Trump Organization, Kushner Companies cut ties on hotel deal

The Trump Organization and Kushner Companies are ending plans for a partnership to manage two hotels in New Jersey amid scrutiny from ethics watchdogs.

The New York Times reports that the two companies have abandoned plans for the Trump Organization to manage a Kushner Companies hotel development in Long Branch, N.J., and have separately terminated the Trump Organization’s management of the Kushner-owned Westminster Hotel in Livingston, N.J.

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The two deals could be another major frustration for the Trump Organization, which has taken on fewer new ventures since the application of new ethics policies related to President Trump’s election to the White House last year.

Negotiations for the two New Jersey properties, the Times reports, fell through after months of scrutiny over contacts between the Trump Organization and Kushner Companies, which ethics watchers have questioned because of Jared Kushner’s role as a senior adviser to Trump.

Public scrutiny of the business arrangement was reportedly too much for the Kushner Companies, which moved to terminate the deal this spring.

The Trump Organization earned $20,000 last year for managing the Livingston location, according to Trump’s financial disclosure forms.

Spokesmen for the two companies declined to comment on the end of the two New Jersey–based partnerships, but a spokesman for the Trump Organization noted that the company’s pipeline for new hotel deals is “still very active.”

The end of negotiations follows other setbacks for the Trump brand. A Panama location evicted Trump staff and pried the Trump name off the building with a crowbar earlier this year.