Jared Kushner's Business Conflicts While Serving as Senior White House Adviser: 666 Fifth Avenue Bailout, Foreign Entanglements, and Security Clearance Failures
Tier 4Documented2017-01-20 to 2021-01-20
Factual Summary
Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, served as a senior adviser to the president throughout the entirety of Trump's first term while maintaining significant financial interests that intersected with his policy portfolio, which included Middle East diplomacy, U.S.-China relations, and government modernization.
The most scrutinized of Kushner's business entanglements involved 666 Fifth Avenue, a Manhattan office tower that Kushner Companies had purchased in 2007 for a then-record $1.8 billion. The building was heavily leveraged and deeply underwater, with a $1.4 billion mortgage coming due in 2019. The Kushner family sought financing from foreign entities while Jared Kushner held his White House position.
In August 2018, Brookfield Asset Management signed a 99-year lease on 666 Fifth Avenue with Kushner Companies, effectively bailing out the property. Brookfield's real estate investment trust, BPY, was partially funded by the Qatar Investment Authority, Qatar's sovereign wealth fund. Although Brookfield initially stated that no Qatari-linked funds were involved in the transaction, Qatar later confirmed its involvement through its investment in BPY.
The timing of the Brookfield deal raised concerns because it coincided with shifting U.S. policy toward Qatar. In June 2017, the Trump administration initially supported a Saudi-led blockade of Qatar. The blockade was later eased, and U.S. policy shifted toward reconciliation. Congressional investigators sought to determine whether there was any connection between the Kushner family's financial needs and changes in U.S. foreign policy, though no definitive link was established.
Kushner also failed to disclose numerous foreign contacts and business dealings on his security clearance application form (SF-86). He submitted revised forms at least three times after initially omitting more than 100 contacts with foreign nationals. In February 2018, Kushner's interim top-secret security clearance was downgraded. In May 2018, the New York Times reported that President Trump had ordered Chief of Staff John Kelly to grant Kushner a top-secret clearance over the objections of intelligence officials and the White House counsel's office. Trump publicly denied having done so. Kelly documented the directive in a contemporaneous memo, and White House counsel Don McGahn wrote his own memo expressing concerns about the decision.
The Senate Finance Committee, under Chairman Ron Wyden, opened an investigation in 2022 into Kushner's potential conflicts of interest and their influence on U.S. foreign policy, including a $2 billion investment that the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, placed with Kushner's private equity firm, Affinity Partners, shortly after Kushner left government.
Primary Sources
1. Senate Finance Committee, Chairman Wyden's letter to Kushner Companies regarding 666 Fifth Avenue and foreign policy conflicts, October 2022: https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/wyden-continues-investigation-into-kushner-conflicts-of-interest-influence-on-us-foreign-policy
2. New York Times: "Trump Ordered Officials to Give Jared Kushner a Security Clearance," February 28, 2019
3. Just Security: "Timeline on Jared Kushner, Qatar, 666 Fifth Avenue, and White House Policy": https://www.justsecurity.org/69094/timeline-on-jared-kushner-qatar-666-fifth-avenue-and-white-house-policy/
4. SF-86 revision records and congressional testimony regarding omitted foreign contacts
Corroborating Sources
1. Newsweek: "Kushner's financial link to Qatar is a 'ticking time bomb': Biographer," 2022
2. The Real Deal: "Congress Investigates Kushner Cos. 666 Fifth Avenue Deal," December 2020
3. Rep. Krishnamoorthi press release regarding Kushner Companies' 666 Fifth Avenue deal with Brookfield
4. New York Times: "Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Invested Nearly $2 Billion With Kushner," April 2022
Counterarguments and Context
Kushner and his representatives stated that he fully divested from the 666 Fifth Avenue property before it was refinanced and that he had no involvement in the Brookfield transaction. They argued that his financial disclosures, while requiring revisions, were ultimately completed in good faith and that omissions on the SF-86 form were inadvertent, not deceptive. Regarding the security clearance, supporters noted that the president has ultimate authority over classification decisions and that granting a clearance to a senior adviser was within his constitutional powers. The Brookfield deal involved a legitimate commercial negotiation, and the Qatar Investment Authority's role as one of many investors in a large fund does not establish a direct quid pro quo. No criminal charges were brought against Kushner in connection with any of these matters.
Author's Note
The Kushner portfolio represents one of the most significant conflicts of interest in modern White House history. The convergence of family financial distress, foreign government bailout financing, security clearance irregularities, and a diplomatic portfolio encompassing the very nations involved in his family's business dealings created conditions in which conflicts were structurally unavoidable. The subsequent $2 billion Saudi investment in Kushner's post-government fund, which the fund's own advisers flagged as commercially unjustified, suggests that the boundaries between public service and private enrichment were, at minimum, severely blurred.