Of course you know what a petard is. A fart.<\/p>\n
(Not to my prissy Compact Oxford English Dictionary, however. [Maybe that “Compact” is to blame, but anyway…] Its definition is much more boring: “a small bomb made of a metal or wooden box filled with powder.” Yeah, right, but then if you look way down at the bottom you will see, “ORIGIN French, from p\u00e9ter<\/em> “break wind.” Which means: fart.)<\/p>\n OK, back to Jared Kushner and his petard.<\/p>\n Today ProPublica gave me an article on the petard hoisting Kushner in his defense of outrageous landlord practices in Baltimore.<\/a><\/p>\n This is an enraging case previously reported on by a joint venture of ProPublica and the New York Times.<\/a><\/p>\n See, the case right now is in a Baltimore city court. But Kushner’s defense team says it should be moved to federal court (where it will not face a Baltimore city jury) because a number of Kushner’s unnamed partners in this real estate venture are foreign.<\/p>\n Kushner wants to keep the names of the partners secret.<\/p>\n But in order to get the case moved to federal court, he’ll have to expose the precise derivations and names of his partners — you know, in order to prove they are indeed foreign and that this case does indeed belong in federal court, not a city court with a Baltimore, heavily African-American, jury.<\/p>\n So his team is asking that the partners’ names be sealed, i.e., kept from the view of the plaintiffs.<\/p>\n Did I say Kushner wants to keep the names of the partners secret? Gee, I already wrote that. But why? Could this have anything to do with money laundering? Hm.<\/p>\n The federal judge is apparently not persuaded by the keep-the-partners-secret argument:<\/p>\n A federal judge in Maryland ruled Friday<\/a> that Jared Kushner\u2019s family real estate company could not keep secret the identities of its partners in Baltimore-area apartment complexes that are the subject of a class-action lawsuit by tenants.<\/em><\/p>\n Damned if you do, damned if you don’t and there’s no way out.<\/p>\n This is so adorable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Of course you know what a petard is. A fart. (Not to my prissy Compact Oxford English Dictionary, however. [Maybe that “Compact” is to blame, but anyway…] Its definition is much more boring: “a small bomb made of a metal … Continue reading