All the ex-president’s men* at Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners

By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org

Members of Congress – Democrats and Republicans – have expressed concerns about Jared Kushner’s acceptance of a $2-billion investment from Saudi Arabia in his private equity firm shortly after he left the White House.

But ex-President Donald Trump’s son-in-law isn’t the only former government official now working for Sunny Isles Beach’s Affinity Partners who appears to be using a legal loophole to avoid having to register as a foreign agent and disclose details of Affinity’s arrangements with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar.

Incorporated in Delaware the day after Trump left office in January 2021, Affinity doesn’t disclose much information about itself beyond what’s required by law. Even its phone number is hard to come by.

Affinity does no marketing and doesn’t need to. Six months after its incorporation, the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) gave Affinity the $2 billion to invest. That alone has generated at least $80 million in management fees for Kushner’s firm in 2022 and 2023, according to U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

“As founder and sole owner of Affinity, Kushner is the biggest beneficiary of the fees paid to Affinity by the Saudi PIF and other Gulf state clients,” Wyden wrote in a June 12 letter to Affinity seeking various records.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer R-KY, expressed a similar concern last August when he told CNN that Kushner had “crossed the line of ethics” by accepting the $2 billion from the Saudis.

“We’re going to have some questions, for Trump, and some of his family members, including Jared Kushner,” Comer told CNN in April 2023. 

The highly partisan Comer, however, has not followed through.

KUSHNER AND MBS

Under Trump, Kushner effectively ran Middle East policy. Kushner and one of his partners at Affinity, Avi Berkowitz, are said to have helped negotiate the Abraham Accords, a series of bilateral agreements between Israel, the UAE and several other Arab nations normalizing diplomatic relations. He also cozied up to autocrats like Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), offering him what The New York Times called private advice on how to “weather the storm” after the brutal murder and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

The U.S. intelligence community later assessed that MBS approved the killing.

The Wall Street Journal reported in February 2022 that within weeks of departing the White House Kushner toured several Persian Gulf monarchies to pitch Affinity, including Saudi Arabia where he met with MBS. His wife Ivanka Trump, who was also a senior adviser to her father, often accompanied him, the Journal said.

In a Feb. 13, 2024 interview with Axios in Miami Kushner called MBS a “visionary leader” who has “made the world a better place.”

In March, Affinity reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it was now managing more than $3 billion in total, with the new billion split between the sovereign wealth funds owned by the governments of the UAE and Qatar.

Still, It’s akin to peanuts to the PIF, the Saudi’s sovereign wealth fund. Its website boasts that it has $925 billion in assets. On July 1, Reuters reported the PIF posted a $36.81 billion profit in 2023.

AFFINITY’S EMPLOYEES

According to Affinity’s annual filing with the SEC in March, the company has 33 full and part-time nonclerical employees – 20 of whom provide investment advisory functions.

Using publicly available sources, Florida Bulldog has identified 11 former U.S. government officials in the Trump Administration who work or have worked for CEO Kushner at Affinity.

They are:

• Avi Berkowitz, Affinity partner and investment team member. Berkowitz was Assistant to the President and Special Representative for International Negotiations and an advisor to Kushner from 2019-2021.
• Thomas Storch, managing director of investments. Hired as deputy director of the National Economic Council for International Economics at the White House in 2019, Storch also served as senior director for global economics at the National Security Council (NSC).
• Miguel Correa, Geostrategy/Geopolitics. Correa is a retired major general who commanded Army and Special Operations forces in Africa, Europe and South America. In March 2020, the Department of Defense assigned him as senior director for Gulf Affairs, Middle Eastern Affairs Directorate, NSC, Executive Office of the President, Washington, D.C.
• Kevin Hassett, head of global research. Senior advisor to the president and chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2017-2019.
• Cale Clingenpeel, research associate. Served on the staff of the White House Council of Economic Advisers as research economist and senior advisor to the chairman on the economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Chad Mizelle, senior legal for operations. Served as acting general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security. Chief of staff at DHS. Associate counsel to the president at the White House.
• Nick Butterfield, director of investment process. Former deputy White House policy coordinator.
• John Rader, chief operating officer. Deputy assistant to the president for strategic initiatives. Special assistant to the president and senior policy advisor to the National Security Advisor on the NSC. Deputy assistant to the president for policy and strategy.
• Ian Brekke, chief compliance officer. Deputy general counsel Department of Homeland Security.
• Cassidy Dumbauld Luna, chief of staff. A Trump for President worker who was later a transition coordinator and member of the inaugural committee, Luna was hired to work as a deputy assistant to the president. She was in the White House from January 2017 -January 2021, joining Affinity when it began. Luna is married to Donald Trump “body man” Nick Luna, who Politico has reported was one of two Trump assistants responsible for overseeing the pack-up of Oval office records as Trump’s four-year term was ending.
• Charlton Boyd, director of executive operations. Special assistant to the president January 2020-2021.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) generally requires individuals working on behalf of foreign entities in the U.S. to register with the Department of Justice and to disclose their relationship, activities, receipts and disbursements in support of their activities.

“Affinity’s total reliance on a small handful of foreign government investors raises other concerns due to the prevalence of other former U.S. government officials on Affinity’s payroll…including Mr. Kushner, that recently served in key foreign policy and national security roles and had access to the highest levels of classified information and military secrets,” Sen. Wyden wrote. “Since 100% of Affinity’s outside capital and streams of income comes from foreign sources, primarily sovereign wealth funds, I am concerned that Affinity’s private investment funds are being exploited by former U.S. government officials as a loophole to receive compensation from foreign governments without disclosing these payments under FARA.”

SEN. WYDEN’S CONCERNS

As Affinity points out in its SEC filing, it is a private investment that’s excluded from the definition of an “investment company” under the Investment Company Act of 1940. As a result, it is not subject to the same anti-money laundering and beneficial ownership reporting requirements of other financial institutions.

Wyden specifically noted the presence of retired Major General Correa on Affinity’s payroll “raises concerns regarding compliance with the emoluments clause of the constitution” which “prohibits retired U.S. military personnel from accepting payments from foreign governments” – including commercial entities controlled by a foreign government – unless they receive waivers.

“If Correa were to seek compensation directly from the Saudi PIF or sovereign wealth funds owned by Qatar and the UAE, he would need to obtain a waiver from the U.S. government in order to do so. However, due to the loopholes afforded to foreign backed private investment funds, Correa can be paid directly by Affinity, while performing work benefiting the Saudi PIF and other former government clients who provide 99% of Affinity’s money.”

Wyden went on to say that Affinity’s funds illustrate how “foreign actors can put up all of the money for a private investment fund, pay politically exposed U.S. persons for ‘investment advisory services,’ and exploit longstanding disclosure exemptions afforded to private investment funds.” Wyden noted that such funds have long been excluded from the definition of an “investment company” under the Investment Company Act of 1940.

Wyden continued, “There has long been concern from Congress that foreign actors, including foreign governments, have been exploiting the lack of reporting requirements for private funds as a means to launder money, influence the U.S. political system and engage in other illicit financial activity.”

Affinity’s SEC filing shows that that most of the cash and assets it’s taken in – $2.973 billion – is socked away in its Affinity Partners GP LP fund in the Cayman Islands. It has six beneficial owners, all of whom are non-U.S. persons. None, of course, are named.