White House reporters find out that Jared Kushner is heading to Saudi Arabia and Qatar in the upcoming week.
In Saudi Arabia, Kushner will meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In Qatar, he’ll meet with the emir (president), Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
Experts on the subject believe Kushner is attending these in-person meetings to avoid electronic records of the conversations. He has a long history with both countries.
Most of Kushner’s foreign relations have not been documented on Trump File yet, so we’re summarizing here instead of linking to each event’s file.
In April 2017, Charles Kushner met with Qatar’s finance minister, Ali Sharif Al Emadi, to discuss financing. His son Jared and the White House lobbied Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to continue a blockade on Qatar in May 2017 when the country refused to pay off Kushner’s family debt. By May 2018, a deal had been reached, and a Canadian firm funded by the Qatari government took over a mortgage that Kushner owed $1.4 billion on. Trump’s rhetoric opposing Qatar changed to supporting Qatar despite the blockade continuing.
The bailout was surprising for a few reasons, chief among them being comments by the Kushners’ previous partner that 666 Fifth “would be worth a lot more if it was just dirt,” plus the fact that the family had spent two years trying to get new partners or financing to no avail.
Vanity Fair
In 2017, Mohammed bin Salman stated that Jared Kushner is paid for by Saudi Arabia. He’s right. Kushner’s company received millions from the country in the first two and a half years of the Trump Administration. We’re sure the financial relationship between MBS and Kushner goes deeper, though.
The real estate company Cadre, owned by Kushner, his brother, Joshua, and a friend, has taken in $90 million in investments from Saudi Arabia and a “Goldman Sachs entity” in the Cayman Islands. Cadre is also one of the properties that Kushner initially forgot to put on his security-clearance application when he joined the Trump administration. Kushner co-founded Cadre in 2014, and despite slow growth in its first couple years, its value has quintupled since 2017, when Kushner joined the White House.
GQ
Sources
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/29/jared-kushner-saudi-arabia-qatar-tensions-iranian-scientist-killing
https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-aide-kushner-to-hold-talks-in-saudi-arabia-qatar-11606680001
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-usa-kushner/trump-senior-aide-kushner-and-team-heading-to-saudi-arabia-qatar-idUSKBN2890VJ
https://www.vanityfair.com./news/2019/02/qatar-666-5th-ave-jared-kushner
https://www.newsweek.com/jared-kushner-backed-qatar-blockade-after-qataris-wouldnt-finance-his-property-828847
https://twitter.com/jedshug/status/1095197761476198400
Timeline of Kushner & Qatar: https://www.justsecurity.org/69094/timeline-on-jared-kushner-qatar-666-fifth-avenue-and-white-house-policy/
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-administration-sued-after-saudi-prince-bragged-jared-kushner-was-his-872401
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/08/troubling-overlap-between-jared-kushner-business-interests-and-us-foreign-policy
https://www.gq.com/story/kushner-company-flooded-with-money
Photo: Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Jerusalem