He was
supposed to be the calm one, cool and unflappable under his Ray-Bans and
beltless blue bespoke suits. If Steve Bannon was the Rumpelstiltskin of the
administration, donning multiple half-tucked dress shirts at a time and always
carrying a clutch of briefing papers and barreling through the administrative
state, Jared Kushner, through pedigree and temperament, could reach out one of
his long, elegant fingers and tap everyone in the West Wing on the shoulder and
urge them to just cool out a bit. In a White House sullied by ties to Russia
and all sorts of unsavory characters from the fringe, Kushner was set to float
above, surrounding himself with fellow figures from the elite worlds of
Manhattan finance and real estate and deep-sixing the harder-edged ideas of the
White House’s “nationalist” wing.
Except
that isn’t quite how it has gone in the White House over the past several
months. It was Kushner who reportedly pushed for the firing of FBI Director
James Comey over the objections of Bannon. And it was Kushner who was the lone
voice urging for a counterattack after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein
announced the appointment of a special prosecutor, according to the New York
Times. And it is now Kushner whose family’s business activities leave him open
to the same level of conflict-of-interest charges that have dogged his wife and
father-in-law, and Kushner who appears to be as closely tied to the Russian
government as anyone serving in the White House: NBC News and the Washington
Post reported Thursday that the FBI is taking a close look at his contacts with
the Russians.
How does Trump solve a problem
like Jared Kushner? Politico
Magazine
Report: Jared Kushner
Described as Litigious Slumlord by Former Tenants
Although White House senior adviser Jared Kushner is known
for his family company’s high-end apartment complexes in New York, a report by The New York Times on Tuesday uncovered several lesser-known properties
throughout Baltimore, where former tenants described Kushner as a neglectful
slumlord preying on the lower middle class with frivolous lawsuits. Former
tenants of properties owned by JK2 Westminster LLC—a subsidiary of Kushner
Cos.—said they were hit with lawsuits for minor violations or baseless
accusations years after moving out. One woman interviewed in the report, Kamiia
Warren, a single mother of three, said she moved out of her apartment in 2010
after receiving written permission to break her lease. But she said she was
slapped with a lawsuit three years later claiming she’d never given notice, a
move that resulted in her wages being garnished and her bank account cleaned
out—for $3,014.08. “It was just pure greed,” Warren was quoted as saying. “They
know how to work this stuff. They know what to do, and here I am, I don’t know
anything about the law.” JK2 Westminster was listed as the plaintiff in 548
similar cases in Maryland’s District Court system, with many of the cases filed
over broken leases or minor disputes in which the tenant doesn’t seem to be at
fault, according to the report. Current and former tenants at numerous units
said JK Westminster’s property-management arm Westminster Management, was
neglectful in its upkeep. Daily
Beast
