn’t respond to requests for public comment on their backing of Cadre, but a person familiar with Mr. Soros’s family office said it had invested [in Kushner’s business] in early 2015 before Mr. Trump declared his presidential candidacy.
Cadre has solicited money from investors for several Kushner Cos. real-estate projects, according to information sent to prospective investors and reviewed by the Journal. Jared Kushner personally has stakes in some of the real-estate projects for which Cadre has raised money, according to Cadre documents and his disclosure form.
While Mr. Williams acts as the public face of Cadre, Mr. Kushner remains one of the owners, with the power to “influence the [firm’s] management or policies,” according to the latest public information on file with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. Mr. Kushner’s company JCK Cadre LLC is shown as owning 25% to 50% of Quadro Partners Inc., which owns at least 75% of RealCadre LLC, which does business as Cadre. Mr. Kushner has reduced his ownership stake to less than 25%, his lawyer Ms. Gorelick said. [“Common stock and 35 investments had been sold to a trust overseen by Kushner’s mother, Seryl, with other assets going to his brother, Josh, and some more to third parties.]
Mr. Williams, chief executive of Cadre, said the company has been working with regulators to update its public filings to “reflect Jared’s nonoperational, nonmanagement relationship with the company, which has been in place since the inauguration.”
BFPS Ventures, the company that Mr. Kushner’s lawyer said holds his Cadre stake, is shown on his financial-disclosure form as owning unspecified New York real estate valued at more than $50 million. The form adds that “the conflicting assets of this interest have been divested.”
Beyond Cadre, some of the assets Mr. Kushner is holding on to are hard to pinpoint, partly because they are housed in entities with generic names such as “KC Dumbo Office,” according to the disclosure form.
The Journal matched many of the assets to specific real-estate investments. An analysis of the debts on those properties, using real-estate data services PropertyShark and Trepp LLC as well as property records, found ties to a broad swath of U.S. and foreign banks, private-equity firms, real-estate companies and government-owned lenders.
Lenders to Mr. Kushner, either directly or via properties he co-owns, include Bank of America Corp. , Blackstone Group LP, Citigroup Inc., UBS Group AG, Deutsche Bank AG and Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC. Royal Bank of Scotland didn’t respond to requests for comment; representatives of the other firms declined to comment.
Mr. Kushner will recuse himself from matters to which Deutsche Bank or RBS are parties because he has provided personal guarantees on their loans, said a person familiar with his ethics arrangement.”
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Added: “His [Jared’s] common stock and 35 investments had been sold to a trust overseen by Kushner’s mother, Seryl, with other assets going to his brother, Josh, and some more to third parties….Jared remains the beneficiary of family trusts worth $600 million to him and his wife, Ivanka.”
May 9, 2017, “Are Kushner family real estate assets a conflict for Jared?“ CBSNews.com, Larry Light
“It remains murky just how much Kushner has rid himself of family-related assets. In a White House briefing on March 31, officials said Kushner had resigned from more than 266 entities and “divested from most of those that may have created a conflict of interest.“ A report in Politico said his common stock and 35 investments had been sold to a trust overseen by Kushner’s mother, Seryl, with other assets going to his brother, Josh, and some more to third parties.
Nevertheless, The New York Times reported on Monday that Jared remains the beneficiary of family trusts worth $600 million to him and his wife, Ivanka, the president’s daughter.
What’s to stop Kushner later, after he leaves the White House, from becoming a beneficiary again and rejoining Kushner Cos.? Apparently nothing, according to Richard Painter, the White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush.
Painter, now a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, said the assets Kushner shipped to the trust “belong to the family,” and so he can reclaim them in the future.” …
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