title:  Lawmakers Want Answers About Jared Kushner’s HUGE Debt And Meeting With Russian Banker
text: Don t we all owe $1.3 billion in loans, then meet with a Russian banker but totally do not discuss finances even though we re up to your necks in debt? Well, that happened to Donald Trump s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, too, and Congressional investigators want answers. Investigators want to determine whether the amateur president s son-in-law was vulnerable to Russian influence during and after the campaign because of financial stress facing his family firm s signature real estate holding   a Manhattan skyscraper, ABC News reports.Before the election, Trump s mounting conflicts of interest disturbed many of us, but Republicans said it was no problem to put a an alleged billionaire who won t release his taxes at the helm. So, here we are.Officials told ABC News that the investigators are particularly interested in a December meeting Kushner held with executives from a Russian bank. It s very peculiar that of all the people he could be talking to in a transition period where you ve got lots of balls in the air, that you end up talking to a Russian banker who is under sanction and who is related to Putin and has a KGB background,  said Rep. Jackie Speier (CA-D), who sits on the House Intelligence Committee.  I think the question has to be asked, was this about you trying to get financing for your troubled real estate that you have in New York City? Who amongst us has not held meetings with Russian bankers? Let them cast the first stone, k?ABC News reports:The timing of Kushner s December meeting with executives from VneshEconomBank, or VEB, at the suggestion of the Russian ambassador, has also raised concerns from government watchdog groups across the political spectrum.Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute, (which was founded by Trump adviser Stephen Bannon and funded in part by a Trump mega-donor, Rebekah Mercer), said the meeting  had conflict of interest written all over it. (my bold, because damn) You worry about a quid pro quo, you worry about Kushner getting some financial arrangement from a Russian financial institution, and you worry about White House policy being shaped in a way that benefits either those banks or Russia at large,  Schweizer said.  That s the concern. Hey, and that comes from a group founded by President Bannon and is partly funded by the Mercers. It s almost as if Kushner is considered collateral damage at this point.ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos asked White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Friday to explain Kushner s meeting with Gorkov (by the way, Kushner also met with Sergey Kislyak, but we ll get into that in a bit), but she repeatedly refused to do so.  Jared has said that he s willing to go and share whatever information he has,  Conway said.  He actually has made that clear for many months now, and he looks forward to doing that. Jared owes a bigly amount of money and it s due in just a couple of years:Real estate analysts told ABC News that Jared Kushner s first major acquisition, a Fifth Avenue office tower signifying his family s move from New Jersey into Manhattan real estate, is shouldering a $1.3 billion in loans coming due in two years, and it is not bringing in sufficient rental income. An attempt by Kushner to broker a deal with a Chinese company to refinance and redevelop the building fell through shortly after the election.Thomas Fink, a senior vice president at the firm Trepp, which analyzes commercial real estate, described the Kushner firm as being unable to write a $1.3 billion dollar check. I don t think they have a billion plus in the bank to just write a check to pay off the mortgage,  Fink said.  Potentially they could sell the building, but you know, what will someone pay for it  that remains to be seen. The Russian state-owned bank and the White House have different explanations for Kushner s secret meeting during Trump s transition period.Multiple U.S. officials told NBC News that the FBI and Congress are examining a campaign event last spring during which Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions and Jared Kushner were in a small gathering with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak and other diplomats at Washington s Mayflower Hotel.It seems like everyone in the Trump administration has secretly met with Kislyak, a known Russian spy recruiter. Again, that s totally not suspicious. Haven t we all met Kislyak, an oversized Russian, then forgot about that covert meeting?Stuff you can t make up: The address of Kushner s building is 666 Fifth Avenue. The orb, the sinkhole, and now the 666 building. Lol.Photo by Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images.