Jared's got problems. Money problems. Big ones.
by digby
So the president's top guy cannot get a security clearance and is running all over the world having covert meetings --- and is swimming in massive debt? What could go wrong?
Jared Kushner, a White House aide and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, appears to have drawn more money out of three separate lines of credit in the months after he joined the White House last year, a newly released document shows.
Recent revisions to the financial disclosure form filed by Kushner’s wife, Ivanka Trump, bumped up each of those debts to a range of $5 million to $25 million.
Versions of the couple’s disclosures made public in July valued those debts at $1 million to $5 million apiece. The loans were extended by three banks: Bank of America, New York Community Bank and Signature Bank.
Taken together, the sequence of filings indicates that the increases in the amounts outstanding under the lines of credit took place between last March, when Kushner's form was first submitted, and June, when Ivanka Trump’s was first filed. The forms report the value of assets and debts in broad ranges. It’s possible the amounts outstanding have changed categories since last June.
The changes take Kushner and Trump’s reported debts to a range of approximately $31 million to $155 million from the previously reported range of between about $19 million and $98 million.
These people owe up to a quarter of a million dollars in credit card debt.
Matthew Sheffield at Salon took a look at the overwhelming number of reasons why Kushner may not be able to get a security clearance. Good lord.
Maybe it's about Kushner and Ivanka Trump's close friendship with Wendi Deng Murdoch, the former wife of News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch. She is often rumored to be an asset or agent of the Chinese government, witting or otherwise. It might have something to do with Kushner's presence at the now-infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer the younger Trump believed was offering “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, courtesy of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Kushner’s inability to get a permanent security clearance might also relate to his apparent attempt to set up encrypted lines of communications with the Russian government during the presidential transition, before Trump had assumed office. He might also have difficulty because he formerly headed a foundation which donated money to illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and failed to disclose this in his security clearance application.
Intelligence community officials might also be perturbed that Kushner failed to disclose numerous meetings he had with foreign bankers and leaders, including a Russian financial institution that is effectively controlled by Putin.
Several news organizations have also reported, and Kushner has all but admitted publicly, that he ordered former national security adviser Michael Flynn to work with Russia to block a December 2016 United Nations vote that condemned Israel’s settlement policy. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying about this to the FBI, and Kushner was referenced anonymously in Flynn’s plea bargain deal, filed by Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller a year later.
And who knows? They might have information about debt obligations to nefarious characters that would make him subject to blackmail. He certainly owes a lot of it.
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