Warren probes U.S.-backed loan to Kushner family firm

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is calling on government-owned mortgage financier Freddie Mac to provide details on its reported backing of an $800 million loan to the real estate firm owned by White House adviser Jared Kushner’s family.

The loan “raises serious questions about conflicts of interest and whether Kushner Companies may have received special treatment from Freddie, which is currently in government conservatorship,” Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) wrote Thursday to Freddie CEO Donald Layton in a letter obtained by POLITICO.

Kushner Cos. obtained the loan from mortgage lender Berkadia to purchase more than 6,000 apartment units in Maryland and Virginia, according to a report in May by Bloomberg, which cited an unidentified person familiar with the matter. Freddie Mac guaranteed the loan, Bloomberg said.

Freddie Mac purchases loans from mortgage lenders — which gives the lenders the liquidity to make more loans — and repackages them into securities for sale to investors.

Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law, drew criticism for transferring ownership of many of his holdings in the company to immediate family members — rather than selling them and placing the proceeds in an independent trust — when he entered the White House.

“Mr. Kushner's sustained involvement with Kushner Companies raises questions about whether he or someone acting on his behalf inappropriately intervened in this loan approval process,” Warren and Carper wrote.

They acknowledged that “there is presently no specific indication of any wrongdoing by Freddie.”

But, they added, “the fact pattern in this case — of Kushner Companies receiving its largest loan in a decade, Mr. Kushner's refusal to fully and clearly divest from his former company, and the Kushner Companies' recent history of engaging in transactions that appear to raise conflicts of interest for Mr. Kushner — raise significant questions about the circumstances under which Freddie approved and Kushner Companies received this loan.”

The letter cited a series of reports that Kushner, while in the White House, had met with executives at companies with which his family firm was seeking deals.

Warren and Carper gave Layton two weeks to answer a handful of questions about the transaction, including whether the president’s son-in-law communicated with anyone at Freddie about the loan.

Kushner Cos. did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nor did Berkadia or Freddie Mac.