Trump biographer Tim O'Brien agreed with calls from Democratic leaders to investigate former President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner's financial relationship with the government of Saudi Arabia, on Friday's edition of MSNBC's "Deadline: White House."
"The ex-president does such a volume business of scandal that I feel like it was sometimes hard for the press and Democrats and ethical people to look in any one place for long," said anchor Nicolle Wallace. "But Jared Kushner was doing what Jared Kushner was doing the whole time. Are you surprised that it didn't get attention before this?"
"Well, I do think — I think we talked about it a couple years ago, Nicolle, about Kushner and the Saudi investment," said O'Brien. "I think the issue with Jared Kushner is that he is so ignorant and unschooled that people to some degree expected him to be harmless. He was in a White House making policy, particularly foreign policy, and I think he had his own eyes set on what he would do when he left the White House. Jared Kushner, his professional life and most of his life overall, was helped along by his father's wealth. He has never really achieved very much on his own."
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"When people invest a billion dollars, like they did with Steve Mnuchin, or $2 billion, with Jared Kushner, they expect to see a return on their money," O'Brien continued. "Jared Kushner is not somebody any well-heedled savvy investor will give that kind of money to unless they think there are other things to be gained from outside of investment return. They already knew from his time in the White House, that the Trump White House had overridden Congress' opposition to a Saudi arms deal. The Trump White House soft-pedaled pressing the Saudis on Jamal Khashoggi's murder. So there were clearly possible quid pro quos while he was in the White House."
"After leaving the White House, he gets this windfall of investment money, I think, because the Saudis were placing their bets on the possibility that Donald Trump might come into the White House again and they would have an easy mark in Jared Kushner," said O'Brien. "I think there is a money trail that can be followed there as you've asked. There's possibly a communications trail. I think it should cloud anything Kushner does for the campaign, Trump's campaign. The possibility that Jared Kushner will be in the White House again. This has to weigh heavily on that. It is a deep national security problem on top of being an ethical quagmire."
Ultimately, O'Brien added, "It is more than passing strange that the GOP is intent on tarring Hunter Biden with some of these allegations, when the proof, or at least the evidence of stuff that's much more problematic with Jared Kushner hasn't been equally probed."
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