AMY GOODMAN: Bloomberg is reporting special
counsel Robert Mueller has expanded his probe
of President Trump beyond possible collusion
with Russia.
Mueller is reportedly looking at Trump’s
business activities, as well as those of his
associates, including his son-in-law Jared
Kushner.
According to Bloomberg, investigators are
interested in Kushner’s attempts to secure
financing for some of his family’s real
estate properties.
Our guest, Ryan Grim of The Intercept, recently
co-wrote a piece there headlined "Jared Kushner
Tried and Failed to Get a Half-Billion-Dollar
Bailout from Qatar."
The article reveals Kushner and his father,
Charles, negotiated directly with billionaire
and former Qatar Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad
bin Jassim al-Thani to refinance their property
at 666 Fifth Avenue here in New York.
Throughout 2015 and 2016, Kushner sought a
half-billion-dollar loan from the Qatari investor
to save the property.
After promising talks, the deal fell through.
The story was published as Qatar remains embroiled
in a major diplomatic dispute with its Gulf
neighbors, including Saudi Arabia.
President Trump sided with Saudi Arabia.
According to The Intercept, Kushner played
a key behind-the-scenes role in hardening
the U.S. posture toward Qatar.
Ryan Grim, you have written extensively about
this.
Talk about what you uncovered.
RYAN GRIM: Right.
So, a little background.
You know, President Trump went to Saudi Arabia
this spring.
Shortly after that, Saudi Arabia, the UAE
and some other Gulf countries blockaded and
isolated Qatar.
And immediately, Donald Trump took credit
for that.
He said, you know, "I pushed them.
You know, I suggested that they take a hard
line against the country."
He hasn’t been totally consistent about
where he stands on that, but that was his—that
was his initial play.
Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state, was
trying to broker an end to this blockade,
and Jared Kushner, Tillerson believes, played
a back-channel role to go directly to President
Trump to say, "No, we need to take a hard
line against the country."
So, what we uncovered is that, you know, he
may have reasons for having some animosity
there.
You know, for the last year, as you said,
he was trying to secure a half-billion-dollar
investment into this property on Fifth Avenue
that is deeply underwater.
The Kushner Companies—it was a kind of a
high-flying investment.
It made a huge splash when they jumped into
it in 2007.
Couldn’t have been timed worse.
They dramatically overpaid.
The Kushner Companies’ investment of $500
million seems to be entirely wiped out, according
to a New York Times kind of look at the value,
the current value, of the property.
So the Qataris said, "OK, we’ll give you
a half-billion dollars, if you can find the
rest of the financing elsewhere."
He went to China.
That blew up when it became public.
And around that time, the Qataris said, "Well,
it doesn’t look like you’re going to get
the rest of the investment, so, you know,
we’re not able to go forward at this time."
And then, just weeks later, you have this
blockade.
And so, you have to ask the uncomfortable
question of: Well, what if they had made the
investment?
You know, would the Trump administration still
be taking such a hard line against Qatar?
Or is it—or will other investors see it
as retaliation for not coming forward with
what otherwise would have been what most people
in the industry see as a really bad investment?
AMY GOODMAN: So, of course, this meeting in
Saudi Arabia led to a number of different
developments—one of the largest weapons
deals in the history of the United States
with Saudi Arabia.
Jared Kushner was there, also apparently close
to the son of the king, who ultimately is
in charge of the absolutely devastating war—
RYAN GRIM: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: —that Saudi Arabia is waging,
with U.S. support, in Yemen—all of this
coming together as President Trump and Jared
Kushner and others, Rex Tillerson, as well,
went to Saudi Arabia.
And when they came out, President Trump himself
claiming credit for the isolating of Qatar
by the Gulf countries, seemingly going against
his own secretary of state, Rex Tillerson,
who was bringing together the forces, he said,
went back to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, supposedly
to bring these countries together.
RYAN GRIM: Right.
And the go-between for all of this is the
UAE ambassador to the United States, who is
very close to Kushner.
His name’s Yousef al-Otaiba.
This is—you know, this is somebody who has
been pushing a very hard line against Qatar
in Washington, D.C., for years now.
What the U.S. intelligence community has since
leaked to The Washington Post is that the
thing that the Gulf countries used to launch
this blockade, which were some comments posted
online and attributed to the emir of Qatar,
were in fact put there by a UAE hacking operation.
You know, immediately after these comments
from the emir appeared, where he was kind
of praising Iran and being a little bit rough
with the United States, the Qatari news service
said, "We were hacked.
These are not real comments.
You know, we withdraw them.
We don’t know what happened.
We’re investigating how this happened.
You know, the emir never said these words."
Now, according to U.S. intelligence sources,
it was actually the UAE that organized the
hack of Qatar to post these inflammatory comments,
which the UAE and Saudi Arabia then took umbrage
at, launching this blockade, that was supported
by President Trump.
And like I said, Otaiba and Kushner are well
known to be close allies.
And Tillerson believes that Otaiba actually
wrote the statement that Trump read, delivered
it to Kushner, and Kushner delivered it to
Donald Trump.
