Donald Trump’s foreign policy in the Middle East, shaped in part by son-in-law Jared Kushner, was unsubtle in its support for Saudi Arabia.
As Rachel explained on the show nearly a year ago, Trump’s first foreign trip as president was to Riyadh. When Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman imprisoned other members of the royal family, Trump announced his support for the move. When the Saudis imposed a blockade on U.S. allies in Qatar, Trump endorsed this, too. When the U.S. had evidence of bin Salman approving the operation that killed Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Trump boasted that he came to the crown prince’s rescue and shielded him from consequences.
Kushner was responsible, at least in part, for helping shape the administration’s policy, making multiple trips to Saudi Arabia during his father-in-law’s term.
It was against this backdrop that The Washington Post reported on what happened after Trump and Kushner left the White House, as they faced “unprecedented business challenges.”
The day after leaving the White House, Kushner created a company that he transformed months later into a private equity firm with $2 billion from a sovereign wealth fund chaired by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Kushner’s firm structured those funds in such a way that it did not have to disclose the source, according to previously unreported details of Securities and Exchange Commission forms reviewed by The Washington Post. His business used a commonly employed strategy that allows many equity firms to avoid transparency about funding sources, experts said.
This new reporting, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, dovetails nicely with a related New York Times report from last year, which found that those responsible for helping oversee the Saudi sovereign wealth fund were, to put it mildly, highly skeptical about giving Kushner’s new firm a $2 billion investment. Those concerns were understandable: The fund’s…
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