The New York Times this week took a microscope to Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner's foreign business dealings and deemed them "unseen in scale and speed for a former White House adviser."
In particular, the report zeroes in on the money being raised by Kushner's firm Affinity Partners, whose investors are almost entirely from foreign countries.
"In total, 99 percent of the money placed with him by investors has come from foreign sources, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in late March," reports the Times, while noting that Kushner has taken money from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
In addition to receiving money from foreign sources, Affinity Partners has also been investing it foreign companies, including "stakes in the Shlomo Group, an Israeli car-leasing and financing company; Dubizzle Group, a Dubai-based online real estate site; EGYM, a Munich-based electronic fitness company; Mosaic, a California-based solar lending site; and Zamp, an Abu Dhabi-backed fast food company that operates more than 1,000 restaurants in Brazil."
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In an interview with the Times, Kushner brushed aside concerns that he used his time serving in his father-in-law's White House to enrich himself by taking advantage of contacts he'd made while on foreign diplomatic missions.
“Following the laws and the rules is something we always do,” Kushner told the publication. “Perception, I’ve learned that from my time in politics, is important. But I can’t control what everyone is going to write or say about me.”
But J. Robinson West, a former Reagan administration official who started his own global energy consulting firm after leaving the White House, said that the scope of Kushner's foreign dealings was stunning even by the standards of other former White House officials.
Specifically, writes the Times, West "said he could recall no precedent for a government official leaving office and starting an investment firm that would immediately receive billions of dollars from foreign governments with which the official had been working while serving in government."
