$HADY

Democrats Looking Into Potential Billion-Dollar Qatari Campaign to Influence Jared Kushner: FT

“We remain troubled that Qatari funds ended up in a billion-dollar rescue for a company directly tied to Jared Kushner,” wrote Democratic lawmakers.

Democratic lawmakers in the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Finance committees are looking into Jared Kushner’s real estate and foreign policy dealings. In 2018, Kushner’s family accepted a bail-out from a company known as Brookfield Asset Management whose second-biggest stakeholder is the government of Qatar. The family had been looking for assistance making a $1.2 billion mortgage payment. Simultaneously, the U.S.’s policy towards Qatar shifted in a friendlier direction, brokering the end of a Saudi blockade that had been in place since 2017.

The Kushner family had been searching for help with its struggling skyscraper at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Brookfield Asset Management bought the ground lease under the building and paid nearly 100 years of rent upfront. “While Brookfield has claimed that Qatari representatives had no involvement in the 666 Fifth Avenue transaction,” a statement from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) reads, “We remain troubled that Qatari funds ended up in a billion-dollar rescue for a company directly tied to Jared Kushner.”