Jared Kushner, Donald Trump\u2019s former White House advisor and his son-in-law, defended on Tuesday his business dealings after leaving government with the Saudi crown prince who was implicated in the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Kushner worked on a wide range of issues and policies in the Trump administration, including Middle East peace efforts, and developed a relationship with Saudi Arabia\u2019s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has overseen social and economic reforms and a far-reaching crackdown on dissent in the kingdom.<\/p>\n
After Kushner left the White House, he started a private equity firm that received a reported USD 2 billion investment from the sovereign wealth fund controlled by Prince Mohammed, drawing scrutiny from Democrats. Kushner, speaking at a summit in Miami on Tuesday sponsored by media company Axios, said he followed every law and ethics rule. He dismissed the idea of there being any concerns about the appearance of a conflict of interest in his business deal. \u201cIf you ask me about the work that that we did in the White House, for my critics, what I say is point to a single decision we made that wasn\u2019t in the interest of America,\u201d Kushner said.<\/p>\n
He said the sovereign wealth fund, which has significant stakes in companies such as Uber, Nintendo and Microsoft, is one of the most prestigious investors in the world. He also defended Prince Mohammed when asked if he believed US intelligence reports that the prince approved the 2018 killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist. The prince has denied any involvement. \u201cAre we really still doing this?\u201d Kushner at first said when he was asked if he believed the conclusions from US intelligence. Kushner said he had not seen the intelligence report released in 2021 that concluded the crown prince likely approved Khashoggi\u2019s killing inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the person who I dealt with. I think he\u2019s a visionary leader. I think what he\u2019s done in that region is transformational,\u201d Kushner said. He stood by the Trump administration\u2019s policies and called it \u201cone of the greatest compliments\u201d that President Joe Biden backed away from his initial stance to shun Saudis for human rights violations to instead work with the crown prince on issues like oil production and security in the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand why people, you know, are upset about that,\u201d Kushner said of Khashoggi\u2019s killing. \u201cI think that what happened there was absolutely horrific. But again, our job was to represent America, and to try to push forward things in America.\u201d Kushner also said he is not interested in rejoining the White House if Trump wins the 2024 presidential election, saying he was focused on his investment business and his living with his family in Florida out of the public eye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jared Kushner, Donald Trump\u2019s former White House advisor and his son-in-law, defended on Tuesday his business dealings after leaving government\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":31014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10027,10030,10028,8503,10026,8667,534,5866,10029,3530,95],"class_list":["post-31013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-2018-killing-of-washington-post-columnist-jamal-khashoggi","tag-business-dealings","tag-crown-prince-mohammed-bin-salman","tag-ethics","tag-jared-kushner","tag-law","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-scrutiny","tag-sovereign-wealth-fund","tag-us-2024-presidential-elections","tag-usa"],"reading_time":"3 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}