Periodically I see questions or comments on social media about Trump Presidential Advisor and Son-in-Law Jared Kushner, his role in the Trump administration, and the $2 billion investment he received from Saudi Arabia after leaving the Trump administration.

I am, as noted in other posts, a curious person. That curiosity finally drove me to creating a timeline of events. I find this an excellent way of getting my mind around a knotty problem.

In this post, I draw no conclusions and make no accusations. I present the information and allow you to make up your own minds.

Questions and Sources

The issues around Jared Kushner have intrigued me for some time. There appears to be a cause-and-effect sequence that has largely flown under the radar. Pieces of it have been published but I find that creating a timeline helps me to discern both the cause and the effect.

I used publicly available media sources from mainstream publications to Wikipedia. I didn’t include a bibliography because I don’t have a staff to track them all. You can find the same information online quite easily.

As I understand it, this is the sequence of events:

Security Clearance Denied

January 2016 — Jared Kushner becomes a top-level advisor to then-President Trump, with a salary paid by American taxpayers.

He applies for a top-secret security clearance. Top-secret information is defined as material that would cause “exceptionally grave damage” to national security if disclosed to adversaries. This check includes anything that could make a person vulnerable to blackmail.

Two career White House security specialists deny him top-secret clearance. They took this action after an FBI background check raised concerns about potential foreign influence on Kushner. The background check identified questions about his family’s business, his foreign contacts, his foreign travel, and meetings he had during the campaign.

FBI officials report that officials in at least four countries had privately discussed ways they could manipulate Kushner by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience. These countries include the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel, and Mexico.

The director of the personnel security office in the Executive Office of the President, Carl Kline, overrules their recommendation and approves the top-secret clearance for Jared Kushner. This is one of “at least” 30 cases in which Kline overruled career security experts and approved top-secret security clearances for incoming Trump administration officials.

The CIA and SCI

February 2016 — Kushner’s application goes to the CIA for an even higher designation that would allow him to have access to “sensitive compartmented information,” or SCI.

The CIA denies the application and raises questions about why Kushner was given the top-secret clearance.

2017 – 2020 — Jared accesses more confidential information than anyone else in the Trump administration.

MBS and the Saudi Purge

November 4, 2017 — In Saudi Arabia, Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) learns the names of his enemies inside the country and uses his new Anti-corruption Committee to “detain” them, albeit in a luxury hotel. The committee also grounds private jets to prevent suspects from fleeing the country.

The committee rounds up up as many as 500 people in this mass arrest of prominent Saudi Arabian princes, government ministers, and business people. The Anti-corruption Committee ends its mission on 30 January 2019. Result:  381 individuals were apprehended and $107 billion was recovered to the state treasury. The purge accomplishes several things, all of the beneficial to Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. It:

1. Helped to centralize political power in MBS’s hands.
2. Undermined the pre-existing structure of consensus-based governance among Saudi elites.
3. Resulted in the final sidelining of King Abdullah’s faction.
4. Completed the consolidation of MBS’s control of all three branches of the security forces.
5. Cemented MBS’s supremacy over business elites in Saudi Arabia
6. Resulted in a mass seizure of assets by the MBS regime.

Follow the Money

In purely financial terms, the purge targeted cash and assets worth up to $800 billion. According to The Wall Street Journal, Saudi authorities claimed they could prove that assets worth from $300 billion to $400 billion were linked to corruption.

When the Anti-corruption Committee ended its mission on January 30,2019, it concluded that 381 individuals were apprehended and $107 billion was recovered to the state treasury.

Jamal Kashoggi Murdered

2018 — Washington Post Journalist Jamal Kashoggi begins reporting on the possible connection between Jared Kushner’s access to confidential information and Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s purge of wealthy Saudi elites.

September 28, 2018 — Jamal Kashoggi walks into the Saudi embassy in Istanbul to obtain paperwork related to his upcoming marriage and disappears. Investigations reveal that he was strangled, his body cut into pieces, and the pieces disposed of. Kashoggi’s body is never recovered.

Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners

December, 2021 – Jared Kushner forms Affinity Partners, an investment firm, despite having no previous experience in this industry. He announces plans to invest in American and Israeli companies that are looking for international expansion opportunities in India, Africa, the Middle East and other parts of Asia. Although the firm did not announce specific investors, Affinity was targeting American institutions and foreign investment institutions, including sovereign wealth funds and high net-worth individuals.

Jared Kushner raises $3 billion in committed funding from international investors.

The Saudi Investment

2022 – Saudi Arabia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund gives Jared Kushner a $2 billion dollar investment for his new company. The Saudi panel that performs due diligence for the fund recommends against the investment because they considered Affinity Parters “a joke.” They concluded:

• That its management was inexperienced,
• That the kingdom would be responsible for the bulk of the risk and investment,
• That its fees were excessive, and
• That the firm’s operations were “unsatisfactory in all aspects.”

The panel warns that the kingdom shouldn’t give Jared Kushner a dime. The Sovereign Wealth Fund’s Public Investment Fund, led by MBS, overrides that recommendation. MBS personally intervenes to approve the payment.

August 2024 – Jared Kushner’s fund announces that it will build a resort in on a section of protected land on an island in Albania. Local environmentalists note that the development would raze protected acreage in the coastal area of Zvernec. This could prove dangerous to rare flora and fauna and tip the ecosystem out of balance.

Investigation Stymied

That’s what happened. I leave you to form your own conclusions. I note that House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md) has continuously pushed for the committee to investigate Kushner’s deal with the Saudi. He launched an investigation last February and asked the committee’s chairman, James Comer, to issue a subpoena in August.

Chairman Comer admitted On CNN that Jared Kushner “crossed the line” of ethics in accepting the $2 billion two months after leaving the White House.

On March 21 of this year, House Republicans pulled a motion to subpoena Donald Trump‘s son-in-law Jared Kushner over the $2 billion investment. Ohio Representative Jim Jordan and Chairman Comer, tabled the motion during a meeting regarding President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.

End of story.