Kushner Companies Could Sell 5 East Village Buildings: Report

EAST VILLAGE, NY — The real estate company connected to President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is readying to sell five East Village apartment buildings, the Wall Street Journal reported.

As activists and pols scrutiny has risen since Kushner's jump to the White House as Trump's top adviser, the real estate company is turning to the suburbs of Maryland, Virginia and New Jersey, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Just this month, the company hired a broker to sell five buildings in the East Village, totaling about 100 units in the neighborhood, the Journal reported.

It is unclear which buildings could be sold.

Kushner Cos. would still have a sizable number of buildings in the city, including Manhattan. Just last November, the company agreed to purchase the Hotel on Rivington on the Lower East Side, the Journal reported.

Kushner Companies' buildings have faced heavy scrutiny from activists regarding tenants' rights issues, such as black mold exposure, lead exposure, and falsifying permits regarding rent-stabilized tenants, which activists said would skirt oversight for vulnerable tenants. Kushner himself sold his stake to a trust controlled by family members when he joined the White House, the Journal reported, but the heat from activists and pols has not subsided.

The Kushner Cos. president Laurent Morali told the Journal the company's decisions are "mainly driven by our objective to maximize returns."

Tuesday, hours after the Journal's report, Councilmember Ritchie Torres accused Kushner Cos. of flouting regulations that could put tenants' safety at risk. Department of Buildings called the investigation by Torres and watchdog group Housing Rights Initiative "pure grandstanding" that found nothing more than "paperwork lapses."

Click here to read the full Wall Street Journal report.