Vancouver’s Trump Tower developer had no contact with FBI or Kushner
The Malaysian owner of the Trump tower in Vancouver has not been questioned by the FBI and has not dealt with the U.S. President’s son-in-law, his lawyers said in a statement released Monday.
The Holborn Group, owned by Joo Kim Tiah, was responding to a report that on Friday quoted two unnamed sources who said U.S. counter-intelligence officials were investigating Ivanka Trump’s role in the building of Trump International Hotel and Tower Vancouver.
CNN reported the FBI has scrutinized the international business deals of Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner to determine if the deals could leave them vulnerable to pressure from foreign agents, including from China.
“Holborn Group and Joo Kim Tiah have not been contacted by FBI or any authorities with regards to matters raised in the CNN media report,” the statement from Holborn Group lawyers said.
The statement said Tiah’s business relationship with the Trump Organization “extends only to a brand licensing and hotel management” for the hotel and tower on West Georgia in downtown Vancouver. A Trump Organization spokesman has said the same.
The Holborn Group statement said the deal for the Vancouver project was struck in 2013, before Donald Trump announced he was running for the U.S. presidency.
Tiah and Holborn Group did business with Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, and Ivanka’s involvement was “specifically on interior design,” the lawyers said.
“Neither Holborn Group nor Joo Kim Tiah have any interaction or business dealings with Jared Kushner whatsoever,” the statement said.
“The entire development of the Trump International Hotel and Tower Vancouver was funded by Holborn Group (and its partner) TA Global Berhad.”
The Vancouver property opened in February 2017, a month after Trump took office. It was built with foreign money and attracted foreign investors. CNN cited the unnamed officials as saying the investigators may have targeted it for those reasons.
The news follows Kushner’s recent security clearance downgrade, to secret from top secret. Kushner has been dogged by stories about mixing public and private business, meeting foreign officials at the White House and then seeking significant loans from related parties for his father’s company.
The land title for the Vancouver tower lists West Georgia Holdings Inc. as the owner and Joo Kim Tiah as the sole director. In January 2016, Tiah became CEO of Kuala Lumpur-based TA Global Berhad, an arm of the corporate giant founded by his father.
The publicly traded investment holding company develops and manages properties in Asia, Australia and Canada.