Senate Democrats told Raw Story on Tuesday that they have questions about the reporting on Jared Kushner's relationship with Saudi Arabia. But they explained that such an issue was likely going to be a Justice Department case. But Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) isn't giving up hope on investigating it under the Republican Congress.
While the House Oversight Committee is investigating Hunter Biden, who has never worked for the U.S. government, the ranking member is going to be exploring Kushner, the Washington Post reported. Raskin cited the recent reports from the Post on questions around Kushner profiting off of his time at the White House.
“I am deeply troubled by your continued refusal to produce documents regarding the Saudi government’s $2 billion investment in your fund in light of recent prominent reporting that Saudi Arabia made that investment in Affinity just months after you left a senior White House position where you were responsible for shaping Middle East policy,” Raskin wrote to Kushner in the letter.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman chairs the wealth fund that gave the money to Kushner over the objections of the advisers. Since his time in the White House, Kushner has formed a close relationship with MBS that continues to this day.
Raskin wants to know if there are other foreign investors to Kushner's hedge fund or if it was just MBS.
Thus far, Kushner has turned over nearly 2,000 pages about the relationship. But Raskin's letter said that most of the documents were publicly available ones that do “not substantively relate to the Saudi government’s investment in the firm.” Raskin wrote that when the committee followed up in October, the company’s legal officer did not respond.
Rep. James Comer (R-KY) is the GOP's Oversight chair, and when asked about Kushner by ABC News, he claimed "everything is on the table" before going on to attack President Joe Biden. They are seeking to link the day job of his last surviving son to his White House. Comer cites them as Biden's "family's suspicious business schemes with foreign adversaries."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) agreed that the Saudi issue with Kushner is a current one and he'd pick up the probe in the Senate Finance Committee as the chair.
“The financial links between the Saudi royal family and the Trump family raise very serious issues, and when you factor in Jared Kushner’s financial interests, you are looking right at the cat’s cradle of financial entanglements,” Wyden said last week. Other Democratic senators told Raw Story that they weren't as interested, despite questioning the relationship.
Raskin told the Post he's hoping Comer will cooperate in the Oversight Committee.
“We will definitely work with our partners in the Senate to get all of the information we need in order to conduct a thorough and detailed investigation of all of the conflicts of interests that we need to learn about," he said. I'm “not going to allow this to be some kind of lopsided partisan witch hunt. Let’s have a serious investigation into public policy and the profound ethical concerns that have been raised.”
The Trump White House provided arms sales and other things to the Saudi government while in office. Trump also refused to acknowledge the CIA's finding that MBS ordered the capture and assassination of columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was critical of the Saudi prince's policies. Trump then bragged he "saved" MBS. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote in his book that when he went to visit the Saudis, Trump said, "tell him he owes us."
Since then, Trump has profited from the close Saudi relationship. Their financing to start LIV Golf was handed to Trump for the use of his courses and the profit amount isn't public.
“Your efforts to protect the Crown Prince may have allowed him to maintain his position at the top of the Saudi government and, thus, his ability to deliver significant financial benefits to you and your father-in-law after the end of the Trump Administration," Raskin wrote in his letter.
He complained that Kushner's company “failed to produce a single communication related to the reasons behind your firm’s receipt of $2 billion from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund.”
