Kushners Won’t Buy Miami Marlins if Seller Gets Ambassadorship

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/us/politics/kushner-miami-marlins.html

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WASHINGTON — The family of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, said it would pull back from buying the Miami Marlins baseball team — for now — after it emerged that the current owner is likely to be named President Trump’s ambassador to France.

Within days, the Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria is expected to be announced for the post, a diplomatic plum among the political appointments that presidents make, according to a person briefed on the process. Mr. Loria was a six-figure donor to Mr. Trump’s joint fund-raising effort with the Republican National Committee during the campaign, and a job in the administration has been a priority of the White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus.

But there is a hitch: Mr. Loria has been in discussions with Mr. Kushner’s father and brother-in-law to sell the team. The Kushners are not keen on the appearance of an ambassadorship-for-baseball-team swap.

When word of Mr. Loria’s pending appointment became public in recent days, the Kushner family decided to remove itself from the list of possible buyers of the Marlins, at least for now.

In a statement Wednesday night from Jared Kushner’s brother-in-law, Joseph Meyer, the family made clear that it would not proceed with the deal.

“Our family has been friends with Jeff Loria for over 30 years, been in business together and even owned an AAA baseball team together,” Mr. Meyer said.

“Although the Kushners have made substantial progress in discussions for us to purchase the Marlins, recent reports suggest that Mr. Loria will soon be nominated by the president to be ambassador to France,” he said.

“If that is true, we do not want this unrelated transaction to complicate that process and will not pursue it,” he said. “The Kushners remain interested in purchasing a team and would love to buy the Marlins at another time.”

Aides to Mr. Trump declined to respond to an email seeking comment.

The overlap of official government work and private businesses of Mr. Kushner and Mr. Trump has been one of concern for ethics watchdogs.