Presidential Relatives Behaving Badly: What’s the Difference Between Hunter Biden and Jared Kushner?

Given that, in the last few weeks, I’ve written about ethics controversies around both Jared Kushner and Hunter Biden, I thought it was important to think about the differences and similarities between the two.

Kushner’s appearance of self-interest (his investment fund received $2 billion from PIF, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, over the objections of PIF’s financial advisors) is far worse than Biden’s, because Kushner was actually an official in the Trump White House, guiding policy in the Gulf, and, so it appears, possibly benefitting financially from policy favorable to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince MBS—possibly at significant cost to U.S. national security. (See both my previous reporting on this—Part One, Part Two, and Part Three—as well as my book, Kushner Inc.)

Hunter Biden, on the other hand, has (sensibly) been kept far away from his father’s White House, but, even so, his past efforts at influence-peddling his father’s vice-presidency bear shades of Billy Carter. And there are questions as to whether Joe Biden, as vice-president, was as careful as he should have been at keeping out of his son’s business dealings. The big question remains as to why close Putin ally Vladimir Yevtushenkov, with whom Hunter Biden reportedly met, is still not sanctioned. Had Joe Biden never met with some of Hunter’s foreign business partners, who knew Yevtushenkov, the question would not be so problematic.

But the bottom line, as the ethics lawyer Richard Painter rightly points out below, is that the two cases are really not comparable. Jared Kushner’s conduct should not be the measuring stick by which we judge Hunter Biden. Regardless, that does not mean the media should give Hunter Biden—or his father—a pass, which does seem to be what is happening in the mainstream press.

I did two interviews with Painter, one on Kushner and one on Biden. Read them both at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

“That’s Why I Am Scared to Speak Out”

A few weeks ago, I wrote a couple of newsletters about a controversial protest in March at Yale Law School during which the police were called.

For those pieces, I had spoken to Zack Austin—the head of Yale’s Federalist Society chapter, who were the hosts of the event—and to Kristen Waggoner, General Counsel for the conservative group ADF, who was one of the speakers. To tell the whole story, I wanted to speak to one or more of the protesters to get their point of view. However, some were hesitant to go on the record, and I wondered why.

But, today, in the wake of the leak of the SCOTUS opinion that overturns Roe v. Wade, one of the protesters sent me the following email and said I could run it as long as they remained anonymous. This person explained why they want to remain anonymous at the bottom.

You’ll note that the Federalist Society, which was started at Yale roughly forty years ago, is mentioned several times. The five conservative judges on the Supreme Court who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade (Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett) are all Federalist Society members. (John Roberts, listed as a Federalist Society member in the ’97-’98 directory, refused in 2005 to comment on his membership.) And it was the Federalist Society who hosted the March event at Yale Law School that caused the alleged ruckus.

But the goals of the Federalist Society, per the words of my anonymous source, go way beyond the campus in New Haven. The words that follow are, I believe, far more unsettling and pertinent to all of us than a campus ruckus created by a bunch of angry students.

Read the full letter with its frightening perspective at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

“Anything Can Happen in New Jersey”

My eye was caught by a Vanity Fair headline a few days ago:

“Did Jared Kushner’s Father Set Up Former N.J. Governor Jim McGreevey?”

The byline of the Vanity Fair piece caught my eye: It was an excerpt from Cultivating Justice in the Garden State: My Life in the Colorful World of New Jersey Politics, a new book by longtime New Jersey politician Ray Lesniak, who served in the N.J. State Senate from 1983 to 2018.

I had spoken with Lesniak back when I was reporting my book. After such a long career in Jersey politics, there were few who knew that world—and the complicated dynamics between Kushner, McGreevey, and Chris Christie—better than him.

Now, with the recent news of Jared Kushner’s $2 billion investment by MBS—against the advice of a panel of advisors, no less—and my own work to uncover the reasons behind that decision (see Part One, Part Two, and Part Three), I thought it was the perfect time to ask Lesniak about what he makes of the deal and the current state of the Kushner family legacy.

To read our conversation, go to “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

Exclusive: Oligarch with Hunter Biden Connection Avoids Sanction List

Last week, I brought you news of Jared Kushner’s dealings with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, and some reasons, not previously reported, as to why MBS (as he is known) might want to invest $2 billion in Kushner’s new fund, even over the objections of the fund’s advisors.

I will be staying on that story, so stay tuned for more to come.

In the meanwhile, I received a document that raises questions about a different president’s relative: Hunter Biden.

Read the full report at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

Text Messages Show the Critical Role the Trump White House Had in Giving MBS His Job

What I’ve published today are text messages between Saad Aljabri, MBN’s right-hand aide who is suing MBS and his alleged henchmen for attempted murder, and Abdulaziz al-Huwairini, then the head of Saudi state security. They show the series of events leading to MBN’s downfall—and the U.S.’s critical influence in it—in 2017.

Read the whole piece and see all the documents at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

Kushner and MBS Discussed U.S. Intelligence, Legal Documents Show

As an addendum to Friday night’s exclusive report about the real reason MBS invested $2 billion with former senior White House advisor and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, below is a passage from the amended complaint of Saad Aljabri, who is suing MBS and his alleged henchmen for attempted murder (“ongoing attempted extrajudicial killing,” as the document says), including activities carried out on American soil.

Read the full report at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

EXCLUSIVE: The Real Reason Jared Kushner was Given $2 Billion to Invest by MBS

On Monday, I wrote about the staggering sum of $2 billion entrusted by the Saudi investment fund PIF to Jared Kushner’s new fund, Affinity Partners—reportedly at the behest of Saudi Crown Prince MBS over objections by a panel of financial advisers who highlighted Kushner’s lack of track record. I reported that the money was possibly both an IOU for sympathetic foreign policy led by Kushner during the Trump years and also a bet by MBS on a return to the White House by Kushner’s father-in-law, Donald Trump.

Since then, I’ve learned that what’s at the heart of this potentially reveals the reason Kushner was denied a top-secret security clearance by the CIA.

I’m told it was Kushner and Kushner’s allies who blocked top-level U.S. government support for MBS’s cousin, former Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef (MBN)—a long-time intelligence and counter-terrorist asset for the U.S.—when MBN attempted a legal coup d’état in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2017. MBN believed he had enough support from the so-called “Council of Ministers” to back him in a regime change.

If successful, both King Salman and MBS (then deputy crown prince) would have been unseated and replaced by MBN. My sources tell me it was Kushner and his allies in the White House who got word to MBS of bin Nayef’s plans, and the plot was abruptly stopped. (As I’ve mentioned before, a spokesperson for Kushner has denied passing on intelligence to the Saudis).

But, according to three sources with knowledge, it was this meddling in Saudi royal affairs that caused U.S. intelligence officials to go “apoplectic” and prevent Kushner from getting a top-level security clearance.

Read the full story at my Substack, “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

Is the Saudi Money to Jared Kushner a Sign the Gulf Thinks Trump is Returning?

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.

Read the rest at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

Yale Law School Wars, Part Two: When the Powers That Be Grant Pre-Emptive Victim Status

In one more sign that conservatives have taken charge of the narrative and are winning the controversy over the March 10 protest at a Federalist Society-hosted debate on civil liberties at Yale Law School—an important inflection point in the ongoing debate about freedom of speech and whether it is being stifled on elite college campuses—last week, 1,400 conservative lawmakers and public figures, including academics, wrote a letter to Heather Gerken, the dean of Yale Law School, asking for the protesters to be punished and the school to amend its original statement saying that the event had not been seriously disrupted.

The letter to Dean Gerken includes signatures from Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, as well as nine members of the House of Representatives and the governors of Idaho, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. It urges the school to punish the “threatening and violent behavior” directed at the speakers, who, as I reported in a Q&A with one of them last week, were escorted out of the event by police.

Ok, you could legitimately ask: Who really cares what Ted Cruz thinks? (I did ask YLS for a response as to what they think, but, as of publication, I am waiting on an answer.)

But at Yale Law School specifically, there’s a paradox at play that makes what happens there especially critical in the larger culture wars.

Read my latest Substack for the full story.

Did Javanka Testify About Jan. 6th to Get Accepted to a Country Club?

We know that, in the past few days, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump testified voluntarily to the House Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection.

But why did they do so?

After all, there are other Trump loyalists, such as Steve Bannon and Mark Meadows, who have refused—apparently on the order of Trump—and risk being held in contempt of Congress.

Could it be there was a reason for Javanka’s compliance that the public is not aware of?

My sources say their cooperation with the committee likely has everything to do with wanting admission to the notoriously exclusive Indian Creek Country Club in Miami, Florida, where, as of now, Jared and Ivanka are not members, despite having bought a property on the exclusive Indian Creek Island.

The Kushners are reported to have paid $30 million dollars for the land there. They have been spotted regularly going for walks on the island. But they’re not members of the club. Yet.