Tag: Jared Kushner

Good Monday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today. • As the world recoils at reports that the Saudis sent agents to Turkey to kill Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident journalist, Mr. Trump has rebuffed pressure to punish the Saudis by canceling arms sales that he secured during a visit last year. Here’s why that approach could put the president on a collision course with Congress. Then came the story about Mr. Khashoggi. Read our media columnist’s take. • Confidential documents reviewed by The Times indicate that Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, probably paid little or no income tax from 2009 to 2016. • Republican candidates across the country are painting Democrats as the ones pursuing an extreme immigration agenda that would fill the country with “sanctuary cities.” The strategy may be working. • Suburban women favor Democrats in the midterms by large margins. Read why.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is heading to Saudi Arabia after the king denies any involvement in the disappearance of journalist Jamal Kashoggi. Chris Jansing is joined by MSNBC Political Analyst Philip Rucker to discuss that disappearance and the role…

Citing “confidential financial records” it obtained, the Times reported that Kushner, 37, a senior White House adviser, for years minimized his tax bills by booking heavy losses on reported depreciation of his real estate holdings that overwhelmed his reported income. The Times noted that nothing in the documents indicate that Kushner or his company broke the law. In a 2015 example, Kushner booked $8.3 million in losses driven by “significant depreciation” of real estate owned by Kushner and his company. The loss offset Kushner’s income of $1.7 million in salary and investment gains, the Times reported, citing the documents. More than a dozen tax accountants and lawyers reviewed the records for the Times. One told the paper that the records indicated that Kushner paid little or no federal income taxes in five of the last eight years. The documents reviewed by the newspaper describe Kushner’s business dealings and finances from 2009 to 2016, according to the paper. They were drafted with Kushner’s participation as part of a review of his finances by a prospective lender and contain information from his federal tax filings in addition to other data provided by advisers, according to the report. The records were given to the paper by “a person who has had financial dealings with Kushner and his family,” it said. He said, without offering proof, that the documents were obtained in violation of the law and business confidentiality agreements.

Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, likely paid little or no federal income taxes between 2009 and 2016, the New York Times reported on Saturday, citing confidential financial documents. The Times said that Kushner’s tax bills reflected the use of a tax benefit known as depreciation that lets real estate investors deduct part of the cost of their properties from their taxable income. The Times report said nothing in the documents reviewed “suggests Mr Kushner or his company broke the law”. He added: “Always following the advice of numerous attorneys and accountants, Mr Kushner properly filed and paid all taxes due under the law and regulations.” The records reviewed by the New York Times did not expressly state how much Kushner paid in taxes, but included estimates for how much he owed called “income taxes payable” and how much Kushner paid in expectation of forecasted taxes known as “prepaid taxes”. Kushner sold his interests in the company to a family trust last year. The White House and Kushner Companies did not immediately comment on Saturday. The newspaper noted that the 2017 tax rewrite signed by Trump includes provisions that benefit real estate investors. In December, a group of Democratic lawmakers wrote to Kushner, asking whether in his talks with foreign officials he had ever discussed financing for a deeply indebted property in midtown Manhattan, citing concern he was using his position for financial gain. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner made over $82m outside White House roles Read more Kushner Companies said previously it had more than $2.5bn in transactions 2017 and has 12m sq ft under development in New York and New Jersey. Documents released by the White House in June showed Kushner held assets worth at least $181m, the Associated Press reported.

Only two weeks ago, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was preparing to host foreign investors at a lavish event being described as "Davos in the desert." Here, MBS -- as he is colloquially known -- would show off his Vision 2030 plan for the kingdom and present to the world his future for a modern Saudi Arabia and charm international investors to back his plans. Bin Salman's conference, a staged event designed to present a transformed Saudi Arabia, is looking likely to be a significantly less impressive affair, as investors and business leaders are dropping out in horror at the events of the past week. Has bin Salman badly misjudged the extent to which the world is willing to isolate him? It took the global business community confronting bin Salman at Davos early the following year for the message to hit home that locking up prominent businessmen is not the way most high-profile investors choose to work. Do they copy the playbook of Russian President Vladimir Putin and continue to flatly deny all allegations, or do they engage with and try to clean up this mess and take responsibility for what Turkey claims is a brutal murder? The problem for Saudi Arabia is that Turkey claims that it does hold such evidence -- and is gleefully sharing it with its allies. His plan to borrow against Saudi Arabia's enormous national wealth, open its economy and drag his nation into the 21st century is withering before his eyes. While he's currently Crown Prince and in line to inherit the Kingdom, Saudi politics can be brutal. There are lots of other royals in Riyadh and it's not hard to imagine one or two of them sidling up to King Salman and telling him that his son is out of control.

Good Thursday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today. • James A. Baker, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s former top lawyer, told congressional officials that he had taken seriously a suggestion by the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, to secretly tape conversations with President Trump, but that the idea was dismissed within days. Read the story. • The Justice Department said that a Chinese intelligence officer was arrested in Belgium and brought to the United States to face espionage charges, a first. Read the story. It could be a sign that the Mueller investigation is coming to a close. Read the story. Read the story. But a financial disaster may be coming, and just in time for a new governor.

Kanye West has been a vocal supporter of President Trump since the 2016 election. According to the New York Times, the rapper is headed to the Washington to have lunch with the president Buzz60 It’s the celebrity feud that will not die. Call it an unforeseen effect of the Donald Trump era that Swift and West have become representatives of America’s political divide – in a way that nobody could have ever predicted nearly a decade ago, when the two stars’ fates collided onstage at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. How different things are now. After stepping away from public appearances shortly after his summit with the president-elect at Trump Tower in 2016, West returned with a vengeance this year, bringing his Make America Great Again hat with him. He praised Trump on Twitter and, most recently, in a monologue on “Saturday Night Live” – again deleting his social media accounts after embarking on several politically motivated rants. From associating with alt-right figures to sharing his questionable takes on slavery, West’s political turnaround has thrilled conservatives – he has a White House visit with Trump and Jared Kushner reportedly lined up for Thursday – while rendering him unrecognizable to fans that connected with his raps from a decade ago. It wasn’t until Sunday, though, that Swift made the leap toward endorsing candidates – she posted a letter on Instagram supporting Tennessee’s Democratic congressional candidates while condemning racism and discrimination. Like so many other aspects of 2018, how fans feel about Kanye vs. Taylor likely comes down to how they feel about Trump, with the president routinely praising West on Twitter while announcing Monday that he “likes Taylor’s music about 25% less” after her Democratic endorsements. And as the same voices on the right that praise West begin to voice their newfound aversions to Swift, with other commenters claiming that Swift actually "cares more about black people" than West, the two artists are once again diametrically opposed, in a more bizarre way than fans ever could've expected.

President Trump tweeted that the infamous June 2016 meeting, which included Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, was designed to 'get information on an opponent.' FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service dedicated to delivering…

The president is once again putting focus on that infamous Trump Tower meeting - potentially complicating legal matters for his son. Stephanie Ruhle breaks down what’s wrong with the fact that Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort had…

(CNN)Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, claims that then-candidate Trump knew in advance about the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower in which Russians were expected to offer his campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton, sources with knowledge tell CNN. Cohen's claim would contradict repeated denials by Trump, Donald Trump Jr., their lawyers and other administration officials who have said that the President knew nothing about the Trump Tower meeting until he was approached about it by The New York Times in July 2017. Cohen alleges that he was present, along with several others, when Trump was informed of the Russians' offer by Trump Jr. By Cohen's account, Trump approved going ahead with the meeting with the Russians, according to sources. A source familiar with Cohen's House testimony said he did not testify that Trump had advance knowledge. Gee, I wonder if they helped him make the choice!" Those denials were repeatedly issued by Trump, his attorney Jay Sekulow, Trump Jr., Futerfas and White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. One week later, Trump repeated that he "didn't know anything about the meeting" because "nobody told me" about it. But perhaps the highest-stakes denial was given by Trump Jr. in his testimony last year to the Senate Judiciary Committee. "He wasn't aware of it," Trump Jr. told lawmakers, referring to his father's knowledge of the meeting. Axios reported that Bannon does not have first-hand knowledge about whether Trump Jr. told his father, and Bannon later said his "treasonous" remark was directed at Manafort and not Trump Jr.