Kushner Profit from PPP and Pardons
In addition to profiting from PPP Loans during the pandemic, Jared Kushner's attorney appears to have pursued a bribery scheme involving pardons, that likely would have implicated Kushner and Trump.
A substantial investigation into an alleged pardoning scheme by the Trump administration was recently conducted by Department of Justice officials that involved Jared Kushner’s lawyer and a former top fundraiser for Donald Trump, who recently pleaded guilty to felony conspiracy charges.
The plan appeared to be a bribe in exchange for amnesty for a man convicted of tax evasion and Social Security fraud on behalf of a billionaire real-estate developer, who was allegedly prepared to pay off the President of the United States.
The heavily redacted court documents were released on Tuesday by a federal judge, who disclosed the existence of the investigation into possible unregistered lobbying and bribery, and ordered the remainder of the redacted probe information be unsealed.
Hugh L. Baras, a renowned Berkley-area psychologist, was sentenced to thirty months in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $593,513 to federal agencies on July 31, 2014. Baras had opened a private practice on the side, and had omitted reporting any income from the independent operation, that generated over one million dollars within a four year period.
Sanford Diller, an extremely wealthy friend of Baras, from the San Francisco area, engaged the assistance of entrusted members of the Trump administration to help secure a pardon for Baras. The arrangement, investigated by the Justice Department, involved Mr. Diller making “a substantial political contribution” to an unspecified recipient in exchange for a pardon from President Trump.
Diller worked with Elliott Broidy, a former top fund-raiser for President Trump, who is facing a five year prison sentence, and Abbe Lowell, a DC-area lawyer who represents Jared Kushner.
Among others, Trump has commuted the sentences of former Sheriff Joseph Arpaio, Roger J. Stone Jr., Dinesh D’Souza, Michael Milken and former National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn. President Trump has also discussed the option of pre-emptive pardons for his three eldest his children, Jared Kushner and his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani — these discussions took place as recently as last week with his advisors.
This latest investigation reveals that the attempts at securing a pardon, through Kushner’s personal attorney, subsequently ceased after Sanford Diller died in 2018. Ultimately, no bribe was actually paid and Mr. Baras was not granted clemency — he went to prison in June 2017 and was released in August 2019. But, neither Broidy, nor Lowell registered as lobbyists, which means that their actions potentially violated lobbying laws in addition to bribery laws.
In addition to Kushner’s peripheral involvement in this latest pardons for sale scheme, the Small Business Administration (SBA) released a data set this week after eleven news outlets sued for the public release of information. The documents, released on Tuesday, found that tenants paying rent at properties owned by the Trump Organization, as well as Jared Kushner’s own corporate holding, Kushner Companies, benefited financially from the PPP Loan program.
The PPP loans were intended as a government bailout, that would deliver emergency funding to the most desperate small business in America during the pandemic. But the newly released data proves that once Trump and Kushner tenants received these loans, they were then required to put the federal bailout money toward rent in order to have the loans forgiven.
In July of this year, the SBA and the Treasury Department released detailed data on the loans made under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), and only those who received a loan greater than $150,000 were publicly disclosed. While the exact amounts of each loan were not fully available at the time, it was revealed that businesses tied to Jared Kushner accessed PPP loans and had received funding.
In addition to entities with financial ties to Trump and Kushner receiving substantial PPP loan funding, several of these borrowers failed to preserve a substantial number of jobs, which was the ultimate intent of the program. NBC News has confirmed that the newly released data also shows:
Over 25 PPP loans worth more than $3.65 million were given to businesses with addresses at Trump and Kushner real estate properties, paying rent to those owners. Fifteen of the businesses self-reported that they only kept one job, zero jobs or did not report a number at all.
The loans to businesses located at Trump and Kushner properties included a $2,164,543 loan to the Triomphe Restaurant Corp., at the Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York City. The company reported the money didn’t go to keeping any jobs. It later closed.
A company called LB City Inc, which is located at Kushner’s Bungalow Hotel in Long Branch, New Jersey, received a loan for $505,552.50 that it used to keep 155 jobs.
Two tenants at 725 5th Avenue, Trump Tower, received more than $100,000 and kept only three jobs.
Four tenants at the Kushner-owned 666 5th Avenue received more than $204,000 combined and retained only six jobs.
Senior Advisor Jared Kushner looks on as Trump speaks before signing the United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House on January 29, 2020. (Photo by Drew Angerer/via Getty Images)
This latest SBA data now definitively proves that not only did businesses with personal ties and connections to the Trump Organization and Kushner Companies receive prioritized funding, but they also have many options to have the loans completely forgiven. These latest reports also prove that both Donald Trump and Jared Kushner sought to enrich themselves personally as a result of delivering preferential access to PPP loans. They essentially used their tenants to act as middle men, indirectly filtering government funds to themselves.
Both the SBA and Treasury Department are agencies under the direction of the President of the United States. The earlier refusal by both of those federal agencies to release information that was crucial to the public, now appears suspect in light of the recently revealed data on PPP loans.
The refusal by the SBA to release this data until now, appears as if both Trump and Kushner have a vested interest in keeping the details of these loan disbursements confidential, and intended to keep them secret until Trump had either secured his second term, or was due to leave office.
When you examine the way in which Trump has abused his pardon powers, by delivering them as favors to those who have close personal or political connections to him, the concept of him engaging in an elaborate bribery scheme seems quite plausible. If Trump was willing to put emergency aid, meant to keep Americans out of food lines, into his own pockets, it’s not much of a jump to assume that he would sell off pardons to the highest bidder.
The last few weeks since the election have also shown Trump to be a man desperate to retain his status. The numerous lawsuits filed on his behalf by the Trump Campaign, including the press conferences made to look like legitimate hearings and official court proceedings in critical swing states, also reflect the frantic lengths to which Trump will go to preserve his power and immunity.
Make no mistake, the next several years will be dedicated to dissecting the many instances of abuse of power and illegal emoluments by Trump and his family in the courts. Trump’s latest discussions about pre-emptive pardons for everyone highlights the looming legal dangers and only adds to the likelihood that Trump and Kushner appear willing to say and do anything to make money — including actively brokering in an underground pardoning service that seemingly costs them nothing.
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Amee Vanderpool writes the SHERO Newsletter and is an attorney, published author, contributor to newspapers and magazines and analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.
I will long be dead before the investigations into this criminal presidency* have even cracked the surface of the transgressions, illegal activities, scamming, grifting, and, yes, murder of Americans it has committed.
We - the large we of the voting-age public - did this. We stopped paying attention to politics. We stopped believing we matttered, that our votes mattered until 2020, until four years of ceaseless corruption, sedition, and treason slapped us in the face. It's too late now, IMO, to stop the momentum of the Trump cabal, even though he will not be president. Biden and Harris will be assaulted ceaselessly with lies and obstruction by the now Trumpist Party.
I'm 73 so I've seen venality and corruption and greed and self-dealing in Congress and politics generally but nothing I've seen rises to more than a collection of misdemeanors compared to what's happened - what we still don't know happened - with this damaged human in power.
Today, this moment, I feel despair about the next four years and the future past that. We don't have the tools to diagnose the disease Trump, the Trump pandemic of evil because that is what this has been, and we have 70M+ diseased cells in the body politic who may never be cured of their devotion to him.
I do appreciate your dogged pursuit of this coward, Amee.
I could not finish the article, I became so upset I started to shake. I received no help when COVID shut me down, I did not qualify for anything. Because I'm a small business. I'm sorry, I don't like to wish ill on people, but.....I hope they are tried, convicted, go to jail, then rot in hell!