Firms hit by GOPer over Jared
The Republican chairman of a Senate committee has called for an investigation into “potentially fraudulent statements” made by companies touting business opportunities involving top White House adviser Jared Kushner’s family.
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent letters on May 24 to the Department of Homeland Security and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
He asked both agencies to look into claims made by Chinese migration agency Qiaowai and the US Immigration Fund during the marketing of the Kushner family’s One Journal Square Project in Jersey City to Chinese investors, Reuters reported.
The Immigration Fund, which is based in Jupiter, Fla., contracted with Qiaowai to find potential investors for One Journal Square through the EB-5 program, which offers qualified foreign investors the chance at a green card in exchange for a $500,000 investment in a US business.
Grassley said Qiaowai promoted its relationship with the Trump administration as a “guarantee that potential EB-5 investors will receive lawful permanent residence in return for a norisk investment in One Journal Square.”
Earlier this month, Nicole Kushner Meyer, Kushner’s sister, came under fire for bringing up her brother’s association with the Trump White House when she was hawking the One Journal Square project to wealthy Chinese investors during conferences in Beijing and Shanghai.
The meetings came just days after President Trump signed legislation renewing the EB-5 program, which is known as the “golden visa” in China.
She later apologized for using Jared’s name.
Grassley’s letter said the companies assured investors that Trump “would make sure [visas] came through” and “there was no chance it could fail.”
“It is a fundamental rule of the EB-5 program that an applicant’s investment must remain ‘at risk’ up to the end of the alien’s conditional permanent resident status, and a ‘guaranteed’ investment fails this basic EB-5 test; if Qiaowai is in fact guaranteeing the safety of the investment principal, all related EB-5 petitions should be rejected by USCIS,” Grassley wrote.
A spokesman for the Immigration Fund called the allegations “distortions” that are “unsupported by the facts.”