Lawmakers Open New Probe into Jared Kushner's Foreign Business Ties
The House Oversight Committee’s ranking member, Robert Garcia, launched an investigation into Jared Kushner’s possible conflicts of interest stemming from his firm Affinity Partners’ Saudi funding and its stake in an Israeli defense conglomerate.
On Oct. 6, Robert Garcia, the ranking member of the U.S. House Oversight Committee, announced a fresh probe into Jared Kushner’s alleged conflicts of interest. Kushner, who acts as a volunteer negotiator for President Donald Trump, also runs Affinity Partners, a firm whose capital is dominated by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and other Gulf monarchies. Recent reporting showed Affinity’s controlling stake in Phoenix Financial, an Israeli conglomerate with holdings in at least nine weapons manufacturers, coinciding with Kushner’s involvement in Israel-Hamas peace talks.
Earlier inquiries by Rep. Carolyn Maloney and Sen. Ron Wyden documented that as of March 2024, over 99 percent of Affinity’s assets were foreign-sourced, and highlighted gaps in disclosure and revolving-door regulations. Critics argue that existing ethics statutes do not compel Kushner to recuse himself from policy areas that intersect with his financial interests, and that Congress has yet to close the loopholes allowing former officials to advise foreign governments without full transparency. Advocacy groups are urging the White House to designate Kushner as a special government employee and to require public financial disclosures.
