The family business · 2024 campaign · № 40
Senate inquiry finds Kushner's firm collected up to $157 million in fees from foreign clients
“Partisan politics aside, Affinity Partners is an SEC-registered investment firm that has always acted appropriately and any suggestion to the contrary is false” Chad Mizelle, chief legal officer of Affinity Partners
- Date
- , Statement to The New York Times in response to a letter from Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden
- Subject
- Saudi Arabia
- Benefit
- Investments and funds
- Government
- Saudi Arabia
- Beneficiary
- Jared Kushner (Affinity Partners)
- Amount
- as much as $157 million in fees, including $87 million from Saudi Arabia
- Topic
- Ethics & conflicts
- Era
- 2024 campaign
What happened
Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden wrote to Affinity Partners on September 24, 2024 that the firm had received as much as $157 million in fees from foreign clients since 2021, including $87 million from the Saudi government, and had not distributed earnings to its investors as of July 2024. His committee said Affinity disclosed a 1.25 percent annual fee on the Saudi Public Investment Fund's $2 billion commitment. The New York Times put the fees paid by Saudi Arabia and other foreign investors at no less than $112 million and reported that the rest of the firm's roughly $3 billion came mostly from the sovereign wealth funds of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Affinity called the letter a political move, said it had followed all laws and ethics rules, and said a delay in returning profits was not unusual for a private equity firm. On October 24, 2024 Wyden and Rep. Jamie Raskin asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to examine whether Kushner should have registered as a foreign agent.
Sources
- Wyden Investigation of Kushner Firm Continues; New Letter Outlines Affinity Partners' Fee Structure, Lack of Return to Investors, Questionable Deals with Foreign Governments
- Jared Kushner's Saudi-backed fund paid millions in fees, makes no profit
- Jared Kushner's private equity firm faces inquiry as it fails to return profits
- Wyden, Raskin Call for Department of Justice to Appoint a Special Counsel to Investigate Jared Kushner for Acting as an Unregistered Foreign Agent
- Saudi Arabia: Freedom in the World 2024 Country Report