Vox: Jared Kushner's family's company to make $400M in new sweetheart deal with Chinese firm
Lawrence Noble, the general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, says that given the reported facts, there isn’t any evidence that federal ethics rules have been 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 tells 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 cautions that although formal laws on government ethics may not have been broken, the principles certainly may have.
“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 says. “That often goes on because directly benefiting a government official may be too obvious and may be illegal.”