This is the second part of the blog that began on Friday, May 19th about possible bribery and extortion being carried out by the Trump administration. Today, the focus is on a business deal with the Jaren Kushner family real estate business and Jared's position as senior adviser to President Trump. I'm basing my narrative on reporting by Rachel Maddow from her Thursday, May 18th MSNBC show and on a Vanity Fair article by Bess Levine on March 2, 2018.
Background: Despite his position as senior adviser to the president, Jared Kushner has been unable to obtain a top level security clearance, due at least in part to his habit -- in meetings with foreign government officials -- of mixing discussions of government policy with discussions of his family's businesses and their financial needs. He's apparently done this with more than one country, including China, possibly Qatar, and others.
Background: The Kushner family owns a skyscraper building at 666 Fifth Avenue, which they paid too much for and now are having trouble making loan repayments. So they are desperately seeking new co-investors. Jared was involved in the purchase, but he divested himself of controlling interest in it when he joined the White House staff. At least this is what he says. Nevertheless, other members of his family have not shied away from using the WH connection in soliciting co-investors for their businesses. Jared's sister did this blatantly on a recent trip to Asia seeking investors.
Background: The small, but immensely oil-rich, Middle Eastern nation of Qatar is the site of the largest U.S. air base in the Middle East, with some 10,000 U.S. military personnel stationed there. The headquarters of the U.S. military Central Command is located there. For decades, the U.S. has considered Qatar a close and vitally important ally, and there have been friendly relations between the two countries.
Timeline:
April 2017: Jared Kushner's father, Charles, met with Qatari Finance Minister seeking an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in 666 Fifth Avenue. He was turned down.
May 24, 2017: The Qatar News Agency was hacked and a fabricated news statement, attributed to the Emir, was posted. The United Arab Emirates government was later determined to be behind the hack, and the damaging false statement was used as a pretext for the ensuing hostile reaction from Qatar's neighbors.
June 5, 2017: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt severed diplomatic ties with Qatar and instituted an air, land and sea blockade of the peninsula country, which has a common land border only with Saudi Arabia. Their rationale was stated to be alleged connections of Qatar with terrorism and suspect relations with Iran. Jared Kushner had by this time become close friends with the young crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson denounced the blockade, but President Trump contradicted him in a statement later that same day, in which he supported the blockade and accused Qatar of fostering terrorism. This came as a complete surprise not only to Tillerson but to other White House aides, who had apparently not been consulted by Trump. However, it was no surprise to Jared, because it was the same as he was saying in undermining Tillerson.
This was a sudden, unexplained reversal in the relationship with a close ally and host of our command military base.
Qatari officials told reporters that they believed the White House position may have been retaliation driven by Jared Kushner in response to the failed real estate deal that Charles Kushner had sought from them. They pointed out that it was only a few weeks after they denied the Kushner request and the onset of the blockade.
The blockade has continued and the diplomatic relations with Qatar strained -- until a few weeks ago.
April 2018: President Trump's tone over recent months softened toward Qatar. He began referring again to Qatar as an ally, and he stopped accusing them of terrorism. He hosted the Emir of Qatar in the Oval Office, saying that it was a "great honor" to have him there and that he is "a friend of mine" and that they were working closely together. Also Secretary of State Mike Pompao was dispatched to tell the Saudis and the Emiratis to back off on the blockade.
May 17, 2018: The New York Times reported that the Kushners were close to finalizing a deal with the Qatar-linked Brookfield Properties, an investment group in which the official Qatari Investment Authority owns the largest financial share.
Conclusions: No, there is no actual smoking gun here. But follow the timeline closely. Qatar turns down the Kushner loan request. A few weeks later, Qatar is attacked and blockaded by its neighbors who are friendly to the U.S. Jared and Trump turn hostile toward our ally Qatar and support the blockade.
Now this seems to be reversing -- and we learn that the Qatari financial authority is making the loan. Trump suddenly becomes friendly with Qatar again.
It's going to be hard to convince me, for one, that this is not a case of abuse of U.S. government power to punish an ally for refusing a personal load for the business of the president's family -- and then, when the former ally gives in and agrees to the loan, all is friendly again.
Extortion and bribery, not just in the White House, but in the Oval Office itself. The thing is that I'm not sure that Donald Trump sees anything wrong with this. It's the way he has operated as a business man. And he is incapable of seeing his current job as any different. He has no moral compass to tell him that this is wrong, and he is too self-centered and stubborn to hear anyone else try to tell him.
Rachel Maddow's conclusion: "Even if this isn't the selling of U.S. foreign policy; even if this isn't the blatant shakedown and extortion of a U.S. ally, shaking down for payments to the family of a government official under the threat of that country losing its favored status of the U.S. government; even if it's just coincidence -- it sure looks like it is [extortion] and makes the Qatari government think that, to regain favored status, you have to submit to extortion, to pay the bribe."
And that is no way to run a democracy.
Ralph
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment