KUSHNER FIRM ACCUSED OF FILING FALSE RECORDS.

BUILDING PERMITS

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s real estate company routinely filed false documents as it pushed vulnerable tenants out of its apartment buildings, according to a new Associated Press report that adds to the business scandals complicating Kushner’s role in his father-in-law’s administration.

Kushner resigned as chief executive of Kushner Cos. before joining President Donald Trump’s administration last year. But he still has a stake in the family business, the AP wrote — and was in charge of the company between 2013 and 2016, when the company allegedly filed at least 80 false applications for construction permits with New York City.

The company stated on the paperwork that no tenants — in at least 34 buildings it owned across New York — were protected by special rules that would have prevented Kushner from raising rents or harassing residents to leave, the AP wrote.

In reality, the AP wrote, tax records showed that hundreds of tenants were protected by such rules.

By allegedly misleading the city, Kushner’s company was able to clear several buildings of tenants and resell the properties for huge profits.

The AP cited three Queens buildings that the company bought in 2015, for example, inheriting as many as 94 rent-protected units. The company allegedly hid all of them from the city’s Department of Buildings when it applied for construction permits. Most of those tenants had moved out two years later, when the company sold the three buildings for US$60 million — “nearly 50 per cent more than it paid,” the AP wrote.

In a statement to The Washington Post, Kushner Cos. said it outsourced the paperwork in question to a third-party company.

“If any forms were filed that contained ministerial errors, it was unintentional and corrected as soon as found ... Regarding the specific buildings mentioned, all identified issues were resolved or are in the process of being resolved expeditiously.”

Without offering details, the company suggested that it made the city aware of its protected tenants in “simultaneous filings” and had no financial incentive to mislead anyone.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Kushner, whose signature was not on any of the documents in question.

Although he no longer leads Kushner Cos., his financial history has come up in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether Trump’s presidential campaign illegally worked with the Russian government, The Washington Post reported.

Kushner has also been accused of meeting with potential foreign investors in the company during the presidential transition, The Post wrote.