“The Real White House Crime Family”: Dem Rep. Tells the GOP to Stop Wasting Time With Hunter Biden and Subpoena Jared Kushner

While testifying during a closed-door deposition about his business dealings on Wednesday, Hunter Biden had a question for Republicans, given their apparent concern with conflicts of interest and corruption: Why are they not probing former first son-in-law Jared Kushner’s arrangement with Saudi Arabia, wherein Kushner’s investment firm received $2 billion from the country’s sovereign wealth fund shortly after leaving the White House? “He drew the distinction between what he has done in a business world with independent businessmen versus foreign governments, which he did not do any business with—unlike Jared Kushner,” Representative Dan Goldman told reporters. “He may be a little bit frustrated by some of the double standards relating to Jared Kushner and money that’s just been openly pocketed by Donald Trump in office,” added Representative Jamie Raskin. “And Jared Kushner, of course, brought back $2 billion from Saudi Arabia. And all of that has been a part of the conversation, and he was assertive about that.” And as it turns out, Biden is not the only one curious to know why he is being hauled before Congress while Kushner is counting his Saudi cash.

In a speech on the House floor on Thursday, Representative Robert Garcia demanded Republicans stop wasting their time on Hunter Biden and investigate Kushner’s business dealings. Standing beside a huge photo of Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Garcia said: “Yesterday I sat in on the Hunter Biden deposition for hours. Republicans once again…provided zero evidence, failing to show any sort of link between Hunter Biden and the president. No links between those business dealings. This entire case is a political stunt and a joke. Donald Trump ordered House Republicans to smear President Biden; they tried and tried and tried and failed.”

He added: “But I want to remind everyone about the real White House crime family. Why did Saudi Arabia give Jared Kushner $2 billion—billion with a *b—*just months after he left the Trump White House? And why did the Saudis spend hundreds of thousands of dollars at Trump properties while he was still the president? We also know that Jared Kushner used his cushy White House job to secure a $100 billion arms deal for Saudi Arabia and did other favors as well. Now, some members of the majority actually agree that this was unethical. And in fact, a few weeks ago, Jared Kushner was asked by a reporter about his grift. He responded, ‘Are we still really doing this?’ Yes, Jared, we are still really doing this. The American people deserve answers. I rise yet again to urge my colleagues across the aisle to answer our calls and subpoena Jared Kushner’s companies once and for all. We are not stopping, and we demand answers.”

As The New York Times reported in 2022, shortly after he left the White House—where he went to bat for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman following the murder of Jamal Khashoggi—Kushner’s investment firm received a whopping $2 billion from the Saudi Public Investment Fund. That may have struck some people as eye-brow-raising on its own, but making things even more comically corrupt-looking was the fact that the panel that performs due diligence for the Saudi fund concluded Kushner’s firm was “unsatisfactory in all aspects,” and that the country shouldn’t give the former first son-in-law a dime. And then those unequivocal warnings were overridden by the fund’s board, which just so happens to be led by MBS. Kushner, The Times reported, “played a leading role inside the Trump administration defending Crown Prince Mohammed” after Khashoggi’s murder, and urged Donald Trump to support the crown prince, arguing that the whole situation would blow over.

For his part, Kushner has said his business dealings have been entirely above board. Last month, he called the crown prince “a visionary leader.”

Not surprisingly, Republicans are beside themselves over the notion that Hunter Biden had the audacity to bring up Kushner during his deposition, and that the former first son-in-law has done anything that demands scrutiny. Speaking to Newsmax on Thursday, House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan insisted, “The idea that Jared Kushner did something wrong is ridiculous.”

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