Jared Kushner has spoken for the United States on nearly every big foreign policy fight of Trump's second term. That includes Iran, Ukraine and Gaza.

At the same time, Popular Information reports, Trump's son-in-law has collected untold millions in fees from Middle Eastern governments through his private equity firm, Affinity Partners.

So when he sits across from a government in the Gulf, whose interests is he serving? Nobody can tell. That is the whole problem, and for nearly two years Republicans in Congress let it stand.

He promised he wouldn't do this

In February 2024, before Trump went back to the White House, Kushner told Axios he wouldn't join a second Trump administration. Asked whether taking Saudi money would make a foreign policy role difficult, he answered: "I served in government, my track record in government was I think pretty impeccable. Now I'm a private investor."

Popular Information says he broke that pledge quickly.

The Constitution has a rule for this. The Foreign Emoluments Clause bars anyone holding a U.S. office from taking presents or payments from a foreign government without Congress's consent.

Kushner's answer is that the rule doesn't touch him, because he isn't really in the government. The administration calls him a "volunteer." He also hasn't filed the financial disclosure that senior government workers have to file.

Popular Information doesn't buy it. It points to the Justice Department's own legal office, which has said a person's status doesn't depend only on an official appointment. In a 1977 opinion about an informal presidential adviser, that office said someone "quite clearly engaging in a governmental function" and working under the president's direction "should be designated as a special Government employee."

The money kept moving

Kushner's firm is not a sleepy family fund.

The New York Times reported in March that Kushner was trying to raise "$5 billion or more" for Affinity, despite earlier suggesting he wouldn't raise money while Trump was in office. Affinity's people reportedly met with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, and were expected to ask for money from wealth funds in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

He reportedly talked about those plans in private meetings with business leaders in Davos, Switzerland, while he was there as part of the official U.S. delegation. Affinity's chief legal officer later told the Times the company had "early conversations" and doesn't intend to take new money while Kushner is "volunteering for the government."

In the same story, two senior Democrats, Rep. Robert Garcia and Sen. Ron Wyden, estimated that Affinity collected $129 million in fees from Saudi Arabia's government-run investment arm between 2021 and 2025. The chief legal officer said Affinity, like most private equity firms, doesn't collect fees unless its investments perform well.

In August, a group including Affinity and that same Saudi fund closed on buying the video game company Electronic Arts.

Popular Information says Kushner also has plans for a luxury resort on ecologically sensitive land in Albania, and that those plans have set off months of protests against that country's prime minister. So one more question nobody has been able to ask under oath: when he talks to a foreign leader, is it for you or for his fund?

Republicans had the power to ask

Here is the part that belongs to Congress.

Democrats in the House and Senate repeatedly asked for Kushner to testify under oath. In March, Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee asked Trump to direct him and Steve Witkoff to appear at a public hearing on the Iran talks. Trump ignored them. Affinity ignored their requests for information too.

They could do nothing about it, because they didn't hold a majority on any committee. Republicans did. A committee majority can force someone to show up with a subpoena. In nearly two years, no such thing has made Kushner answer these questions under oath.

That ends in January. Democrats will take over both chambers and every committee. Popular Information lays out how they can subpoena Kushner, his firm and the banks and auditors that work with it. It also notes a trap the White House set for itself: a man who insists he is merely a "volunteer" has a hard time claiming the special protection reserved for the president's closest advisers.

The record so far

Jared Kushner has represented the United States on Iran, Ukraine and Gaza while, according to Popular Information, his firm collected fees from Middle Eastern governments. He said he wouldn't join a second Trump administration, has not filed the disclosure senior officials file, and the administration calls him a volunteer. Democrats' requests for his testimony went nowhere because Republicans controlled every committee in Congress.

Source

• How to investigate Jared Kushner, Popular Information