Jared Kushner’s family company is suing a New Jersey city, alleging it forced the delay of a major twin-tower project due to “political animus” toward President Donald Trump.
The federal lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Kushner Cos. claims Jersey City and the city’s redevelopment agency “put politics over principle” when they broke a contract with developers over the planned One Journal Square project, according to a report in the Jersey Journal.
Trump is a Republican. Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, a defendant in the suit, is a Democrat.
The Kushner Cos. previously threatened a lawsuit in April after the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency said developers were in default because they missed a deadline to begin construction on the project.
Fulop dismissed the lawsuit, saying it amounts to “hearsay nonsense.” He said “it’s not like the Kushners have a great deal of credibility in anything they say” and that “they will do anything to manipulate a situation.”
The lawsuit is seeking to stop the city from ending the project’s contract and declare the notice of default null and void. It calls the default threat a “transparent pretext to enhance Fulop’s status among the electorate of the city.”
Joseph Fiorenzo, the company’s lawyer, said the “outrageous conduct” of city officials “strikes at the very heart of our economic system which has, as its foundation, the freedom of people to organize their affairs by entering into contracts. This is the glue that holds our economic system together.”
The suit also names the city and the redevelopment agency as defendants.