I asked Kushner's sister whether $150 mil in Chinese investment posed a conflict of interest. "Leave us alone!" her entourage yelled. pic.twitter.com/fpwFBqltXT
— Javier C. Hernández (@HernandezJavier) May 6, 2017
For all the work Jared Kushner is (supposed to be) doing for the President-Asterisk, surely his blood clan deserves a little sumpin-sumpin on the side. (/snark) Per the Washington Post:
BEIJING — The Kushner family came to the United States as refugees, worked hard and made it big — and if you invest in Kushner properties, so can you.
That was the message delivered Saturday by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s sister to a ballroom full of wealthy Chinese investors, renewing questions about the Kushner family’s business ties to China.
Over several hours of slide shows and presentations, representatives from the Kushner family business urged Chinese citizens gathered at the Ritz-Carlton hotel to consider investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a New Jersey real estate project to secure what’s known as an investor visa.
The EB-5 immigrant investor visa program, which allows foreign investors to invest in U.S. projects that create jobs and then apply to immigrate, has been used by both the Trump and Kushner family businesses.
But President Trump’s vow to crack down on immigration, as well as criticism from members of Congress, has led to questions about the future of a program known here as the “golden visa.”…
Saturday’s event in Beijing was hosted by the Chinese company Qiaowai, which connects U.S. companies with Chinese investors. The tagline on a brochure for the event: “Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States.”
Qiaowai is working with Kushner to secure funding for Kushner 1, a real estate project in New Jersey. Promotional materials tout the buildings’ proximity to Manhattan and note that the project will create more than 6,000 jobs…
Journalists were initially seated at the back of the ballroom, but as the presentations got underway, a public relations representative asked The Post to leave, saying the presence of foreign reporters threatened the “stability” of the event.
At one point, organizers grabbed a reporter’s phone and backpack to try to force that person to leave. Later, as investors started leaving the ballroom, organizers physically surrounded attendees to stop them from giving interviews.
Asked why reporters were asked to leave, a public relations representative, who declined to identify herself, said simply, “This is not the story we want.”
As the NYTimes article points out, apart from the indignity of selling safe havens to rich ferriners, this ‘investment program’ doesn’t do much for the rural areas that gave Trump their votes & allegiance. Nobody hoping to escape China’s polluted skies and local politics is going to drop a half-mil or more in East Armpit, MS — they want a blue-state haven where their kids can get a decent education and they can find the sort of restaurants and shops that the Kushners and the Trumps frequent.
Open Thread: ‘Golden Visas’ – Always Be Grifting!Post + Comments (55)