76ers Owner's Company Loaned $184M To Kushner Business

Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils owner Josh Harris advised the Trump administration on infrastructure policies and made a $184 million loan to Jared Kushner's real estate business, according to recent reports. The New York Times reported on Wednesday night that Harris had met multiple times with Kushner, discussing a possible White House job for Harris.

Philly Magazine reported that the loan from Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm owned by Harris, was about three times the average property loan made by the firm's real estate lending arm.

Harris, a self-made billionaire, had no involvement in the firm's decision to make the loan to Kushner, the company said, according to Philly Magazine. Kushner's company denied that the meetings between Kushner and Harris had anything to do with the loan.

The purpose of the massive loan was to refinance a mortgage on a Chicago skyscraper.

The ethics of the loan has come into question, most famously by former Office of Government Ethics director Walter Shaub.

Shaub tweeted 13 minutes later that "nepotism is for suckers."

The New York Times reported that Kushner's company also received a $325 million loan from Citigroup soon after Kushner met with Michael Corbat, Citigroup's chief executive, in the White House.

The ethics of that loan have come into question too. Don Fox, former acting director of the Office of Government Ethics under President Obama, said "This is exactly why senior government officials, for as long back as I have any experience, don't maintain any active outside business interests," the Times reported.

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