3/18/2018
Jared Kushner is facing another scandal linked to his time as CEO of the family’s real estate empire. At the center of the latest scandal is Kushners’ apparent tendancy for deceit.
According to an investigation by the Associated Press published on Sunday, “The Kushner Cos. routinely filed false paperwork with the city of New York declaring it had zero rent-regulated tenants in dozens of buildings it owned across the city when, in fact, it had hundreds.”
The report notes that when the company, with Kushner at the helm, bought three apartment buildings in Queens in 2015, most of the tenants were protected from the arbitrary raising of rents by developers and efforts to force them out. Kushner’s company allegedly falsified construction permit applications by claiming the buildings had no rent–regulated tenants, the AP reported.
Former tenants of those buildings say they were subjected to constant harassment, including off–hours construction, and “banging, drilling, dust and leaking water.”
According to Housing Rights Initiative, a watchdog group that investigates real estate fraud and that conducted the research behind the AP report, “Kushner Cos. filed at least 80 false applications for construction permits in 34 buildings across New York City from 2013 to 2016, all of them indicating there were no rent-regulated tenants.”
Kushner also has a reputation for being a slumlord. An investigation last year by The New York Times and ProPublica found that Kushner’s companies had a habit of aggressively pursuing and hounding working–class tenants over minuscule amounts of rent and supposedly “broken” leases. The report also documented widespread neglect in the upkeep of units, including one woman who had maggots in her living room carpet and raw sewage coming out of her kitchen sink.
Last October, Maryland’s attorney general opened an investigation into Kushner Companies over insufficient maintenance, poor living conditions, and abusive debt collection, including trying to jail tenants who owed rent.
Kushner recently got into trouble in regards to his White House Security Clearance. He was not able to aquire a permanent clearance, perhaps in part because of his deceit. Kushner made repeated omissions and revisions of his SF-86 security clearance questionnaire. Charles Phalen, the director of the National Background Investigations Bureau, told lawmakers last monththat he had “never seen that level of mistakes.” Kushner reportedly had made over 100 errors or omissions on his questionnaire.
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