The Hillreporter just published a very juicy story about Jared Kushner, the son in law and senior advisor of President Trump.
It says that Kushner, with the help of the Saudi clown prince Mohammad bin Salman, extorted Qatar for $1 billion to save his families real estate business in New York.
While the story sounds plausible and fits the public known timeline of other events, there is so far no evidence that supports it.
The tale is based on the work and information of author Vicky Ward, who recently published Kushner Inc – Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
Ward first talked through the story on yesterday's KrassenCast, a podcast by the anti-Trump and somewhat shady Krassenstein brothers who also run the Hillreporter.
In 2007, at the hight of the real estate bubble, the Kushner family bought the 666 5th Avenue building in New York City for $1.8 billion. Ten years later the Kushners were in real trouble. Plans to replace the building with a new one found no financing. The property was losing lots of money and a huge mortgage payment was due in January 2019. The family had to look for a bail out.
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In early 2017 the Kushner family had several meetings with Qatari officials to discuss a deal. The Intercept reported:
Joshua Kushner, a venture capitalist and the younger brother of White House adviser Jared Kushner, met with Qatari Finance Minister Ali Sharif Al Emadi the same week as his father, Charles Kushner, did in April 2017, in an independent effort to discuss potential investments from the Qatari government. Both meetings took place at Al Emadi’s St. Regis Hotel suite in Manhattan.
This revelation comes after Charles Kushner, in an interview with the Washington Post this week, confirmed for the first time that his meeting with Al Emadi had indeed taken place on the subject of financing for the underwater Kushner property at 666 Fifth Avenue.
According to Vicky Ward this is what happened next:
"What I have learned is that in the ensuing month [May 2017] before the US visit to Riyadh, Jared Kushner got on a plane and flew to Doha, the Qatari capital, and he reamed the Qatari ruling family, the al-Thanis, for not doing the deal with his father … They began to feel that he was indirectly threatening their sovereignty. The next thing they know, when they show up to the summit in Riyadh, the Emir, the ruler of Qatar, arrives with an entourage, but his entourage is suddenly cut off from him, and not allowed into the summit at the same time by the Saudis, which he felt was a move to deliberately make him look weak. You have to remember during this summit, Jared and Ivanka go off for a cozy secret unmonitored dinner with [Saudi Crown Prince] MBS. Nobody knows what they talked about.”
Fifteen days later the Saudis and the UAE blockade Qatar and send troops to its border. Trump supports the Saudi blockade against the advice of his Secretary of State Tillerson and his Defense Secretary Mattis and despite the fact the the biggest U.S. base in the area is in Qatar.
Nine months later, a Canadian company, Brookfield Partners, who the Qatari Investment Authority owns a $1.8 billion or 9% stake in, bailed out Kushner Properties, with a 99-year lease agreement for 666 5th Ave.
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Around this same time, President Trump publicly shifts course, no longer supporting the blockade, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tells Saudi Arabia to stop the embargo.
If the blockade of Qatar originates in a Kushner extortion scheme, as the story insinuates, it would have serious political consequences. But is that true?
The sequencing of the real estate deal and the change in the Trump policy on the blockade is somewhat problematic. The Trump shift was reported on April 29 2018 while the Brookfield Partner deal was first published about three weeks later on May 17:
Charles Kushner, head of the Kushner Companies, is in advanced talks with Brookfield Asset Management over a partnership to take control of the 41-story aluminum-clad tower in Midtown Manhattan, 666 Fifth Avenue, according to two real estate executives who have been briefed on the pending deal but were not authorized to discuss it.
The deal only closed in August 2018 on terms that had changed from the first report and were unusual:
Brookfield Asset Management has agreed to lease the troubled office tower for 99 years and is paying for the lease up front, rather than in the typical yearly ground rent, the Wall Street Journal reports. The financial terms of the deal were not made public, but the New York Times reports that Brookfield is paying $1.1B.
What was the real sequencing here? Was the property deal agreed upon before the Trump administration changed its stand on the Qatar blockade or after that happened? Was it related to it or not? We don't know.
There is no public record of the alleged Jared Kushner flight to Qatar. There is so far no other evidence that would support the story.
The tale fits the publicly known timeline, but that is not enough to believe it. Its authors may have used the public timeline to then fit a story onto it.
It is possible that the Kushner property deal and the Qatar blockade are intimately intertwined but there is, so far, no proof for it.
That idea that Kushner played the Saudis is dubious. The other way around is more likely.
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Saudi Arabia and the UAE had plenty of reason to blockade Qatar. Both countries fear the Qatari support for the Muslim Brotherhood. They hate Qatar's Al Jazeerah TV because it often publicly opposes their policies. The Saudis need money and annexing the very rich Qatar would solve all their problems.
Brookfield Properties denies that Qatar or the Qatari investment agency had any involvement in 666 5th Ave. deal.
Even if Qatar, through Brookfield, made a deal with the Kushner family, it does not mean that it was extorted. The Qatari rulers might simply have hoped that the deal would help them. It did not. The blockade still continues despite the real estate deal.
Trump had his own reasons to support the Saudis Qatar blockade. He wanted them to buy as many U.S. weapon system as possible, if only to beat out Obama, who sold the Saudis all sorts of military trash for a record amount of money.
During the Mueller Russia investigation lots of smoke seemed to show that there was a 'collusion' fire burning somewhere under the hundreds of facts and figures. There wasn't.
The story about the Kushner 'extortion of Qatar' might create a similar 'the walls are closing in' (vid) farce only to end up with nothing.
It is interesting that the Vicky Ward story was published on March 29, a day after Jared Kushner was interviewed behind closed door by the Senate Intelligence Commission:
President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner returned to the Senate Intelligence Committee for a closed door interview Thursday as part of the committee's Russia investigation.
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The first time Kushner appeared before the panel in 2017, he was interviewed by committee staff. The committee has wanted to re-interview witnesses central to the investigation. On Thursday, senators were sitting in on the interview.
Russiagate is really finished. The Republican's rule the Senate. Why would they continue to interview Kushner and why would senators sit in on it?
Might the 'Kushner extorted Qatar' be a planned sequel to Russiagate or why else was it launched right now?
