Saudi Arabia Concluded Jared Kushner's Investment Firm Was a Joke, Gave Him $2 Billion Anyways
It is standard Republican procedure to try to draw a false equivalency between foreign governments giving billions of dollars to a Trump family member who was actually working in the Trump administration handling Middle East affairs and Biden's troubled son who never played any role in the federal government. Hunter Binden is like Roger Clinton or Dubya's drunk daughters.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/jared-kushner-saudi-arabia-2-billion-investment
As we’ve noted a number of times around these parts, though, the one exception to the “Jared Kushner is bad at this” rule was when it came to the task of cultivating friendships with some of the world’s worst human-rights abusers. Specifically, Kushner was a huge fan of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, with whom he texted via WhatsApp and built a relationship that one congressman told Vanity Fair’s Abigail Tracy “stunned” him, saying, “It looks bad. It smells bad. It is bad.” In addition to seemingly having no problem with the prince’s decision to jail his own family members, or the disastrous Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, Kushner defended MBS amid the murder of Saudi dissident (and U.S. resident) Jamal Khashoggi, and he reportedly urged Donald Trump to support the prince, arguing that the whole situation—wherein a man was kidnapped, killed, and dismembered via bone saw—would blow over. And while that level of of ass-kissing and murder-excusing would keep a person with a functioning moral compass up at night, for Kushner it has paid off—literally.
On Sunday, The New York Times reported that just six months after leaving the White House, the former first son-in-law’s newly formed private equity firm, Affinity Partners, was awarded a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which is led by MBS. That the kingdom would fork over that kind of cash to Kushner is obviously ridiculously shady and, as Nick Penniman, the founder and chief executive of good-government organization Issue One, told The Times, “swampy and seemingly hypocritical.” But the cash alone is not even the funniest part, and by funniest we mean insanely unethical and wildly corrupt. No, the unethical and corrupt part is that the people who perform due diligence for the Saudis’ Public Investment Fund concluded Kushner’s firm was a joke and that he might make them look bad…and then the board, headed by MBS, gave him the money anyway. Because…y’know.
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To give you an idea of how undeserving of the money Kushner was, it appears the Saudi panel may not have been the only one with grave reservations about investing in his firm; according to The Times, the Boy Prince of New Jersey planned to raise a total of $7 billion but “so far he appears to have signed up few other major investors.” As of March 31, the main fund had just $2.5 billion under management, meaning the $2 billion from Saudi Arabia makes up the vast majority of the assets. If only some of the other would-be investors had approved a plan to chop a man to pieces, and Kushner had defended them on the world stage!
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The guy doesn’t give away $2 billion for no reason.
"Smells so bad": New report details how Kushner quickly cashed in after leaving Trump White House
Kushner used relationships he cultivated in the White House to quickly raise $2 billion. He wasn't the only one
By JON SKOLNIK
Salon, MAY 23, 2022
Jared Kushner, Donald's Trump son-in-law, and former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin collectively raised $3.5 billion from the Middle East shortly after leaving the Trump administration, presenting potential conflicts of interest given that both men cultivated diplomatic relations with Middle Eastern leaders during their time in government.
According to The New York Times, Mnuchin collected $1.5 billion from the Emiratis, Kuwaitis and Qataris within three months of his exit from the Trump administration. Kushner, a former senior advisor to Trump, likewise raised $2 billion from the Saudi government during a six-month period after his tenure was complete.
The investments, which both men raised for their respective private investment firms, appear to stem from relationships developed while Kushner and Mnuchin were touring around the Middle East to finance the Abraham Fund, a $3 billion fund designed to promote economic cooperation and development between the U.S., the UAE, and Israel. The fund ultimately disintegrated, but shortly after Kushner and Mnuchin left office, "each quickly launched a private fund that in some ways picked up where the Abraham Fund had ended," the Times reported.
Snip…
According to the Times, Mnuchin made over eighteen visits to various Persian Gulf monarchies during his tenure as Treasury secretary, developing relationships with Yasir al-Rumayyan, chief of the Saudi fund; Mansoor bin Ibrahim al-Mahmoud; Mansoor bin Ibrahim al-Mahmoud, the head of the Qatar Investment Authority; Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayedm, president of the UAE, and Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince.
Kushner, meanwhile, made at least ten trips to the Persian Gulf, reportedly fostering a close partnership with bin Salman, even after the government's agents were accused of killing former Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Continues…
https://www.salon.com/2022/05/23/smells-so-bad-new-report-details-how-kushner-quickly-cashed-in-after-leaving/
Same oil. Same oil.
