Jared Kushner is one of the Trump administration’s key voices on China policy. He played an instrumental role in arranging the meeting between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping that took place at Trump’s private club in Florida last month.
Like Trump, Kushner hasn’t totally divested from his business. He’s maintained a significant ownership interest in the company, and portions he has sold are now owned by a trust controlled by his family, raising concerns that the sale is merely a paper transaction.
And yet on Saturday, his sister, Nicole Kushner Meyer, was in Beijing making a sales pitch to wealthy investors in a presentation where she mentioned her brother and her family’s close connections with the president.
“In 2008, my brother Jared Kushner joined the family company as CEO, and recently moved to Washington to join the administration,” Meyer said. A slide featured an image of Trump and described him as a “key decision maker” with regard to the visa program she was trying to exploit for $500,000 investments in Kushner Companies’ luxury apartment development in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Here's a slide shown during Kushner Co. event in Beijing identifying @realDonaldTrump as "key decision maker" on EB-5 investor visa program pic.twitter.com/j1M4E7eGtQ
— Javier C. Hernández (@HernandezJavier) May 6, 2017
Reporters who attended the publicly advertised event were kicked out during Meyer’s presentation. A Washington Post journalist says she was “threatened, harassed, and forced to delete recordings” of the pitch.
I was threatened, harassed and forced to delete recordings and photos of The Kushner family recruiting Chinese investors in US Green cards. https://t.co/8IG5LzjbaU
— Congcong Zhang (@daphnewelkin5) May 6, 2017
People from the Chinese company that works with the Kushners on the investment visa surrounded me and grabbed my shoulder.
— Congcong Zhang (@daphnewelkin5) May 8, 2017
They tried to force me to leave, then grabbed my phone. I could only get it back if I agreed to delete all recordings and videos.
— Congcong Zhang (@daphnewelkin5) May 8, 2017
My phone was not connected to a VPN at that time so saving to Google drive was not possible because of Chinese internet controls.
— Congcong Zhang (@daphnewelkin5) May 8, 2017
In exchange for their investment, investors receive a two-year visa that comes with a likelihood of subsequently receiving permanent status. Bloomberg reported last year that Kusher Companies raised $50 million for the Jersey City project from the controversial EB-5 program. They’re now seeking more.
“Applicants are sometimes cleared in less than a month and the critics say the government is essentially selling visas to wealthy foreigners with no proven skills, paving the way for money laundering and compromising national security,” Bloomberg reported.
But Trump, who has made cracking down on immigration a cornerstone of his presidency, signed a bill extending the EB-5 visa program the day before Meyer’s presentation.
A New York Times reporter who was at the Beijing pitch said Meyer wouldn’t respond to questions about possible conflicts of interest, but a man accompanying her grew angry in response to the queries and shouted, “Please leave us alone!”
On Sunday, a Kushner Companies representative sent an email to the Washington Post that said Meyer “apologizes if that mention of her brother was in any way interpreted as an attempt to lure investors. That was not Ms. Meyer’s intention.” The email noted that Jared Kushner “stepped away from the company in January and has nothing to do with this project.”
But Kushner remains connected to his company, which has continued to seek investment from China despite Jared’s role in the Trump administration’s China policy.
The Post contacted the White House regarding Trump’s decision to sign a bill extending the EB-5 program a day before the family of one of his top advisers exploited it in a Chinese investment pitch. A spokesman blamed Obama.
“Asked why Trump signed a bill allowing the continuation of the investor visa program, a White House spokesman said that Trump had little leeway to adjust a spending bill that was largely assembled by the Obama administration, although Trump did seek to shape the measure in other ways, such as money for the border wall,” the Post reported.
Meyer made the same pitch in Shanghai on Sunday, according to the Times.
“Security was tighter in Shanghai than it had been in Beijing, where reporters for The New York Times and The Washington Post briefly attended the event before being kicked out,” the Times reported.