Trump's son-in-law triggers massive corruption alarms from experts

Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, is reportedly trying to entice governments in the Middle East to invest billions in his private equity firm while he simultaneously works as “a special envoy for peace”—a role he appears to have used to help convince Trump to wage war on Iran.

The New York Timesreported late last week that Kushner “has spoken with potential investors in recent weeks about raising $5 billion or more for Affinity Partners, his investment firm.”Citing five unnamed people with knowledge of the talks, the Times reported that “Affinity’s representatives have already met with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund,” Affinity’s largest investor. Saudi Arabia’s leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, reportedly played a significant role in the behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign urging Trump to attack Iran—Saudi Arabia’s top regional rival.

Bin Salman controls the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which pumped $2 billion into Kushner’s firm in 2022.

“Mr. Kushner’s fundraising is expected to stretch on for the better part of this year,” the Times added. “The efforts show the blurring of the lines between public service and private profit-seeking during Mr. Trump’s second term. Only a few weeks ago, in his role as Mr. Trump’s ‘peace envoy,’ Mr. Kushner met in Geneva with Iran’s foreign minister. The US and Israeli bombing campaign in Iran began shortly after those meetings concluded without a deal on Iran’s nuclear program.”

Last week, Trump said he decided to attack Iran in coordination with Israel—whose prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is a personal friend of Kushner’s—because the president “thought they were going to attack us,” a view he claimed to have reached after listening to “what Steve [Witkoff] and Jared and Pete [Hegseth] and others were telling me.”

US Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote in response to the Times reporting that “while US servicemembers die in another forever war in the Middle East, Donald Trump’s ‘peace envoy’ is raising money for his private equity firm.”

Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, wrote in a social media post on Sunday that a “fair and equitable deal” between the US and Iran “was within reach” before Trump and Netanyahu started bombing.

“Those providing poor advice to POTUS are responsible for bloodshed,” Araghchi wrote, attaching a screenshot of the Times story on Kushner’s fundraising efforts. “This war is imposed on both Americans and Iranians.”Judd Legum, founder and author of the Popular Information newsletter, noted last week that Kushner’s participation in the Geneva diplomatic talks that preceded the US-Israeli assault on Iran “violated his pledge not to be involved in foreign policy in a second Trump administration.”

On Monday, Legum observed that Kushner also said in December 2024 that his private equity firm would not “have to raise capital for the next four years,” allowing him to “avoid any conflicts” of interest.

Trump formally named Kushner a “special envoy for peace” last month, a move that means the president’s son-in-law is now required by law to file a financial disclosure report. Kushner has just days left before the 30-day deadline to file the disclosure.

Donald Sherman, president and CEO of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, wrote in a letter to the White House last week that “Mr. Kushner’s history of financial gains resulting from his time as a White House advisor during President Trump’s first term raises serious concerns about potential conflicts of interest that must be addressed before Mr. Kushner participates in any additional matters that may relate to his own financial interests or those of his investors.”

“The risk of Mr. Kushner’s potential conflicts is particularly concerning because his private investment firm has very publicly done significant business with foreign partners who also have interests in the conflicts on which he has been assigned to work,” Sherman noted.