14,758 views|Jan 17, 2019,7:30 am
Woman With Chinese Government Connections Bought Jared And Ivanka’s Penthouse
Chase Peterson-WithornForbes Staff
I cover the business of Donald Trump and those around him.
Trump Park AvenueBLOOMBERG NEWS
When the Trump Organization sold a Manhattan penthouse in February 2017, the transaction immediately sparked controversy since the buyer, a woman named
Angela Chen, runs a business peddling access to Chinese officials and allegedly has ties to Chinese military intelligence. If her goal was to cozy up to the Trumps, she appears to have gotten even closer than previously believed:
It turns out the penthouse Chen purchased was not simply a random unit that Trump’s company retained when he developed the building, but the former personal residence of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
A Forbes analysis of property records, rental listings and voter registration forms reveals that the president’s daughter and son-in-law called the 4,164-square-foot, 28th-floor Trump Park Avenue penthouse their home for years, before Chen purchased it from a company owned by Donald Trump around the time the couple moved to Washington, D.C.
The deal has raised eyebrows because Chen runs Global Alliance Associates, a “boutique business relationship consultancy” that brags on its website of helping connect American businesses with the top leaders in China. And,
according to a Mother Jones investigation,
she also heads the U.S. arm of the China Arts Foundation, which was founded by the vice president of the China Association for International Friendly Contact, an organization that has long been believed to be an affiliate of the Chinese army’s intelligence and foreign propaganda division.
Kushner has faced scrutiny for his dealings with China, too, which have included
talks with a Chinese conglomerate about crucial funding for his family’s real estate business.
According to the Wall Street Journal,
U.S. officials warned Kushner in early 2017 that he could be the target of a Chinese influence operation based on his friendship with Wendi Deng Murdoch, the ex-wife of billionaire Rupert Murdoch.
Purchasing the former home of the president’s daughter would be especially enticing to a power broker like Chen—or to the Chinese government—according to Markos Kounalakis, a visiting fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution who has studied Chinese tactics. “The Chinese and others recognize that this president seems to conduct his policies on a transactional basis,” says Kounalakis. “It makes sense that a foreign agency with money to burn would pursue multiple avenues, including trying to curry favor and garner access to President Trump through buying a penthouse apartment.”
Despite moving into the Upper East Side condo around 2011, Ivanka and Kushner never actually owned the apartment. Instead they either rented it or were granted free use of it by its owner, Donald Trump. New York City records show that his company, Trump Park Avenue LLC, sold the unit—which was never publicly listed for sale—to Chen on February 21, 2017. Trump’s longtime chief financial officer personally signed the transfer documents.
Chen paid $15.9 million, a hefty sum considering that, only one year earlier, a virtually identical penthouse just one floor lower sold for nearly $2 million less than that. On a price-per-square-foot basis, Chen shelled out 13% more for her apartment compared with the previous year’s sale—while all other units in the building were selling for 25% less on average, a Forbes analysis finds.
And just three weeks after purchasing the penthouse, she put it up for rent, according to data provided by listing site CityRealty, asking $53,000 a month. Chen owns a smaller unit on the building’s fifth floor, which she appears to have purchased through a trust in 2004.
Chen has never publicly discussed her motivation for the purchase and could not be reached for comment for this story. Neither could representatives for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. A Trump Organization spokesperson did not comment beyond stating that the “transaction, which occurred two years ago, was reviewed and approved by outside ethics counsel.”
The penthouse has since been rented, according to CityRealty, but
the previous listing remains online, with photos showing the remnants of Ivanka and Kushner’s apartment—empty except for
an oversize, custom velvet sofa the couple seems to have left behind.
Forbes discovered the link after studying the photos and the building’s floor plans. A subsequent investigation into the couple’s voter registration forms confirmed that they previously lived in the apartment, which was
photographed for Elle Decor in 2012 and featured on
Ivanka’s Instagram.
The couple is now registered to vote at a different address, a larger penthouse on the building’s 20th floor. That apartment is also owned by Donald Trump’s company, Trump Park Avenue LLC.
Some reports have stated that the couple paid $16 million for their penthouse, but Forbesfound no record of such a sale, either in their own names or through a holding company. Ivanka does own one unit in the building, however: her two-bedroom “starter” apartment on the sixth floor, which she
has been trying to rent or sell off-and-on for years.
Meanwhile, the Trump Organization
continues to sell real estate while Trump is in office, leaving open the possibility that more foreign-connected buyers will try to purchase apartments from the president. Ivanka and Kushner might even get new Manhattan neighbors. Penthouse 21, located just above the unit the couple now claims to occupy, is
for sale through Trump International Realty. Its previous resident, a Saudi prince,
moved out early and refused to pay his $100,000 monthly rent.
You can reach me via email (cpeterson-withorn@forbes.com),
Twitter,
tips@forbes.com or—anonymously—through
our SecureDrop site.
How can a new yorker call san fran dirty? 
And how can the president have the audacity to diss a us city???
