A White House statement said the administration “is evaluating wholesale reform of the EB-5 program to ensure
that the program is used as intended and that investment is being spread to all areas of the country.”
The statement also said that Mr. Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, has recused himself from EB-5 related matters: “Jared takes the ethics rules very seriously
and would never compromise himself or the administration.” In a statement from Kushner Companies, Mr. Kushner’s sister said it was not her intent to mention her brother as a way to lure investors.
Kushner Family Stands to Gain From Visa Rules in Trump’s First Major Law -
By ERIC LIPTON and JESSE DRUCKERMAY 8, 2017
WASHINGTON — It was the first major piece of legislation
that President Trump signed into law, and buried on Page 734 was one sentence that brought a potential benefit to the president’s extended family: renewal of a program offering permanent residence in the United States to affluent foreigners investing money in real estate projects here.
In fact, Kushner Companies — when Mr. Kushner was still at the helm — had received $50 million in EB-5 financing for
a separate New Jersey project, a Trump-branded luxury high-rise tower in Jersey City that opened late last year.
“It is just one more dilemma that a family with vast commercial interest has when relatives are in the federal government, particularly the White House,” said Michael H. Cardozo, who served as a deputy White House counsel in the Carter administration, which struggled with its own controversies related to the president’s brother, Billy Carter,
and his work on behalf of an American company seeking to get into the oil industry in Libya.
On Monday, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, called the visa program “a stark conflict of interest for the Trump White
House.” Meanwhile, the ethics watchdog group Democracy 21 called for Mr. Kushner to recuse himself from all policy dealing with China.
