Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

Donate

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Email
  • RSS
  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2023 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Corruption

Is Jared Kushner Literally in Bed with the Saudis?

Juan Cole 06/11/2019

Tweet
Share1K
Reddit
Email
1K Shares

The Guardian’s Jon Swain broke the story on Monday that Cadre, a real estate investment firm in which Jared Kushner has as much as a $50 million stake, has received a mysterious $90 million infusion of cash from unknown and possibly foreign sources. At least $1 million came in from Saudi Arabia, according to Swain.

Goldman Sachs transferred the investments through the Turks & Caicos islands, the Switzerland of the Caribbean.

Kushner at first neglected to declare his Cadre investment, when he was put forward for a government position. Later he did so, saying that the failure to declare had been a simple oversight.

He reduced his shares in Cadre to 25%, keeping $25-$50 million as an active investment rather than a blind trust.

In 2017, he kept being denied a security clearance until a Trump political appointee made DHS accept his application. The issue had been that the intel agencies could not rule out foreign influence through their investments with Kushner.

It is not the first time such doubts were raised by Kushner. On the eve of the Trumps’ visit to Israel last year, his family real estate firm received a $30 million investment from the Israeli forum Menora Mevtachim.

In office as the president’s special envoy to the Middle East, Kushner has helped cultivate strong administration ties to Saudi Arabia and Israel, and to lobby both of them for Kushner’s “Deal of a Century” on the Palestine issue. Some Palestinians are calling it the “steal of a century.” It is troubling that Kushner is dealing that part of the world uses his own money.

——–

Bonus video

Channel 4 News: “Jared Kushner: power hungry and intent on enriching himself?”

Filed Under: Corruption, Featured

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter and have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.

Twitter

Follow Juan Cole @jricole or Informed Comment @infcomment on Twitter

Facebook



Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2023 All Rights Reserved

Posting....