Extended Conversation with Vicky Ward on “Kushner, Inc.”

[Music] this is democracy now democracynow.org the war and peace report I'm Amy Goodman with nermeen Shaikh our guests is Vicky ward investigative journalist her new book Kushner ink greed ambition corruption the extraordinary story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump why don't we just begin with the title decade Kushner Inc yeah why did you call like that because I think that you know all roads in the book lead back to the Kushner's giant financial problems and and that everything Jared and Ivanka have done in this White House is about self service not public service you know these are people who both grew up in cultures that have extraordinary disdain for rules including the rule of law they think the rules only apply to other people you know and Jared has very strong feelings about government going back to what happened to his father in 2004 when you know he pled guilty and the government Chris Christie and his team of prosecutors in New Jersey had extraordinary leverage and and I think that Ronnie told that story for those who were not familiar with what happened this is before chris Christie was governor prosecutor in New Jersey and what happened to Charles Critchlow Josh Kushner pled guilty to basically three counts tax fraud illegal campaign contributions but the most sort of scandalous and notarized thing was that he set his own brother-in-law up in a very sordid sting involving a prostitute and that was true witness tampering and Christie had a lot of leverage over him that I go into the book about his personal life that Charles Kushner did not want out in public which is why he pled guilty so quickly and Jared was aware of a lot of this and I think that you know I included it in the book because if that's the only way that you can understand the intensity of the hatred that I think is in gendered in Jared towards Christie but towards the system right this is you know there's a there's a cushion and mentality and Charles had it to that you know we're not here to you know we'll we don't wait to be accepted by Harvard we you know we pay our way into Harvard yeah and explain that so Charles Kushner's company sent a check to Harvard University for 2.5 million dollars Jared Kushner ended up going to Harvard he was at his high school in the third track of them in his class there were five tracks he was in the third know it was unheard of from for anyone in the third track to go to any Ivy League school let alone Harvard and I quote one of his classmates who was in the first track getting being rejected by Harvard and crying when she heard that Jared had got in and a lot of the teachers were crying they thought it was it was such an abuse of the system either Kushner's are used to buying buying their way through life they think that money buys everything they need you know went during Charles Krishna's legal troubles like there's a lawyer I quote in the book who said they through with their money they virtually got him fired you know he said that you know they knew how to use money so and think about who fired they didn't get him fired he's a guy called Theodore Moskowitz he was he was involved in the Charlie Krishna's legal dispute with his brother but you ask me a bigger question so that you know there is this mindset when when Jared and a van could go into government that rules are for other people and I think that this is why you see the unfairness in for example the divestment right everyone you know rep Gary Cohn Rex Tillerson sell everything in order to go into the government Jared Kushner and Ivanka don't I mean they put most of their things into trusts run by family members and after all they both come from family businesses and then Jared does something extraordinary he closes the White House logs the White House visitor logs so that no one can see who he's meeting with in the White House and we only discovery whole year later when John Kelly says no no the White House logs have got to be open that he's met with Citigroup and Apollo who've meanwhile given his family firm loans and he's met with Lloyd Blankfein that then the CEO of goldman sachs at a time when goldman sachs had an investment in a company that jared had not only actually put he hadn't put it on his white house disclosure form and he hadn't divested I mean this is I mean this is just remarkable and no one knew him and the American people asked you know have a right to know who's going in and out of the White House well Jared Krishna's father Charles Kushner has just written a piece in The Washington Post titled here's the truth about my family and our business Charles Kushner writes quote when he left the company Jared took several steps to preclude conflicts of interest at the recommendation of his legal counsel in consultation with the office of government ethics he divested from more than 80 partnerships including 666 Fifth Avenue at a substantial financial sacrifice we walled off Jared from receiving information on the company and he resigned as the controlling partner in more than a hundred entities this was all done out of an abundance of caution Charles Kushner yes do you think this also is in response to your buck yes it was today yes I mean I think it's just sad I mean there's the there is just this is a fantasy this is version of what Charles Kushner wishes had happened I mean it it's almost more interesting for the the things it leaves out than for what it actually says you know he starts off and he but he portrays the cushion of families who are like this cookie cutter family no mention of the sordid scandal and him going to jail he talks about the fact that it's legal to seek foreign investment for to finance trophy buildings in New York he doesn't explain that he had to seek foreign investment because no one in America would touch this thing with a 50-foot barge pole he talks about the fact that he was bailed out with a 99 year lease he doesn't say that that lease was paid upfront I mean that's just unheard of I mean and that which is why Congress is investigating it and he listening that Qatar is involved with this lease yes the Qataris have a 1.8 billion stake in brookfield and you know if you know I Charlie Krishna has bragged about his relationship with the Qatari said I knew they were always there and the Qataris if they could always want to do this Brookfield's not going to turn around and say no I mean to pay a 99 year lease upfront I mean you have to have any businessperson you'd have to have your a building that's worth you know would be better if it was just dirt you'd have to have your head examined it makes absolutely no financial sense and to the last point about Jared having no appearance of conflicts of interest how can he wall himself off from his family and this is a family business and I also say in the book he has you know he's also had in the past a profit sharing agreement with his brother by the way you know clearly the security agencies don't agree with Charles Kushner because that's why they wouldn't give Charles Jared Kushner a security clearance so talk about the significance of that that he'll only recently sort of exploded again the whole issue of how Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump got security clearances Ivanka Trump going on television recently and outright saying Trump was not involved in her security clearance when in fact what do you understand happened well did Trump had to override everybody absolutely everybody said you know they're not they cannot have security clearances you mean everyone in intelligence who say any yes career intelligence agency and you know Trump Trump had to override this and then and as we know he lied about it and Ivanka lied about it on television I mean for this to be the new norm in our leadership strikes me it's just extraordinarily troubling and dangerous I mean you know how do you even begin to write a system that's so broken and is so date so dangerous well I want to turn to Ivanka Trump's recent appearance on Fox News criticizing the green New Deal's proposal for guaranteed jobs for all Americans you've got people who will see that offer from the Democrats from the Progressive Democrats Alexandria Ocasio Cortes here's the green New Deal here's a guarantee of a job and think yeah that's what I want that simple what do you say to those people I don't think most Americans in their heart want to be given something there I've spent a lot of time traveling around this country over the last four years people want to work for what they get so I think this idea of a guaranteed minimum is not something most people want they want the ability to be able to secure a job they want the ability to live in a country where there's the potential for upward mobility that was Ivanka Trump speaking to Fox News congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez responded on Twitter saying quote as a person who actually worked for tips and hourly wages in my life instead of having to learn about it's secondhand I can tell you that most people want to be paid enough to live a living wage isn't a gift it's a right workers are often paid far less than the value they create Alexandria Ocasio Cortez tweeted in response to Ivanka's comments right well I mean how out of touch is she but I mean you know we see this I mean you know what Jared and Ivanka I think don't realize is that everyone else in the White has sort of views like Inspector Clouseau like bumbling incompetence and the only people who are aware that you know who don't realize how incompetent they are and themselves I mean they live in a reality distortion field I mean so look can we switch gears completely and talk about what you understand happened with the firing of James Comey and what Jared Kushner's involvement was yeah so this is really important and I think you know one of the most important reveals actually in the book was that Jared Krishna that the story that Jared Krishna had met with the Russian ambassador and the Russian banker connected to the Kremlin during the transition started to come out in the early spring of 2017 and Jan and it was noticed and observed reported that Jared had not put any of these meetings and for any of the other meetings he had with any foreigners for that matter on his security clearance form that is a that could well be cat that's a felony I mean you suggest in fact that it was Jared Kushner who was responsible for removing the White House logs so he could not you know so he would be protected from people knowing about all the people who were coming to see different thing this that that that is indeed true and and and also extraordinary but the Comey thing is a little different you know Jared's normal sort of way of operating with the president was to take him aside and talk quietly to him but when it came so but once these reports were out that he hadn't disclosed these meetings on his security clearance forms and by this time the FBI had got have then run by James Comey had opened its investigation into whether or not there was collusion by the Trump campaign and Russia Jared unusually in front of everybody in front of a large group Bannon was there but so are lots of others made an impassioned plea to the President to fire James Comey he gave a three-pronged argument he said that you know the FBI doesn't like him the Democrats don't like him and your base will love it Steve Bannon who is you know whatever we all think of his politics he's the wily strategist thought this was a disastrous idea and and and pushed back but obviously you know it was Jared who you know I say in the book was gung-ho about this when he was very a typically impassioned Jared swayed the president and hence you have robert muller human james comey goes and you know hence we have everything you know the extraordinary events of this invested this ongoing investigation the special counsel so let me ask you about Ivanka Trump's defense of her father after Charlotte's fell we have this famous moment after the horror of Charlotte's ville and killing of Heather hire the Ku Klux Klan neo-nazi March where President Trump says this I think there's blame on both sides and I have no doubt about it and you don't have any doubt about it either and if you reported it accurately you would say but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides you had people in that group excuse me excuse me I saw the same pictures as you did you had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of to them a very very important statue and the renaming of a park from robert e lee to another name that's President Trump there were fine people on both sides explain where Ivanka Trump then fits into this story so I to me this is the heart of the burkas it's the sort of absolute tipping point because I think I think it's just the most shocking reveal of all Gary Cohn you know his grandfather was a Holocaust survivor and immigrant came over here Jewish very very upset by what the President had said it stop you canal might be fun yes sorry yes and so upset that he decides he's going to resign he goes to New Jersey where your president has a home so George Erin Ivanka and he stops in to visit Jared navona and explained that he's going to resign and Ivanka yo Jared's rather typically says nothing Ivanka to his amazement says no no you know you don't get it my father's father didn't mean any of that but then she says no my father didn't say that Gary Cohen had been part of the circle of advisers trying to manage Trump's response to Charlottesville and he knew there not only had Trump said it that Trump had said it deliberately he had gone against the advice of his advisers he had picked up pulled out a piece of paper he said those words quite deliberately he was horrified at what out of anchors response and he never felt the same way about Jared and Ivanka again he didn't resign but he the reason he didn't resign was he talked to rob Porter then the staff secretary who he's close to and Porter said you know we need we need you to try and get tax reform through Congress we're talking to Vicki Ward investigative journalist her new book Kushner Inc greed ambition corruption the extraordinary story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump we were speaking to you about Ivanka trunk the last time you were on Democracy Now you were investigating her business interest from China to India what about Jared Kushner's links to China can you explain them more fully as you do in the book yeah especially talk about the holding company and bang insurance yeah I think this is one of the things that actually triggered me to start thinking about writing this book is what happened what we started to learn about Jared and the Chinese you know it was so no one knew this none of his transition or White House colleagues knew anything about this but Jared the first weekend of the transition and his father had a dinner with a major Chinese insurance firm and bang that they were hoping would bail them out of the 666 5th Avenue this disastrous money pit but at the same in the same time period in the transition the Chinese government flew in because they were so concerned about what the president said it had said about Taiwan and Jared as as before his President Xi said the attention of the translation Jared and a group of others meet with the Chinese government officials at the Krishna company's headquarters the whole thing is you know wildly wildly inappropriate but Jared doesn't mention the fact that he's these ongoing talks with this Chinese insurance it's company by the way who's who CEO has gone to jail for life sentence and on I think it's January ninth the New York Times reports news of this dinner and all of Jarrod's colleagues you know Gary Cohn Priebus but are just horrified and Gary Cohen says to Jarrod you know you realize Jarrod that from now on whatever you do everyone is just going to assume you're here to enrich yourself the Palestinian negotiator Erica what did he say about Jared Kushner as he pushes a quote Middle East peace plan something around the issue of he sounds like a real estate just a yes exactly he did and of course Jared pushes back and says well maybe you need a real estate broker to solve Middle East peace I mean it's you know the the again we come back to this idea the sort of entitlement that a stain of rules rule of law sort of the personal agendas self-interest not the public interest I mean you would say that's something that's true of a large number of people within the Trump administration the distinction is that that Trump and that Jared and and Ivanka Trump are relatives of Donald Trump I mean would you say that's the main problem with them therefore they're not in formal positions for which they could be faulted for the things that you are pointing out but rather there are relatives who have access to Trump in a way that first of all gives them power but without granting them some kind of formal authority well I think it's more complicated than that I think it's to do with transparency I think that the other members of the cabinet and the administration us sort of held to greater public scrutiny I mean you know that all these things you know that jared has the power to close the logs and operate in darkness the fact that he's the foreign policy is conducted in darkness that you know it's it's the it's this it's that they're kind of they unlike everyone else are out of the system and this is what writes Priebus couldn't manage you know everyone else it's it's sort of a bit more transparent you know their conversations with the president think the problem with these two is we there's so much that we don't know even though they have official title as a senior advice and that's not okay I mean it's look if she was just the first daughter not a problem but she's not and that's where there is a real problem you could you know you can't go into government and run it like a family real estate business but that is exactly what's going on talking about the family real estate business what about the Trump International Hotel down the street from the White House and how it's being run who goes there what they pay and then what they're getting in return well that's you know an obvious example of exactly what we're talking about just an extraordinary conflict of interest that's in plain sight I mean famously you know anyway all the foreign entities who were looking to curry favor all stay there I mean it you know and and again a banker and you know the trunk children each have a seven percent share in that was actually surprisingly little that Donald Trump didn't give them more equity I mean that I think explains to some degree why Ivanka was so keen to hold on to her fashion line for so long even though it was completely inappropriate that she do that because Donald Trump gives his children surprisingly little as an unusual arrangement for a for a New York real estate family business they have surprisingly little equity in his assets so what about the House Oversight Committee Judiciary now that Democrats control the house what is being what do you think should be exposed about Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump what do you think they are most vulnerable on as the as for example House Judiciary has demanded documents from 81 businesses and people but Ivanka Trump is not one of them know that her businesses I mean come up and there are a lot of question questions about her businesses as there are about Jared and his businesses you know I hope that house oversight asks more people I mean I think that it be you know I think that talking to Jared's brother I mean there are questions about the conflicts of interest you know just a question and you know it seems clear that that Gary Cohen would be a useful person to interview given that he had a prior knowledge of some of the Kushner brothers partnerships because because Goldman Sachs which is where Gary Cohen used to work was an investor so I you know I hope that you know I think that one way to look at it is that the investigations coming out of Congress now are going to give us a roadmap they're the sort of what and I hope that my book is a is the why if that makes sense well let me ask you specifically about another issue very important be FPS yes explain what that is how this ties into the whole debate around health care Obamacare around the Affordable Care Act right so be FPS is on Jerry Kushner's White House disclosure forms it stands for brothers first part in a second the way he described it to someone he was trying to hire of three years ago before he went into the government was a it's a profit-sharing vehicle with his brother Josh whereby each brother splits 50% of each of their businesses with each other Charles Kushner I report in the book like this arrangement because Charles Krishna had a famous disastrous feud with his own brother about money so he thought it would be great if these two split split their profits 50/50 to avoid any fighting now josh krishna says that there currently there is no profit sharing arrangement between them very precise use of of the tents but Gary Cohn knew that they still had that you know that Jerrod still has a stake in with it within a company called cadre that he founded with josh krishna his brother and he kept that stake when he went into the government he didn't disclose it on his financial forms instead he rolled it up in b FPS brothers first partners so yes we're talking about thrive we're talking about cadre we're talking about oscar insurance basket well so it's a little tricky so oscar health insurance is a set is a is a business that josh krishna started it's a health insurance business that's worth no it was worth at the time at the beginning of the administration 2.7 billion dollars and Prasad and Garrett because Gary Cohn knew that there was this web of entanglement that certainly exists in the past and he knew he did know that there was cat that Jared still had a stake in cadre with his brother he was very concerned when Jared kept bringing up his brother's name during discussions of repeal and replace and you know caring about yeah yeah yeah and and Jared because Josh's business isn't the success of it is entirely predicated on Obamacare be disastrous if it had been repealed for Oscar there's 2.7 billion dollar business so when Jared kept saying you know mentioning Josh Gary Cohen was really really uncomfortable and then Joel Klein who works for Josh reached out to Gary Cohn with suggestions of how he thought healthcare should be shaped and Gary Cohen says in the book that he was really uncomfortable about this now gel Klein says I was just doing I was doing what anyone in my position would do I you know but but but but given the background and given these these business partnerships I think Gary Cohen was really troubled and rightly so so you don't name a lot of your sources and that's one of the criticisms of the book is that it's based on so many unnamed sources why well if you look at any book about a White House that's written contemporaneously they're not on the record I mean even the great Bob Woodward it's full of an anonymous sources um and that this White House in particular that is known to be so punitive people are very frightened to go on the record you know Washington is an ecosystem people that there's people livelihoods depend on their relationship with the White House so the only way you can get a rat you know you can really try and be as accurate as possible is to double or triple source everything and you know so I made it a point of principle not to take one person's word you asked me earlier about Steve Barron absolutely never to take what somebody like he might have said you know as gospel that it had to be run past other people who had direct knowledge of moments where you say he thought to himself ban and thought to himself that can't possibly be verified by anybody else yeah it's a it's a so that I would have been checked I mean that's not in there without you know yes I would have known I would have had access to what he thought in those instances and he is aware of that well we'll leave it there at the end an unnamed source says to you wait until area out of power I'll tell you the real story that Vickie Ward investigative journalist her new book is titled Kushner Inc greed ambition corruption the extraordinary story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump to see part one of our discussion go to democracynow.org I'm Amy Goodman with nermeen Shaikh [Music]

Channel: Democracy Now!

Views: 856,960

Rating: 4.7415524 out of 5

Keywords: Democracy Now, Amy Goodman, DN, News, Politics, democracynow.org, Video, Independent Media, Daily News, Breaking News, World News, Interview, Vicky Ward, Kushner, Inc., Donald Trump, Jared, Ivanka, U.S. Foreign Policy, House Democrats, President Trump, CIA, John Kelly, FBI, White House, Middle East, Maltese Falcon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, James Mattis, MBS, Russia

Id: 4M9H0BHKTHw

Length: 30min 48sec (1848 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 22 2019

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[u/DrowningDrunk]

Jared Kushner is selling state secrets to foreign governments.

[u/yallcomesoon]

More of this corruption. They are selling the American government from the White House.

Kushner, Inc: Vicky Ward on How Jared and Ivanka’s Greed & Ambition Compromise U.S. Foreign Policy