Vox: The controversial deal is off: a Chinese company won’t be investing in Kushner Companies
Lawrence Noble, the general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, said during an interview after the initial report of the emerging deal that, given the reported facts, there wasn’t any evidence that federal ethics rules were being broken.
“The core ethics rule of matters affecting personal financial interest would not seem to apply if [Kushner] has totally divested himself of his financial interests in the building,” he told me. “And there are other rules involving using non-public information for someone’s financial benefit, but it doesn’t appear it would apply at this point in this situation.”
But Noble cautioned that the principles of government ethics were being threatened by the deal.
“One of the classic things that you see in cases dealing with corruption is where people try to influence a government official by financially benefiting their family,” he said. “That often goes on because directly benefiting a government official may be too obvious and may be illegal.”