Forget Hunter Biden, where are the investigations into Ivanka and Jared profiting from their time in White House?!

"The grift from this family is breathtaking"

On Tuesday, we learned that President Biden’s son, Hunter, would be pleading guilty to tax related crimes and that he reached a deal to dismiss a felony charge for firearm possession—contingent on his fulfilling a federal pretrial diversion program.  As expected, Trump allies in Congress who continually defend Donald Trump despite his attempted coup, his Jan 6 attack and his 71 felony charges, slammed this plea deal as a “slap on the wrist.” (Of course, these Republicans don’t want to talk about the fact that the US attorney, David Weiss, who prosecuted Hunter was personally appointed by Trump in 2017 and who recently told Congress he had the “ultimate authority” in deciding how to handle the case.)

But these charges have no connection to the “witch hunt” being waged by GOP Oversight Chair James Comer into allegations that Hunter personally profited from his ties to his father who was then serving as vice president to Barack Obama.  In Comer’s press release last month titled, “Comer Reveals New Evidence in Biden Family’s Influence Peddling Schemes,” he specifically slammed Hunter for receiving millions of dollars in payments from foreign entities. Comer stated that his, “foreign entanglements are breathtaking and raise serious questions about why foreign actors targeted the Biden family, what they expected in return.”

Well, if the GOP is truly concerned with relatives to a President profiting off their proximity to power, then they should be launching an investigation into both Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner.  With these two, we don’t even need a congressional investigation to see direct evidence that they reaped literally billions in profits—as well as trademarks- from foreign nations that had business before the Trump administration.

Let’s start with Trump’s daughter Ivanka, whose obvious corruption while in the White House caused Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, to repeatedly demand formal investigations into whether her actions violated federal law.

Here just a few examples of the “breathtaking” examples of Ivanka’s apparent profiting off her time in the White House.

1.     Chinese trademarks in 2017: Just four months into her father’s administration, Ivanka Trump dined with the president and Chinese President Xi Jinping at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. On that very day, she was granted preliminary approval for three new trademarks covering jewelry, bags and spa services for her company, Ivanka Trump Marks LLC.

2.     Chinese Trademarks in 2018: in May 2018, as Trump announced a deal to lift a ban on the Chinese telecom giant ZTE from buying American goods, the Chinese government announced it had granted Ivanka Trump’s company seven new trademarks. At the time, CREW released a statement raising alarm bells about “the potential conflicts her business interests present,” noting that “although Ivanka has stepped down from her role at her business and has placed it in a trust, she continues to receive profits from the business.”

3.     Japanese trademarks in 2018: In June 2018, Ivanka’s company also received approval from Japan for two trademarks. But as CREW noted at the time, the trademark approval alarmingly happened “around the time of Vice President Mike Pence’s February visit to Japan and meeting with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.” At that time, Japan was negotiating a new trade deal with the US. Did they grant these trademark approvals to Ivanka at the time as a way to engender goodwill with Trump?

4.     Ivanka’s 2019 violation of the conflict of interest laws set forth in 18 U.S.C. Section 208: In January 2019, CREW asserted that Ivanka “appears to have violated federal conflict of interest law” that prohibit “an executive branch employee from participating ‘personally and substantially’” in any matter that the employee or spouse can financially benefit. It alleges Ivanka Trump “participated in the Trump administration’s implementation of a new tax law authorizing the Opportunity Zones program” despite the fact that her husband, Jared Kushner, “held significant financial interests in an entity benefiting from that program.” This complaint was referred to Trump’s DOJ at the time--which as expected, did nothing.

Jared Kushner: Then there is her husband, the $2 billion man Jared Kushner. (I’ll get to the $2 billion in a moment.) While in the White House, Kushner’s job appears to have been as the primary defender of Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and all things in the interest of Saudi—as detailed by the NY Times in a 2018 article.  

Kushner played a leading role within the Trump administration defending MBS after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded he had approved the 2018 killing and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi columnist for The Washington Post who had criticized the kingdom’s rulers. Kushner also helped broker a $110 billion in weapons sales to Saudi Arabia over 10 years as well as helped protect those and other Saudi weapons deals from congressional outrage over the murder of Khashoggi and the humanitarian nightmare created by the Saudi-led military attacks in Yemen against Iranian backed forces.

MBS and Jared—known as the “two princes”--would exchange text messages, phone calls and even stayed up late together strategizing.  While we don’t know the full extent of their relationship, MBS bragged that Kushner was “in his pocket”--as The Intercept reported in 2018.

Kushner was undisputedly the lead cheerleader for Team Saudi in the White House. This explains why just six months after leaving the White House, Kushner secured a $2 billion investment from a fund led by the Saudi crown prince for his “newly formed” private equity firm, Affinity Partners.

To be clear, this deal was objected to by the financial advisors to MBS. As the NY Times reported, a panel that screens investments for the main Saudi sovereign wealth fund voiced a litany of objections to providing two billion dollars to Kushner’s new fund including: “the inexperience of the Affinity Fund management”; the possibility that the kingdom would be responsible for “the bulk of the investment and risk”; due diligence on the fledgling firm’s operations that found them “unsatisfactory in all aspects”; a proposed asset management fee that “seems excessive” and more.  

But given Kushner went to bat time and time again for MBS, the Crowned Prince overruled his own advisors and provided Kushner with $2 billion dollars.  

This corruption was so obvious that it sparked in June 2022 a letter from then Democratic chair of the Oversight committee, Rep. Carolyn Maloney to Kushner seeking to investigate his deal with Saudi. In that letter, Chair Maloney wrote, "The Committee is concerned by your decision to solicit billions of dollars from the Saudi government immediately following your significant involvement in shaping U.S.-Saudi relations" which she noted created “the appearance of a quid pro quo for your foreign policy work during the Trump Administration."

Given Democrats lost control of the House a few months later, that investigation of Kushner ended. Elections have consequences—or in this case, a lack of consequences when those engaged in influence peddling are Republicans.

Even GOP 2024 presidential candidate Chris Christie just weeks ago slammed Ivanka and Jared for corruption, telling an audience of Republicans in New Hampshire: “The grift from this family is breathtaking,” explaining that, “Jared Kushner and Ivanka Kushner walk out of the White House, and months later get $2 billion from the Saudis.” Christie added: “You think it’s because he’s [Jared] some kind of investing genius? Or do you think it’s because he was sitting next to the president of the United States for four years doing favors for the Saudis?”  (We all know the answer.)

Christie gets that Ivanka Trump should be investigated--and the investigation of Jared must be restarted.  But House GOP Oversight chair, James Comer is not actually concerned with rooting out influence peddling—his focus is using our tax dollars to fund his committee’s work designed to do one thing: Help Trump win in 2024.  This is reason one million why we must come out big in 2024 to not only win the White House—but also retake the House.

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