Something fishy is happening on the Jersey Shore.
The Federal Transit Administration has been helping a New Jersey beachfront town with its plans to develop a ferry service and build a pier that would shuttle passengers between New York City and Long Branch, where White House adviser and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner co-owns a resort. The project would boost the value of Kushner's beachfront condos by as much as 50 percent, a local business administrator told The Associated Press. The 269 units currently sell for as much as $1.9 million each.
The FTA gave Long Branch $3.34 million to rebuild the pier back in 2008, but it wasn't enough to complete the project. City officials reportedly kept the Kushner family, which has developed property in Long Branch for decades, in the loop about plans to continue to fund the pier. City officials have simultaneously been in talks with the feds about how to score more federal funding and get this potentially profitable project finished.
All of this is raising eyebrows over whether the federal government is inappropriately pushing a project that would directly benefit the president's family.
Kushner resigned as CEO of Kushner Cos., his family's company, when he joined the White House, but is still the owner of various real estate holdings. Kushner Cos. insists there's nothing fishy about the Long Branch project, saying in a statement that "to suggest that we have done anything unethical is patently false and appears to be drummed up again for political gain."