Trump Swamp: The Transportation Secretary Holds Stock In An Asphalt Company

The Kushner family real estate firm has secured $800 million in debt backed by government-owned Freddie Mac, Bloomberg News reported late last week. There’s hardly two degrees of separation between the parties, and each degree holds enormous sway: Though presidential adviser Jared Kushner claimed upon taking that job to have stepped away from the company — though not entirely — he left his assets and control of the company to close family. Meanwhile, Trump appointee Joseph Otting runs the body, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, that oversees Freddie Mac. Otting — whose government service we’ve covered here before — used to be business partners with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, in their post-recession days leading the forclosure-happy OneWest Bank in California. And Kushner and Mnuchin are close. Kushner of course edited and re-submitted his financial disclosure documents so many times you’d think they were a Kanye West album. Rest assured, though: As Kushner said during his “Time 100” interview last month, “I’ve…