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Last year House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer acknowledged former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House advisor Jared Kushner had “crossed the line” when he accepted $2 billion in foreign investment funds from the government of Saudi Arabia as he started up a private investment firm just months after leaving the White House.
Now, Rep. Comer (R-KY) says he will not open an investigation into any possible wrongdoing, Huffpost reports, despite top Democrats alleging Kushner engaged in “apparent influence peddling and quid pro quo deals.”
On Tuesday, the top Democrat on Comer’s Oversight Committee, ranking member Jamie Raskin, and Democrat Robert Garcia (D-CA), the ranking member on the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, formally requested Comer “convene a hearing regarding Jared Kushner’s apparent influence peddling and quid pro quo deals involving investments in exchange for official actions and to examine the resulting threats to our national security.”
“This Committee cannot claim to be ‘investigating foreign nationals’ attempts to target and coerce high-ranking U.S. officials’ family members by providing money or other benefits in exchange for certain actions while continuing to ignore these matters,” Raskin and Garcia wrote. “We therefore urge you to work with us to finally investigate Mr. Kushner’s receipt of billions of dollars from foreign governments in deals that appear to be quid pro quos for actions he undertook as senior White House adviser in Donald Trump’s Administration.”
The American people are deeply concerned about these business dealings and Mr. Kushner’s apparent influence peddling. We must address
those concerns with a fair, impartial, and public process to understand the truth and to institute meaningful reforms to safeguard public confidence in our executive branch.”
The two Democrats in their letter say their “request comes in light of allegations that Jared Kushner is pursuing new foreign business deals, just as Donald Trump becomes the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency. Last year, well before these new allegations came to light, Chairman Comer had already conceded that Jared Kushner’s conduct ‘crossed the line of ethics’ and promised that the Oversight Committee would ‘have some questions for Trump and some of his family members, including Jared Kushner.'”
Raskin and Garcia paint a picture of “Kushner’s pattern of profiting off of his time in the White House.”
Citing The New York Times (apparently this article), they write, “Jared Kushner was closing in on investments in Albania and Serbia, leveraging relationships he built during his time as a senior adviser in his father-in-law’s White House. Reportedly, Mr. Kushner is considering an investment on the site of the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense.”
“Mr. Kushner is reportedly being advised by Richard Grenell, another former senior Trump Administration official who served as U.S. Ambassador to Germany and, concomitantly, as ‘special envoy for peace negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo.’ Mr. Grenell reportedly ‘pushed a related plan’ for redevelopment of the same site during his time in the Trump Administration.”
“In pursuing investment opportunities in Albania, Mr. Grenell and Mr. Kushner have been openly leveraging their relationship with Edi Rama, the Prime Minister of Albania. While Commander-in-Chief, President Trump received unconstitutional payments from Prime Minister Rama and other senior Albanian government officials who spent thousands of dollars at theTrump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., over three separate stays,” Raskin and Garcia write.
They also allege, “Mr. Kushner successfully overruled State Department officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, to make President Trump’s first foreign trip as President to Saudi Arabia. Mr. Kushner personally intervened to inflate the value of a U.S.-Saudi arms deal and to finalize the deal President Trump signed, which was worth $110 billion. Mr. Kushner
also provided diplomatic cover and support to the Crown Prince after the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, an American permanent resident and journalist. Mr. Khashoggi’s murder was assessed by American Intelligence to have been approved by the Crown Prince himself.”
Despite their extensive allegations, Comer is refusing to open an investigation.
“Unlike the Bidens, Jared Kushner has a legitimate business and has a career as a business executive that predates Donald Trump’s political career,” Comer said, as HuffPost reports. “Democrats’ latest letter is part of their playbook to shield President Biden from oversight.”
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
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Drawing by Jane Rosenberg/REUTERS
New York Supreme Court acting justice Juan Merchan may have prevented former President Donald Trump from attacking witnesses with his gag order, but Trump is still continuing his attacks on the judge and his daughter, Loren, unabated.
In a Thursday post to his Truth Social account — which is followed by roughly 7 million of the ex-president's most devoted supporters — the 45th president of the United States mentioned the judge's daughter by name in an angry screed calling for Merchan to be removed from the Manhattan hush money case.
"Judge Juan Merchan is totally compromised, and should be removed from this TRUMP Non-Case immediately. His Daughter, Loren, is a Rabid Trump Hater, who has admitted to having conversations with her father about me, and yet he gagged me," Trump wrote. "She works for Crooked Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Adam 'Shifty' Schiff, and other Radical Leftists who Campaign on 'Getting Trump,' and fundraise off the 'Biden Indictments' - including this Witch Hunt, which her father 'presides' over."
The ex-president's attacks Loren Merchan are likely due to her work as a political consultant. Her firm, Authentic Campaigns, has performed services for various high-profile Democratic clients including the Biden-Harris campaign. The company's website also features a testimonial from Schiff.
However, Trump's suggestion that Loren Merchan's political work is playing a role in how her father handles cases in his courtroom is unproven, as is his argument that she currently works for Biden. Earlier this week, NBC News reported that "There’s no available evidence to suggest that Merchan’s daughter has done any subsequent work for Biden and no evidence to suggest that she ‘now’ works for a Biden political operation."
Another major sticking point for Trump in his attacks on Merchan's daughter revolve around an account on X/Twitter with the handle @LorenM426, whose profile avatar is a photo of Trump behind prison bars. However, the Hill reported that Loren Merchan deleted the account more than a year ago. The New York Office of Court Administration (OCA) stated that the account has a different owner.
"It is not linked to her email address, nor has she posted under that screenname since she deleted the account," OCA spokesperson Al Baker said. “Rather, it represents the reconstitution, last April, and manipulation of an account she long ago abandoned.”
Judge Merchan is overseeing Trump's first scheduled criminal trial, in which the former president is defending himself against 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg aims to prove to the jury that the $130,000 hush money payment to adult film star and director Stormy Daniels was an illegal campaign expenditure, as the money was intended to buy her silence in advance of the 2016 presidential election.
While the trial was intiially planned to begin on March 25, the jury selection process was moved to April, after a last-minute document dump from the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY). In January, Trump requested records from the SDNY pertaining to its prosecution of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty in 2018 for his role in the hush money scheme, as well as for tax evasion. SDNY released more than 200,000 pages of documents in relation to Trump's request, prompting his attorneys to request a 90-day delay in proceedings. Bragg countered with a 30-day delay. Merchan ruled that the trial would instead start on April 15.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
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