While campaigning for president, Donald Trump openly talked about his relationship with wealthy Saudis, bragging to crowds about the huge amounts the Saudis had paid for condos at Trump properties. At a 2015 campaign rally in Alabama, Trump said: “Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.”
Of course he likes them very much. Many of Trump’s Saudi clients, especially the Saudi royal family, have the kind of wealth Donald Trump dreams of for himself. It’s not enough that he inherited millions from his father—that’s child’s play compared to the estimated $1.4 trillion net worth of the Saudi royal family. Historic wealth. The kind of wealth Trump aspires to have for his own family, whatever it takes.
So it should be no surprise that one of the first acts of Donald Trump’s presidency was to cozy up to his Saudi sugar daddies. The first big international trip Donald Trump took was straight to Riyadh, where he and his advisers bowed to the Saudi king and nervously danced the night away.
In fact, the relationship was so important to the Trump family, Jared Kushner was tasked with personally communicating with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Kusher and MBS reportedly text each other frequently, outside of the purview of U.S. intelligence and against all common sense and advice. Kushner has no legitimate diplomatic role for the United States. Nevertheless, he took an unpublicized trip to Saudi Arabia in 2017 to meet with Salman, his third trip to Saudi Arabia in the first year of Trump’s presidency. Three trips in one year!
For their part, the Saudis began to spend big at Trump’s properties throughout the U.S. They purchased an estimated 500 nights at Trump's D.C. hotel alone and spent so much at one of Trump’s New York properties that the manager noted that it boosted them into a profitable quarter.
In 2018, one of Kushner’s companies was reportedly seeking a $100 million investment from the Saudi government.
The New York Times notes the Saudis have been playing Trump and his American prince from the start. This year MBS was implicated in the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. U.S. intelligence services, aided by actual audio of the gruesome killing, say there is no question Salman ordered the hit and was updated throughout Khashoggi’s torture and murder. The New York Times reports that not only has nothing happened in retaliation for the horrific murder of a critic of the Saudi royal family, but also that Jared Kushner had actually been in contact with MBS, offering advice on how to “weather the storm.”
Since the uproar over Mr. Khashoggi’s killing, the Trump administration has acknowledged only one conversation between Mr. Kushner and Prince Mohammed: an Oct. 10 telephone call joined by John R. Bolton, the national security adviser. The Americans “asked for more details and for the Saudi government to be transparent in the investigation process,” the White House said in a statement.
But American officials and a Saudi briefed on their conversations said that Mr. Kushner and Prince Mohammed have continued to chat informally. According to the Saudi, Mr. Kushner has offered the crown prince advice about how to weather the storm, urging him to resolve his conflicts around the region and avoid further embarrassments.
Kushner has or wants business with the Saudi government. He has never been elected to any position, and has not been confirmed by the United States Senate for any diplomatic role. The idea that he is telling a murderous world leader how to “weather the storm” and ride out the outrage surrounding the murder of a man whose only crime was being critical of the Saudi royal family is outrageous and deserves full investigation. And now House Democrats are saying they may very well take it up in January. From CNN:
Rep. Eliot Engel, who is poised to lead the House Foreign Affairs Committee, plans to conduct a thorough review of US policy towards Saudi Arabia -- and that could include Jared Kushner's ties to the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, according to a Democratic aide.
Engel is "committed to conducting a top-to-bottom review of U.S. policy towards Saudi Arabia and that includes what has driven the US response to the Jamal Khashoggi murder," said spokesman Tim Mulvey, referring to the October killing of The Washington Post journalist in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Asked if that meant probing the ties between Kushner and the crown prince, Mulvey said: "Everything is on the table."
“Everything is on the table.” Good. This is one relationship that deserves the full scrutiny of a House investigation. 2019 is looking to be a very troubling year for the Trump crime family.