Kushner and Mnuchin have reportedly raised $3.5 billion from Arab states since leaving office.
Saudi Arabia put a combined $3 billion into Kushner's and Mnuchin's funds, The New York Times said.
The Times reported both men held meetings with their investors while working in the White House.
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Jared Kushner, a former senior advisor to President Donald Trump, and former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin raised a combined $3.5 billion from Arab monarchies within six months of leaving the office, The New York Times reported.
Shortly after Trump left office, Mnuchin launched a fund, Liberty Capital, and Kushner followed soon after, launching Affinity Partners in July.
Within six months, Affinity Partners had secured a $2 billion investment from the Saudi sovereign-wealth fund, The Times reported in April.
Liberty Capital raised more than $1.5 billion from the sovereign-wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Qatar within three months of Mnuchin leaving office, The Times reported.
Political commentators and ethics experts were concerned that the investments may be a way for the investors to gain footing with those close to Trump, should he run for and win the 2024 election. Trump has yet to declare whether he will run.
The Times reported that Kushner and Mnuchin made a string of visits to the Middle East while in office, meeting those who would ultimately invest billions in their funds.
Kushner made three trips to the Middle East shortly after the November 2020 US election, The Times said, including a January 5 meeting in Saudi Arabia with leaders of the Persian Gulf states.
On January 5, 2021, Mnuchin started his own Middle East tour, with scheduled stops to visit the heads of the sovereign-wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait, The Times reported.
All became investors in his funds.
Kushner managed to secure the $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia despite The Times reporting that fund's internal investor-screening board advised against the investment.
The board said its background check found that Affinity Partners was "unsatisfactory in all aspects" and that there were "public relations risks" given that Kushner was a senior advisor to Trump, The Times said.
The panel was overruled by the board of the fund, The Times reported. The chair of the board is Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country's de facto leader who formed a close bond with Kushner since 2017.
According to The Intercept, Affinity Partner's pitch deck to investors touted its strong links to Saudi Arabia, also citing the success of the Abraham Accords, a groundbreaking project founded by Kushner while at the White House to forge new ties between the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and the US.
WhatsThatSmellLike on May 23rd, 2022 at 11:37 UTC »
Trump literally used the Presidency to force Qatar to loan the Kushner family $1billion back in 2017/18 for their failed 666 5th Avenue skyscraper investment.
Trump mysteriously tweeted back in 2017 that Qatar was no longer being supported even though we had a military base there.
Right around the same time Trump punished Qatar it was reported that the Qatar royal family refused to loan the Kushners $1billion.
I’m sure it was pure coincidence that right after Qatar reversed course and loaned the Kushner’s the $1billion that Trump once again used the office of the President to tweet out that Qatar should now be supported and welcomed back into the fold.
m1j2p3 on May 23rd, 2022 at 11:14 UTC »
Wasn’t this the entire point for them? To use their positions to grift? They were not there to govern that’s for sure. These people are con artists and they only care about themselves.
SassyPieHole173 on May 23rd, 2022 at 10:53 UTC »
There was no-one close to Trump during his ‘era’ who didn’t cash in. That was the whole reason for staying close. It certainly wasn’t his personality.