WASHINGTON | At an Oval Office meeting earlier this year, President Donald Trump began praising his administration’s new real estate investment program, which promoted massive tax breaks to developers who invest in depressed American communities. He then turned to one of the plan’s strongest supporters.
“Ivanka, would you like to say something?” Trump asked his daughter. “You’ve been pushing this very hard.”
The Opportunity Zone program touted by Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner — both senior White House advisers — could also benefit them financially, an Associated Press investigation discovered.
Government watchdogs claim the case underscores the ethical minefield they created two years ago when they became two of the closest advisers to the president without divesting from their extensive real estate investments.
Kushner maintains a significant stake in a real estate investment firm, Cadre, that recently announced it is launching a series of Opportunity Zone funds that seek to build major projects under the program from Miami to Los Angeles. Separately, the couple has assets in at least 13 properties held by Kushner’s family firm that could qualify for the tax breaks because they are in Opportunity Zones in New Jersey, New York and Maryland — all of which, a study found, were already coming back.
Six of the Kushner Cos. buildings are in New York City’s Brooklyn Heights area, boasting views of the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan skyline, where a five-bedroom apartment recently listed for $8 million. Two more are located in the beach town of Long Branch, N.J., where some oceanfront condos within steps of a white-tablecloth Italian restaurant and a Lululemon yoga shop list for as much as $2.7 million.
There’s no evidence the couple was involved in selecting any of the nation’s 8,700 Opportunity Zones, and the company has not indicated it plans to seek tax breaks under the new program. But the Kushners could profit even if they don’t do anything — by potentially benefiting from a recent spike in Opportunity Zone property values amid a gold rush of interest from developers and investors.
Ivanka Trump’s advocacy for the Opportunity Zone program “creates a direct conflict of interest with her spouse’s investment in Cadre,” said Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel for the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “Jared Kushner’s interests are Ivanka Trump’s interests and vice versa.”
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s financial disclosures show their personal financial empire is worth between $200 million and $800 million, with much of it in real estate, including Kushner’s stake of between $25 million and $50 million in a holding company with an ownership stake in Cadre. Kushner previously had Cadre-related management positions, but he terminated those roles when he joined the Trump administration, holding onto his passive stake.
The disclosures require recusal from dealing with policy matters that touch on real estate and “would have a direct and predictable effect on Cadre.” Ivanka Trump also has interests in Trump Organization properties which are not located inside Opportunity Zones.
“Ms. Trump has divested assets, set up trusts, removed herself from businesses and decisions about her investments,” Abbe Lowell, ethics counsel for the couple, said in a statement. “In addition, she adheres to the ethics advice she has received from counsel about what issues she can work on and those to which she is recused.”
The Kushner Cos. did not respond to requests for comment.