Ivanka Trump And Jared Kushner Sued For Failing To Disclose Assets From 30 Investment Funds
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner should brace themselves for an avalanche of bad news this Christmas.
After it was revealed yesterday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had reportedly obtained a cache of sensitive emails Kushner exchanged during the transition — prompting hysteria on the Hill about the investigation’s future — more bad news dawns on him and first daughter Ivanka as Politico reports that the power couple has been sued by Washington attorney Jeffrey Lovitky for having failed to disclose assets from nearly 30 investment funds they had stakes in. The lawsuit also claims that the pair failed to disclose their income from two other investment vehicles.
Ivanka, and more specifically Jared, are firmly on the radar of both Mueller and congressional investigations looking into the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia. Trump’s son-in-law has been widely panned for his reported role in former FBI Director James Comey’s removal from office (even Trump purportedly channeled his anger at him) but more significantly, he has repeatedly failed to mention his financial assets as well as the names of several foreign contacts in the federal forms that he filled out to gain a high-level security clearance. Under pressure from investigators on the House and Senate intelligence committees, Kushner has had to explain discrepancies about his financial disclosures time and again. By now, he has made as many as 39 edits to his original financial disclosures, but when pressed about why he wouldn’t disclose everything at once, the president’s political adviser has claimed that a “pre-existing confidentiality agreement” prevents him for doing so.
But, as Lovitky’s lawsuit claims, this reasoning is utterly flawed.
The numbers on Jared Kushner's disclosure forms don't look good pic.twitter.com/xl4XDUACkU
— Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) December 14, 2017
Last week over a dozen Members of Congress asked #JaredKushner a simple yes/no question: Did he as White House Advisor ask foreign nationals to finance the property at 666 Fifth Ave. owned by #Kushner Cos? He still has not answered. What is Kushner hiding? https://t.co/FicjmpnVj1 pic.twitter.com/VWMgb9SaZZ
— Rep. Ted Lieu (@RepTedLieu) December 15, 2017
The suit points out that the Ethics in Government Act makes it mandatory for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner to correctly disclose all their assets, and in the event of not having done so, they could be held culpable.
“The EGA does not allow a reporting individual to refuse to disclose the underlying assets of an investment vehicle, on the basis that such disclosure would violate a pre-existing confidentiality agreement. Nor does the EIGA allow a reporting individual to refuse to disclose the amount of income derived from any underlying asset of an investment vehicle, on the basis that such disclosure would violate a pre-existing confidentiality agreement.”
This lawsuit is another addition to Ivanka and Kushner’s deepening troubles. Trump has already started to place less faith in him since Comey’s firing snowballed into Mueller’s broad investigation, with the couple reportedly not liked by Washington’s seasoned politicos and consequently feeling increasingly sidelined at the White House, as reported by Vanity Fair. Kushner has also been criticized for opening secret communication channels with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Now further scrutiny from the courts about their financial history could only spell more misery before Christmas.
