Jared Kushner’s firm, Affinity Equity, secured a $2 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund shortly after President Donald Trump left office, according to a New York Times report. The deal came despite a Saudi Public Investment Fund review panel’s concerns about “inexperience” and a due-diligence review that was “unsatisfactory in all aspects,” according to minutes of a June meeting reported by the New York Times.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman leads the fund’s board, which overruled the skeptics on the review panel.
A letter written by fund staff to a board member who dissented cited “aims to form a strategic relationship with the Affinity Partners Fund and its founder, Jared Kushner,” in going ahead with the deal, according to the report.
Kushner worked as a top Trump White House aide and built a relationship with the crown prince while in office, including while working on the Abraham Accords that led to four Arab states establishing diplomatic relations with Israel.
U.S. spy agencies have assessed that the crown prince ordered the 2018 operation resulting in the death and alleged dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi national and U.S. resident who died after being lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Trump, after initial criticism of the alleged murder, said the U.S.-Saudi relationship was too important to jeopardize by breaking with the prince, the country’s de facto ruler.
The report came a month after the New York Times revealed President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden remains under investigation for matters related to tax payments and his foreign work.
