You’ll Never Believe It but Trump and Kushner Businesses Got Millions in PPP Loans

Nearly four years after Donald Trump moved into the White House, there are a number of things we’ve come to expect from the administration, whose incompetence, chaos, and self-dealing is actually quite predictable. We can expect that the president will spend a significant portion of his day tweeting incomprehensible attacks on people deemed disloyal. We can expect that Stephen Miller will actively hatch unique ways to make immigrants’ lives hell. And we can expect that, given the opportunity, Trump and his children will do everything they can to profit off the presidency, no matter how transparently shady and corrupt.

So, really, it was only a matter of time before we learned that businesses owned by Trump and by his son-in-law’s family received millions of dollars in pandemic relief loans. Or that, despite the fact that the money was in large part meant to keep employees from being laid off, only a handful of employees at Trump and Kushner–owned companies were kept on the payroll. Per NBC News:

Sweeping [analysis of] data released by the Small Business Administration…found that properties owned by the Trump Organization as well as the Kushner Companies, owned by the family of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, profited from the program.

Over 25 PPP loans worth more than $3.65 million were given to businesses with addresses at Trump and Kushner real estate properties, paying rent to those owners. Fifteen of the properties self-reported that they only kept one job, zero jobs, or did not report a number at all.

Trump, of course, chose not to divest from his company upon becoming president, and continues to profit from it—profits that have gotten a nice boost thanks to his insistence on hosting foreign leaders at his properties, gouging the Secret Service, and charging taxpayers for water he drinks at Mar-a-Lago, among other things. Kushner, along with Ivanka, made at least $36 million last year, largely through his stake in his family’s real estate firm. (In 2017, the duo reported income of at least $82 million, so times are obviously tough.)

In addition to revealing the loans to the Trump and Kushner businesses, the PPP data showed ridiculous mismanagement of the program, with over 100 loans going to companies with no name listed and other companies appearing to game the system for loans as high as $10 million through their subsidiaries.

The PPP programs’ original stated intent by officials was to help with payroll for small businesses struggling under the effects of coronavirus lockdown measures…. But almost from the start, the programs, particularly PPP, drew criticism for how they were administered and messaged, and whether it was equitable. Large national banks initially gave loans only to customers with whom they had pre-existing lending relationships. Businesses owned by people of color without strong banking relationships found themselves with limited access and forced them to find other routes for funding.

There was also the persistent question of what defined a “small business,” after lobbying by the hotel and restaurant industry ballooned the maximum number of employees allowable to 500, even though over 98 percent of the small businesses in America have fewer than 100 employees.