Trump Report Puts Spotlight on Jared Kushner’s Middle East Activities

Criticism over the $2 billion investment Jared Kushner’s firm received from Saudi Arabia has reemerged in the wake of a report alleging that his father-in-law, Donald Trump’s businesses received millions in foreign payments while he was in office.

Congressman Robert Garcia was one of those who accused Kushner, a former White House advisor who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, of carrying out a “grift” by accepting a $2 billion investment from a fund led by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for his private equity fund, Affinity Partners, six months after he left his White House role in January 2021.

The investment has frequently raised concerns that the deal amounted to an improper quid pro quo.

Garcia, a Democrat from California, brought up the Saudi investment while discussing on MSNBC a report from Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. The report alleged that four businesses owned by Trump received around $7.8 million in payments from foreign governments and officials in 20 countries, including China, Saudi Arabia and Qatar during his administration.

The report, “White House for Sale: How Princes, Prime Ministers, and Premiers Paid Off President Trump,” alleged that Trump “repeatedly and willfully” violated the US Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause. The clause prohibits federal officials, including the president, from accepting money or gifts from foreign governments without permission from Congress after foreign officials stayed in his company’s hotels and apartments in Washington DC, New York, and Las Vegas.

“The report was only able to get documents from four properties,” Garcia said on MSNBC’s The Reid Out. “Donald Trump has hundreds of properties and allied businesses all around the world. So we’re getting just a small slice of an enormous corruption grift that we’ve got to uncover.

“Think about the amount of corruption in Saudi Arabia. Jared Kushner gets appointed the lead person in the Middle East, against the desires of his own secretary of state, Trump’s Rex Tillerson. He’s the main envoy; he puts together a $110 billion arms deal , (and) he starts producing all sorts of deals with the Saudis,” Garcia said.

“Then let’s not forget, Kushner leaves the White House and just months later has a $2 billion investment fund paid by the Saudi government. This is a grift while, at the same time, the Saudi government is pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into Trump properties here in DC and across the globe.”

Lindy Li, a political commentator and Democratic National Committee member, noted the Oversight report arrived as House Republicans are trying to impeach President Joe Biden over allegations he benefited from his son Hunter Biden’s foreign dealings while in office, despite no evidence to back up the claims .

“Trump is the one who took millions from foreign governments, Kushner is the one who took billions from the Saudis,” Li posted on X, formerly Twitter. “Unless Republicans investigate them too plz kindly STFU about Hunter.”

The Republicans Against Trump social media account, which has more than 537,000 followers on X, reshared an August 2023 video from Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Rattner discussing the scale of Kushner’s deal with Saudi Arabia for his Affinity Partners investment.

“I’ve been in this business 40 years. I have never seen someone get $2 billion out of $3 billion, two-thirds of their money, from a single investor,” Rattner said. “Usually, a single investor might be a few percent of the fund, might be five percent, occasionally 10 percent. I’ve never seen this.”

Newsweek reached out to Kushner’s office via email for comment.

The Democrats on the House Oversight Committee alleged in their 156-page report that large numbers of foreign payments made to Trump and his family during his administration remain to be revealed.

“These countries spent — often lavishly — on apartments and hotel stays at Donald Trump’s properties — personally enriching President Trump while he made foreign policy decisions connected to their policy agendas with far-reaching ramifications for the United States,” the report said.

Republican Representative James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee leading the impeachment attempts against Biden, dismissed the report’s findings.

“It’s beyond parody that Democrats continue their obsession with former President Trump,” Comer said. “Former President Trump has legitimate businesses, but the Bidens do not.”

Eric Trump, the former president’s son and executive vice president of The Trump Organization, also dismissed the report’s finding as a “joke.”

“All foreign government profits, for stays at our hotels and other properties while my father was in office, were voluntarily donated to the United States Treasury,” he posted on X.

Newsweek reached out to the Trump Organization via email for comment.