FAMILY BUSINESS

Jared Kushner’s $1.4B Luxury Hotel Gets Approval Days Before Inauguration

Kushner’s plans for luxury hotel projects in eastern Europe “look like favoritism,” says ethics lawyer

Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has been granted preliminary approval for his plan to construct a $1.4 billion luxury hotel on a bomb site in Albania. His wife Ivanka Trump will “help” with the luxury “eco-resort” hotel complex, which will be built on an abandoned military base currently littered with buried munitions. Kushner’s foreign-funded Affinity Partners is managing the project, which is also investing in a Serbian luxury hotel project in a building which was bombed by NATO in the 1999 war. The projects could create the perception of a conflict of interest between Trump and foreign governments, said Obama-era ethics lawyer Virginia Canter, speaking to The New York Times. Trump will be in charge of the foreign policy relating to Albania and Serbia, which both want U.S. support for their efforts to join the E.U. “It looks like favoritism, like they are providing access to Kushner because they want to be on the good side of Trump,” Canter said.