Billionaires Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are settled into their new Washington, D.C. mansion. Despite being verifiably enormously wealthy (unlike her unpopular father), Ivanka and Jared have chose to rent, not buy in their new home-away-from-NYC. The owner of their D.C. residence has been a mystery, until now:
The identity of the owner of the Kalorama mansion that the Trump-Kushner family moved into this year had been obscured through a company, “Tracy D.C. Real Estate Inc.,” listed on the deed for the sale in December, according to Washington property records. But the Journal was able to locate the man behind the company: Andrónico Luksic belongs to one of Chile’s wealthiest families, the newspaper reports, and the U.S. branch of his company is suing the government for blocking its plan to run a copper-and-nickel mining operation adjacent to a Minnesota wilderness area.
A Luksic rep tells the Journal that the couple is paying “absolute market value” for the mansion, which the Trump-Kushner family has used for entertaining Kushner’s colleagues from the Trump administration — and as a backdrop for Ivanka’s gauzy Instagrams of their power-family lifestyle.
President Obama had previously blocked renewal of those mining rights in Minnesota:
Luksic’s company, Twin Metals Minnesota, filed suit in September to force renewal of its leases. The lawsuit remains pending. Luksic bought the Kalorama property after the November presidential election.
Former President Barack Obama’s administration announced in December it would not renew mineral rights critical to the proposed $2.8 billion Twin Metals project near Ely, near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, about 250 miles north of Minneapolis.
And as of now, the property doesn’t appear to be rented legally:
Luksic still lacked the business license necessary under Washington law to collect rent on the property as of earlier this week. A law firm representing Luksic said the necessary forms will be submitted shortly.
Even if this rental is on the up-and-up, didn’t anyone stop to think this might look bad? That perhaps renting from a foreign billionaire who was engaged in a legal battle with the U.S. federal government wasn’t the best idea? And that obscuring the ownership of this property would look even worse? Thus far, this is par for the course where the Trump’s are concerned. It’s all one big Trump-branded swamp now.