A criminal investigation appears to have helped kill a Jared Kushner-backed plan to build a Trump-branded hotel in Belgrade, Serbia.
As The Wall Street Journal reports, the president’s son-in-law’s investment firm decided to kill the project after four Serbian government officials, including a Cabinet minister, were indicted in connection with their push for its approval. The plans had faced widespread backlash in Serbia, particularly after the country’s Parliament voted last month to strip historic site protections from the buildings where the hotel was to be located.
Democrats in Congress have raised concerns for years about Kushner’s business dealings with foreign governments and wealthy elites abroad, which have continued as he has conducted diplomatic negotiations on behalf of the Trump administration this year.
Per the Journal:
Jared Kushner pulled out of a planned Trump-branded development in Belgrade after the project sparked protests and the indictment of a senior Serbian politician. On Monday, a special prosecutor indicted a cabinet minister and three other officials over the project, a planned trio of towers in a central Belgrade site once bombed by NATO. ‘Because meaningful projects should unite rather than divide, and out of respect for the people of Serbia and the City of Belgrade, we are withdrawing our application and stepping aside at this time,’ a spokesman for Kushner’s private-equity firm, Affinity Partners, said hours later. For the time being, it looks like Belgrade’s historic sites won’t be demolished to build what would effectively be a shrine to the Trump family. But I wouldn’t bet on this quieting Democrats’ concerns about the family’s international ventures: That the deal was under consideration at all arguably stands to inflame concerns about foreign governments’ efforts to shower the president and his family with gifts and financial privileges.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog. 
