14 Apr 2023; MEMO: Jared Kushner is reportedly amassing huge fortunes through investment from Gulf countries while being given protection by the US secret service at the expense of American taxpayers. Kushner, who is the son-in-law of former US President Donald Trump, left his White House role in 2021. Ordinarily security service protection would end when an administration departs, however Kushner is said to have reaped the benefits of his time in office months after he left.
Allegations of nepotism and corruption dogged the Trump administration. The former president was repeatedly accused of using the office of US Presidency to enrich himself. No other president managed to fuse their private business interests with America's highest public office.
READ: Kushner using Saudi funds to invest in Israeli start-ups
Kushner also came under the spotlight. A probe was launched by a US House committee into Saudi Arabia's $2 billion investment into his firm. The investigation sought to uncover if he had traded on his government position to land the lucrative investment from the Saudis.
New information uncovered by the US watchdog, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), revealed details about how Kushner continued to benefit from his time in the White House. According to CREW, the US secret service spent more than $16,000 to provide protection during his trip to the UAE and Qatar. Both countries recently invested around $200 million in Kushner's private equity firm, which he launched "as he left the White House."
Kushner's trip to Abu Dhabi, UAE, from 9-11 May and Doha, Qatar, from 11-12 May came a few months after his father-in-law, Donald Trump, left the presidency in 2021. CREW explained that ordinarily, a former president's adult children and their spouses would not qualify for secret service protection, but Trump granted a six-month extension of protection for his family, which cost taxpayers $1.7 million.
During his time at the White House, Kushner developed a friendship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. He reportedly defended Bin Salman in the wake of the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the crown prince allegedly orchestrated.
"Perhaps not so coincidentally, the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund, controlled by MBS, also invested $2 billion with Kushner's firm," said CREW referring to the crown prince using his popular acronym. "Kushner scored that investment just six months after the end of the Trump administration, around the time of this trip to the Middle East."
