The triple life of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who put the Saudis in his pocket and helped close peace in Gaza

Until then everything is more or less normal. And, after being part of Trump’s team during his first term, Kushner took advantage of the 2020 electoral defeat to put his foot down and dedicate himself – thanks to the list of contacts developed during his time in the White House – to the world of investments. Quite wisely, it seems.

Without going any further the magazine Forbes has just reported that, at 44 years old, Kushner has already joined the billionaire club of the world’s leading economy.

What few expected is that, within the framework of the multimillion-dollar deal surrounding Electronic Arts, Kushner would also return to the front line of American foreign policy. But there he was on September 29: accompanying his father-in-law and Benjamin Netanyahu at the time of announcing the famous plan to end the war in Gaza.

It also emerged that the day before he had met with the Israeli prime minister at the hotel where he was staying, in New York, along with Trump’s official advisor in the region: Steve Witkoff. Their mission: discuss the aforementioned peace plan.

At that moment there were those who wondered if they had been specific appearances. But nothing could be further from the truth. Taking into account where Kushner was this Monday – in Cairo with Witkoff and an Israeli delegation to hold “indirect talks” with Hamas– Everything seems to indicate that the son-in-law who gave so much to talk about between 2017 and 2021 has returned to his old ways.

“Although this time he does not have an official position in the White House, it is evident that he continues to be there where agreements are forged,” he explains. Katy Balls; the Washington correspondent of the British newspaper The Times. “Of course: on this occasion without being subject to the obligations that one of those positions brings with it.”

Something that unnerves critics – amassing so much power without carrying any burden called “legal responsibilities” – but which is precisely what makes him extremely valuable to Trump.

“For the president’s team – says Balls – that is what makes Kushner effective: a man with the money, the connections and the loyalty to achieve results where traditional diplomats cannot.”

The Kushner clan

Jared Kushner’s roots go back to one of the many Jewish communities that existed at the beginning of the 20th century in what is now Belarus. Specifically, the one established in the town of NovoGrúdok. His paternal grandparents grew up there, Joseph Kushner y Rae Kushnerwho were those who emigrated to the United States after World War II and after surviving the Holocaust.

Not long after reaching the other side of the Atlantic, Grandpa managed to get ahead as a real estate developer in New Jersey and found what would later become a conglomerate called Kushner Companies. Key, evidently, in the accumulation of a family fortune that would later pass to our protagonist’s father: Charles Kushner.

In the 1990s, after inheriting what was already considered a family empire, Charles Kushner began flirting with the establishment politician from New Jersey and soon rose to prominence as one of the major donors to the local branch of the Democratic Party.

In short: everything was going relatively well for the Kushners in terms of influence and social status until, in 2005, Charles Kushner was convicted of tax evasion and witness tampering, among other crimes. Consequently, he ended up in prison.

That’s when Jared Kushner appears on the scene. He had just graduated in Political Science and Public Management from the University of Harvardan institution that had received large donations from his father in the nineties, and in the absence of the father figure in the corresponding office, he took charge of the multiple family businesses.

Landing in the Trump family

The beginning of the relationship between Jared Kushner and the Trump family coincided with the entry of Jared’s father into prison. The first contacts took place, finally, in the mid-2000s. The reason was none other than the courtship between Jared and Ivanka Trumpwho according to many is the favorite daughter of the current American president.

At first neither family was particularly enthusiastic about the relationship due to religious differences between them, but Jared and Ivanka ignored the criticism and married in 2009 after she converted to Orthodox Judaism. A union that contained, as the passage of time has shown, much more ambitious horizons than those found in a conventional marriage.

And, far from staying on the margins, Jared Kushner took advantage of his father-in-law’s political rise to occupy a prominent place during the 2016 presidential campaign, thus becoming one of Trump’s closest advisors after his electoral victory in the fall of that year.

Once in the White House, he dedicated himself, among other things, to outlining the new American policy in the Middle East.

As might be expected, Kushner was harshly criticized by both the press and the mainstream as by the Democratic Party. Firstly, because of the way he got to where he had arrived: drawing solely and exclusively on family ties.

And, secondly, because of his youth and lack of experience. However, he was one of the architects of the famous Abraham Accords; those who in the summer of 2020 normalized relations between Israel and a handful of Arab countries. United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, specifically.

The Washington Scrutiny

Despite the weight of their last names, or perhaps because of it, Jared and Ivanka soon discovered that the rules in Washington were very different from those that governed New York.

Accustomed to the lack of control prevailing in the Big Apple, they suddenly had to operate under the magnifying glass of financial revelations, ethical reviews and constant press scrutiny.

Jared Kushner was at the center of that famous investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, for example, and He kept receiving questions about the generous loans directed at his family’s real estate business..

That is why in his memoirs –Breaking History: A White House Memoir– Trump’s son-in-law speaks crudely of that period: “We knew we would face challenges, but we had no idea of ​​the intensity of the storm that awaited us.”

He adds: “Nothing had prepared us for the ferocity of Washington: the attacks, the investigations, the false and lurid media reports and, perhaps worst of all, the backstabbing within the West Wing itself.”

So it did not surprise many when, after Trump’s defeat in the 2020 elections, he and Ivanka packed their bags and planted the flag in Miami. And it didn’t surprise anyone when, when Trump announced his intention to seek re-election, Jared and Ivanka made it clear that they were not planning to sign up for such an adventure again.

A huge conflict of interest?

That is why Kushner’s recent appearances in the context of peace negotiations regarding the Gaza war have caused political analysts to clear their throats a few times. And there are many who see in this the confirmation of a double life, or even triple life, which now, equipped with much more experience and having learned certain past lessons, he manages with more caution than before.

In any case, there is a question that arises by itself: taking into account the moment in which the purchase of Electronic Arts was signed… are we perhaps facing an “enormous conflict of interest”, as some analysts say, given that Riyadh seeks to invest in the United States while Washington needs Saudi approval to dispose of Gaza and its billions of dollars to rebuild the enclave?