In early November, the various Kushner affiliates named in the lawsuit filed a request to have the case moved from the state court, where it would be heard by a Baltimore City jury, to the federal courts, where it would be heard by a jury drawn from a broader geographic swath of Maryland. To get approval for this request, Kushner Companies had to show that none of the investors it has brought in as partners on the complexes are based in Maryland.
The Kushner affiliates also filed a motion in federal court seeking to have the list of the investment partners shielded from public view, citing the high degree of media interest in Jared Kushner, who as Kushner Companies CEO presided over the purchase of the complexes before moving into the White House to serve as senior advisor to President Donald Trump, his father-in-law. “Given the tenor of the media’s reporting of this case, including politically-motivated innuendo no doubt intended to disparage the First Family, there is foreseeable risk of prejudice to the privacy rights and reputations of innocent private investors,” the Kushner lawyers wrote.
ProPublica and four other news organizations challenged the motion to keep the list of partners secret. And on Jan. 26, U.S. District Court Judge James K. Bredar
ruled against the Kushner request for shielding the partners’ identities.
In that ruling, Bredar set a Feb. 9 deadline for the Kushner affiliates to submit the partners’ names to the court. But instead of doing so, the affiliates filed a short motion in federal court today asking to have the case moved back to the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. The aborted transfer has effectively resulted in a three-month delay in the tenants’ claims being heard.
Kushner Companies’ reluctance to disclose its partners in the complexes, which were purchased in 2012 and the years following, comes amidst new revelations about the company’s international investment ties. The New York Times
reported last month that Kushner Companies last spring secured a $30 million equity investment in the Baltimore complexes and others of its holdings from Menora Mivtachim, a large Israeli insurer, just as Jared Kushner was about to make his first official trip to Israel as Trump’s designated broker of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Also last month, a New Yorker article
described the Kushner Companies’ aggressive pursuit of Chinese investors in its real estate ventures. There has also been widespread scrutiny of a meeting in December 2016 between Jared Kushner and the head of a Russian state-owned bank, which
may or may nothave involved the matter of Russian investment in the Kushner Companies’ debt-strapped trophy building in New York, 666 Fifth Avenue.
Asked to elaborate on the decision this afternoon, Kushner Companies spokeswoman Christine Taylor said simply, “Our counsel on this matter has determined that the case should be remanded to state court.”