‘TAKE THE GUNS FIRST’
Trump angers gun lobby in a striking display of political theatre, while a top aide quits and questions arise over Kushner loans.
Early last year, a private equity billionaire started paying regular visits to the White House.
Joshua Harris, a founder of Apollo Global Management, was advising Trump administration officials on infrastructure policy. During that period, he met on multiple occasions with Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, said three people familiar with the meetings. Among other things, the two men discussed a possible White House job for Harris.
The job never materialized, but in November, Apollo lent $184 million (U.S.) to Kushner’s family real estate firm, Kushner Cos. The loan was to refinance the mortgage on a Chicago skyscraper.
Even by the standards of Apollo, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, the previously unreported transaction with the Kushners was a big deal: It was triple the size of the average property loan made by Apollo’s real estate lending arm.
It was one of the largest loans Kushner Cos. received last year. An even larger loan came from Citigroup, which lent the firm and one of its partners $325 million to help finance a group of office buildings in Brooklyn, New York.
That loan was made in spring 2017, after Kushner met in the White House with Citigroup’s chief executive, Michael L. Corbat, according to people briefed on the meeting.
There is little precedent for a top White House official meeting with executives of companies as they contemplate sizable loans to his business, say government ethics experts.
“This is exactly why senior government officials, for as long back as I have any experience, don’t maintain any active outside business interests,” said Don Fox, the former acting director of the Office of Government Ethics during the Obama administration and, before that, a lawyer for the Air Force and Navy during Republican and Democratic administrations. “The appearance of conflicts of interest is simply too great.”
The White House referred questions to Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, who did not dispute that the meetings took place.
Peter Mirijanian, a spokesperson for Lowell, said in a statement that Kushner “has met with hundreds of business people.” He said Kushner “has taken no part of any business, loans or projects with or for” Kushner Cos. since joining the White House and he has followed ethics advice.
Christine Taylor, a spokesperson for Kushner Cos., said Kushner’s White House role had not affected the company’s relationships with financial institutions. “Stories like these attempt to make insinuating connections that do not exist to disparage the financial institutions and companies involved,” she said.
An Apollo spokesperson, Charles V. Zehren, said Harris was not involved in the decision to loan money to Kushner Cos. He said the loan “went through the firm’s standard approval process.”
A Citi group spokesperson, Danielle Romero-Apsilos, said Kushner Cos. had been a bank client before the election and the relationship had no connection to Kushner’s White House role.