‘Despicable!’ Karoline Leavitt Scolds NY Times Reporter Grilling Her About Jared Kushner Profiting Off Middle East
New York Times White House reporter Shawn McCreesh pressed Karoline Leavitt at Wednesday’s White House press briefing on Jared Kushner’s recent role in Middle East negotiations – a region in which he has made vast wealth for himself.
“How did the White House decide that it is appropriate for Jared Kushner to be working on matters that involve Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia—three countries that combined have given him more than $2.5 billion for his investment firm?” McCreesh asked.
“I think it’s frankly despicable that you’re trying to suggest that it’s inappropriate for Jared Kushner, who is widely respected around the world and has great trust and relationships with these critical partners in these countries, to strike a 20-point comprehensive, detailed peace plan that no other administration would ever be able to achieve!” Leavitt replied, adding:
And so Jared is donating his energy and his time to our government, to the President of the United States, to secure world peace, and that is a very noble thing. And this is a peace plan that has not just been accepted by Israel, but it has been applauded by Muslim and Arab countries around the world. It has been applauded by European leaders around the world.
Virtually everyone in the world is supportive of this plan that Jared Kushner offered his time to help put together alongside our special envoy, Witkoff, the Vice President, the President of the United States, Secretary Rubio, and the President’s entire national security team. We are very proud of that plan, and we hope Hamas will accept it because it will lead to a more peaceful and prosperous Middle East. Two questions. One, we’re talking a lot about these layoffs.
Kushner started a private equity fund when he left the White House at the end of Trump’s first term, which was funded by billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Kushner personally profited tens of millions of dollars in fees from managing the money. Reuters reported in May that the foreign cash has continued to flow, “Kushner’s investment company Affinity Partners saw assets under management jump 60% last year to $4.8 billion, according to a regulatory filing, after it received a cash injection from Middle East investors including Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund.”
Democrats launched investigations into Kushner before losing Congress in 2024. The Senate Finance Committee opened a probe and released a statement in September 2024 saying, “Affinity has pocketed as much as $157 million in fees from foreign clients, including $87 million from the Saudi government.” The statement also noted that “Affinity’s fees structure is unusually high, given market trends and the relative inexperience of Kushner and the firm’s Trump-connected employees in the industry. Affinity has generated no return on investment as of July 2024 and failed to deploy capital in a timely fashion.”
Watch the clip above via Fox News.
