This whole story is worth reading, but here are some highlights.
Over several hours of slide shows and presentations, representatives from the Kushner family business urged Chinese citizens gathered at a Ritz-Carlton hotel to consider investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a New Jersey luxury apartment complex that would help them secure what’s known as an investor visa.
The tagline on a brochure for the event: “Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States.”
While [Jared] Kushner has reported divesting from elements of the family business, including the specific project that his sister pitched in Beijing, the session Saturday demonstrated that the company is perceived as enjoying close ties to the Trump administration. Ethics laws prohibit government officials from profiting personally from their public-sector work.
Watchdogs and ethics experts on Saturday criticized the Beijing event as an attempt to cash in on Kushner’s newfound proximity to power.
“It’s incredibly stupid and highly inappropriate,” said Richard Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer in President George W. Bush’s administration, who has become a vocal critic of the Trump administration. “They clearly imply that the Kushners are going to make sure you get your visa. . . . They’re [Chinese applicants] not going to take a chance. Of course they’re going to want to invest.”
And the kicker? China doesn’t even like this program.
The program has been extremely popular among rich Chinese, who call it the “golden visa” and are eager to get their families — and their wealth — out of the country. The fact that some use it to move their money out illegally, however, has made the program unpopular with the Chinese authorities.
Perhaps someone from our delegation could request an Ethics review of this?
I heard about this on Morning Edition and was shocked at how blase even NPR seemed to treat this incident. Especially considering how much crap the Clintons got for far more innocuous real estate deals within the continental United States-let alone abroad. The corruption is so brazen, and it pains me to see America develop an immunity to it and normalize it so quickly. This is really unprecedented in the history of the family-Saudi princes are subjected to more conflict of interest scrutiny than the Trump spawn.
“The corruption is so brazen”
I don’t disagree but that’s what the EB-5 program is. It’s buying a visa pure and simple. And even if they are selling access to the President, would that at all be different than any type of fundraising ever?
This would be a good time to remind folks of the not insubstantial role that Chinese and other foreign investors have in driving up housing prices in the US. The Chinese middle class in particular see real estate, both local and overseas, as a safe investment and frequently buy homes that they never occupy or rent out. Clearly the Trumps, with their large Real Estate holdings, want to keep the gravy train flowing.
I think this is mainly commercial real estate, but to your point, it’s even more Trump=y.
Timely comment Marcus-Gerry Chan is basically buying up Harvard and Central square and destroying many longtime local businesses. Upstairs on the Square, Leo’s Place, and now the 127 year old Keezers have all been gobbled up by his real estate empire.