Ex-Obama Adviser Spots Jared Kushner's Corruption 'Hiding In Plain Sight'
Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser to Barack Obama, on Wednesday alleged that Jared Kushner’s corruption is obvious after The New York Times reported that his $3 billion investment fund is financed almost entirely by foreign sources.
The Times previously reported that the firm received a $2 billion investment from a Saudi sovereign wealth fund just months after Kushner left the Donald Trump White House, where he served as a senior adviser to his father-in-law.
“This is just putting a price tag on American foreign policy,” Rhodes said in an interview with MSNBC’s Alex Wagner. “This is a level of corruption that we’ve just never seen, and it’s hiding in plain sight.”
Earlier on her program, Wagner remarked that Kushner’s firm “has been entangled with foreign interests since its inception” and pointed to its involvement with hotel developments in Serbia and Albania.
She asked Rhodes how Kushner’s “entanglement” with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman could compromise Trump’s foreign policy platform as he campaigns to retake the White House.
“This is not subtle corruption that we’re looking at. This is a guy, Jared Kushner, who had no expertise, no qualification whatsoever to be in the White House,” Rhodes said, nodding to Kushner’s background in real estate investment before Trump’s presidency.
“While he was there, he made it his account to work in the Gulf Arab states. He basically helped lead the cover-up for MBS, get him in from the cold after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi,” he added, referring to Crown Prince Mohammed’s connection to the 2018 slaying of a Washington Post journalist.
“The Saudis didn’t make a $2 billion investment because they trusted in Jared Kushner’s investment expertise,” he added. “They’re making an investment on what they think he can do for them if there is a second Trump term.”
Rhodes also contrasted Kushner’s situation with the GOP’s impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden and corruption allegations involving his son Hunter Biden.
“Here we have the president’s son-in-law — who worked in the White House, unlike Hunter Biden — who’s collected $2 billion on the back end of his service. And now he’s got his father-in-law running for president of the United States,” Rhodes said. “This is not only unusual, this is unprecedented.”