The Securities and Exchange Commission late last year dropped its inquiry into a financial company that a month earlier had given White House adviser Jared Kushner’s family real estate firm a $180 million loan.
While there’s no evidence that Kushner or any other Trump administration official had a role in the agency’s decision to drop the inquiry into Apollo Global Management, the timing has once again raised potential conflict-of-interest questions about Kushner’s family business and his role as an adviser to his father-in-law, President Donald Trump.
The SEC detail comes a day after The New York Times reported that Apollo’s loan to the Kushner Cos. followed several meetings at the White House with Kushner.
“I suppose the best case for Kushner is that this looks absolutely terrible,” said Rob Weissman, president of Public Citizen. “Without presuming that there is any kind of quid pro quo … there are a lot of ways that the fact of Apollo’s engagement with Kushner and the Kushner businesses in a public and private context might cast a shadow over what the SEC is doing and influence consciously or unconsciously how the agency acted.”
Apollo said in its 2018 annual report that the SEC had halted its inquiry into how the firm reported the financial results of its private equity funds and other costs and personnel changes. Apollo had previously reported that the Obama administration SEC had subpoenaed it for information related to the issue.
The SEC, which often makes such inquiries of financial firms, declined Friday to comment on the probe or its decision to halt it.
Apollo said the company founder who met with Jared Kushner did not discuss with him “a loan, investment, or any other business arrangement or regulatory matter involving Apollo.” It added that the Kushner loan to refinance a Chicago skyscraper went through the “standard approval process” and that the founder was not involved in the decision.
Kushner Cos. said in a statement that the implication that Kushner’s position in the White House had affected the company’s relationships with lenders is “without substantiation.”
Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Jared Kushner attorney Abbe Lowell, had no comment on the dropped SEC inquiry or whether it was influenced by Kushner’s contacts with Apollo. He added that Kushner has “had no role in the Kushner Companies since joining the government and has taken no part of any business, loans or projects with or for the Companies after that.”
According to the Times report, Kushner also met with the CEO of Citigroup at the White House early last year. Property records show that Citigroup lent $325 million in March to Kushner Cos. and two partners for a collection of buildings in Brooklyn.
Both lenders had important business before the federal government last year, according to lobbying records and regulatory filings. Both Apollo and Citigroup were pushing for tax breaks in the recently passed overhaul, and Citigroup was lobbying for a rollback of some financial crisis regulation.
Combined, the two companies spent nearly $7 million on lobbying last year.
For its part, Citigroup said in a statement that it didn’t deal with Kushner Cos. at all in arranging the loan, and talked instead to one of the Kushner Cos. partners. It added that its CEO was not involved in the transaction and “never discussed it” with Jared Kushner.
Details on the loans, like the interest rates charged, are not publicly available, so it’s unclear whether the Kushner Cos. got any special breaks.
The Kushner family’s biggest holding, a skyscraper on Fifth Avenue, is 30 percent unoccupied and has a $1.2 billion mortgage due early next year. That has fueled speculation that the company needs money, and fast.
But the Kushner Cos. has repeatedly pushed back on depictions that it is anything but in solid financial shape and needs help.
The company said Thursday that linking the loans to Jared Kushner’s meetings at the White House has “nothing to do with reality.”
“Jared does not tell us who he meets with nor do we ask him,” said Kushner Cos. spokeswoman Christine Taylor. “We do not update Jared on what’s going on in our business nor does he ask.”
Regardless, ethics experts said the optics are bad and Kushner should not have been having meetings with Apollo and Citigroup officials while his family business was seeking loans from them.
“I’d never seen anybody come in to the government with as much debt exposure as Trump and Kushner,” said Virginia Canter, a former ethics official in the Obama and Clinton White Houses who is now with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
The animated videos show Russian warheads speeding toward Florida and missiles outmaneuvering obstacles in the southern Atlantic. Russia has a new class of weapons, President Vladimir V. Putin said on Thursday, that could make American defenses obsolete.
Mr. Putin could be bluffing. It’s unclear how many of the five weapons he described actually exist. But a close look at the videos he presented indicates some telling details about their state of readiness and how they work.
Here is what we know:
Nuclear Cruise Missile
The Russian cruise missile in this animation zigs and zags all over the globe, avoiding antimissile defense systems.Published OnMarch 2, 2018CreditImage by Ru-RTR, via Associated Press
Most cruise missiles are like small airplanes. Their engines suck in air and burn hydrocarbon fuels. A nuclear cruise missile, in theory, would use a small reactor to heat air and fire it out the rear end to create forward thrust.
Russian scientists have developed “a small-scale heavy-duty nuclear energy unit,” Mr. Putin said, that can power a cruise missile so that it could achieve “basically an unlimited range.”
Such a technology could evade American defenses and alter the balance of power. But analysts were skeptical.
“If we’re talking about nuclear-armed cruise missiles, that’s a technological breakthrough and a gigantic achievement,” said Aleksandr M. Golts, an independent Russian military analyst. But, he added, “The question is, is this true?”
Mr. Putin said the nuclear cruise missile had been tested successfully late last year. But American officials said they believed it is not yet operational, despite Mr. Putin’s claims, and that it had crashed during testing in the Arctic.
The video shows a missile launching and then fades into an animation in which a cruise missile maneuvers around natural barriers, like mountains, as well as missile defense systems created to intercept it. “It is invincible against all existing and prospective missile defense and counter-air defense systems,” Mr. Putin claimed. At the end of the animation, the missile zeros in on Hawaii.
Sarmat Intercontinental Ballistic Missile
The Sarmat, which NATO calls Satan 2, is a replacement for the SS-18, the biggest and deadliest Soviet missile of the Cold War.Published OnMarch 2, 2018CreditImage by Ru-RTR, via Associated Press
In theory, this missile could loft many nuclear warheads or decoys meant to outwit antimissile systems. In a video animation, the missile is able to zoom round either Earth pole, reaching anywhere in the world.
The Sarmat is a replacement for the Voevoda, or SS-18, the biggest and most deadly Soviet-era missile of the Cold War. According to Mr. Putin, its weight exceeds 200 tons and has practically no range restrictions. Images of the missile were first revealed in 2016, as reported by Russian news sources.
The Sarmat has not been deployed, but “the Defense Ministry and enterprises of the missile and aerospace industry are in the active phase of testing,” Mr. Putin told his audience.
The video opens with footage from what appears to be a test site. The missile was successfully ejected from an underground silo in a December test, according to Russian news reports.The video closes with an image of nine warheads zeroing in on Florida, where President Trump often stays at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Hypersonic Cruise Missile
Launched from a jet, this missile burns regular fuel.Published OnMarch 2, 2018CreditImage by Ru-RTR, via Associated Press
By definition, hypersonic vehicles travel at speeds of one to five miles per second — or up to dozens of times faster than modern airliners. Such blinding speedswould enable a hypersonic cruise missile to evade interceptor rockets, which fly at relatively slow speeds. Mr. Putin said such superfast missiles have been tested successfully and begun trial service.
The video shows what appears to be a possible test launching from a military jet. The missile engine is apparently a type of ramjet or scramjet, meaning it burns regular fuel, unlike the nuclear cruise missile. In the animation, the weapon rapidly gains altitude, then hits targets precisely with powerful warheads. American officials have talked about deploying such weapons in the 2020s.
Status-6 Nuclear Torpedo
The animation shows a torpedo that could operate at great depths and over long distances at tremendous speed.Published OnMarch 2, 2018CreditImage by Ru-RTR, via Associated Press
This nuclear-powered torpedo, launched from a submarine, could carry conventional or nuclear warheads. Most modern torpedoes have relatively short ranges. A torpedo powered by a small nuclear mechanism, in theory, could possess unlimited range, spanning oceans or circling until a target appeared.
The Trump Nuclear Posture Review, released in early February, makes the first known federal reference to this Russian weapon, calling it “a new intercontinental, nuclear-armed, nuclear-powered, undersea autonomous torpedo.” After years of development, this technology was successfully tested in December, according to Mr. Putin, who called it “really fantastic.” The United States appears to have nothing similar.
The video shows what appears to be a factory for making the weapon, as well as submarines. In the subsequent animation, a submarine navigates deep in the ocean and releases the torpedo, which then maneuvers to hit targets in the water and on land.
Avengard Hypersonic Glide Vehicle
This kind of weapon can fly into space on a regular rocket, zoom around the atmosphere and outwit defense systems.Published OnMarch 2, 2018CreditImage by Ru-RTR, via Associated Press
All the big powers — Russia, China, and the United States — are racing to develop this kind of superfast maneuverable warhead. It can fly into space on a regular rocket and then navigate autonomously in the atmosphere. That way, it can evade antimissile defenses, as well as shorten or eliminate enemy warning time.
Citing such dangers, the Rand Corporation produced a detailed report last year on the technology and called on nations to curb its spread. Mr. Putin said Russia had successfully tested the novel warhead technology, capable of travel at 20 times the speed of sound.
The video shows a rocket laboratory and launch. The animation segment shows the hypersonic glide vehicle separating from the rocket that launches it into space. It then avoids spy satellite tracking and military counter strikes. Hans Kristensen, of the Federation of American Scientists, says the Avengard is an ideal fit for the Sarmat heavy-lift intercontinental ballistic missile.
“For obvious reasons we cannot show the outer appearance of this system here,” Mr. Putin said. “But let me assure you that we have all this and it is working well.”
William J. Broad is a science journalist and senior writer. He joined The Times in 1983, and has shared two Pulitzer Prizes with his colleagues, as well as an Emmy Award and a DuPont Award. @WilliamJBroad
Ainara Tiefenthäler is a video producer. She covers breaking news, Europe, political extremism, and L.G.B.T. and women’s issues. She joined The Times in 2015. @tiefenthaeler
