Nepotism and corruption
JillAbramson
Tue 6 Mar 2018 13.15 EST
Last modified on Tue 6 Mar 2018 16.49 EST
Despite its fame, The Apprentice is not the reality television show that best explains Donald Trumps presidency. To understand whats going on in the White House, tune into a popular show that had its premiere at about the same time: American Greed.
We learned last week that Jared Kushner met with big-time financial executives in the White House and then hit them up for $500m in loans to his familys troubled real estate empire, a business in which he maintains an active stake. This truly tops most of the financial chicanery featured on American Greed and I can almost hear Stacey Keach, the actor who narrates the show, setting up the dark contours of Jareds latest episode of corrupt Washington deal-making ...
Jared and the Kushner family have been even more brazen. Last year, his sister made news by promising US visas to rich Chinese in exchange for $500,000 investments in Kushner property. In an investigation published in January, the New Yorker revealed that Jareds meetings with Chinese officials, which included talks about Kushner family business, made US intel officials so nervous that they worried the Chinese were using him as an asset. (And thats part of why Kushner couldnt get his security clearance) ...
In the cases of China and Israel, Jareds business brokering was closely tied to President Trumps visits to those countries. The pattern is clear: if a foreign country wants Donald Trump to grace it with his presence and favors, best to ante up with loans to his son-in-law first ...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/06/nepotism-corruption-handmaiden-trump-presidency