The question in the wake of the New York Times story—that the Saudi Crown Prince MBS overrode the advice of a panel of distinguished advisors in order to invest $2 billion in Jared Kushner’s budding investment fund, Affinity Partners—has many people understandably asking the question: Why?
The answers to this are more complex and numerous than you might think.
The obvious answer is the worst one: Yes, MBS invested all that money, despite the objections that Kushner had no track record, because MBS felt he owed Kushner for all his “help” during the Trump Administration, most of which I outlined in Kushner, Inc. There was the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, which Kushner white-washed; there was the alleged intelligence Kushner gave MBS when MBS was rounding up his relatives and sticking them in a hotel in order to torture them and relieve them of their finances. (A spokesperson for Kushner denied this, but I reported in Kushner, Inc. that someone with knowledge told me, “They caught the Saudis talking to each other about how Jared would give them information.” This was confirmed by intelligence sources, and Democrats in Congress demanded an investigation.) There was the encouragement to make the first State visit of the Trump Administration to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with a $100 billion-plus arms deal struck in advance of the trip.
But sources tell me there is a completely different further reason MBS invested with Kushner: Trump.