Kushner, Inc.

March 25, 2019
The Trump administration's premier power couple is a study in arrogance, incompetence, and corruption in this caustic exposé. Huffington Post writer Ward (The Liar's Ball) paints First Daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, both top advisers to President Trump, as poster-kids of overentitled, ethically dubious wealth. Ivanka, Ward reports, is "talented at telling self-serving bald lies" by posing as a moderate while doing little to rein in Trump's excesses; she was, he writes, neck-deep in Trump Organization deals with shady foreign investors, then exploited her presidential access to get advantages for her fashion business from foreign governments. Kushner, Ward contends, is awash in rules violations, such as failing to report meetings with Russian officials, and trades on his far-reaching government influence to get foreign investments for his family's real estate business. (Ward credits his interference in Middle East policy, motivated by a desire to wring investments from oil monarchies, with almost starting a war in the Persian Gulf.) Ward's rehash of the "Javanka" saga is well-researched but not well-presented; it's an eye-glazing maze of small-to-middling improprieties, with the thread often getting lost in the chaos of White House power plays and backstabbing. Still, Ward offers a useful, though dispiriting, guide to the ascendance of private business over the public interest in the Trump administration.