WASHINGTON — U.S. special envoy Jared Kushner on Thursday issued an extensive “fact check” of a New Yorker article that revisited familiar allegations tying his diplomatic work in the Trump administration to the financial interests of his private equity firm.
“For years, I let the stories go unanswered,” Kushner told The Post, explaining why he chose to respond to the article, titled “Dollar Diplomacy.” “I focused on my work, but when false claims get repeated enough, people start believing them.
“I decided to put the facts out there and let people judge for themselves.”
In an Oct. 8 post published on his personal website, Kushner sharply criticized The New Yorker, accusing the magazine of failing to correct what he called its “preferred narrative” despite the nearly 5,000-word article undergoing the publication’s “storied fact checking process.”
The 14-point response from the Affinity Partners CEO opens with allegations that he raised $5 billion earlier this year for his private equity fund while negotiating on behalf of the Trump administration in the Middle East — a situation that critics have described as an apparent conflict of interest.
“The instant the actions in Iran began and I was asked to extend my volunteer role, I ended all conversations about additional fundraising,” Kushner wrote.
He argued that preliminary discussions about a possible future fund did not amount to raising money, challenging the article’s claim that he was “discreetly raising another five billion dollars” while engaged in talks involving Iran. “That sentence was beyond misleading,” he said, adding that Affinity “has not raised additional capital” during his government service.
Kushner also stated: “I have never taken a diplomatic action to benefit Affinity, myself, or any investor.”
“Everyone’s looking for conspiracies,” the New Jersey-born real estate heir told The Post. “But maybe the truth is just hiding in plain sight.”
Kushner said his upbringing, along with his exposure to turmoil in the Middle East, motivated him to return to international diplomacy.
“I was raised to believe that if you want the world to be better, don’t just complain about it: Go try to do something about it,” he said.
“I saw the suffering of the people in Gaza, the Israelis, and the hostage families,” Kushner said. “I saw Israel tearing itself apart and antisemitism spreading around the world.
“What was I going to do? Sit in Miami and make more investments? When the President and Steve [Witkoff] asked me to help, it was very hard to say no.”
Democrats in Congress, including House Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), had previously raised questions about Kushner’s Middle East business dealings following Trump’s first term in office.
In the same year his father-in-law left the White House, Kushner — a key figure in negotiating the Abraham Accords — secured more than $2 billion in investments from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, known as the PIF, as well as funds controlled by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Raskin has said Affinity generated billions more in the years that followed and that its assets under management now exceed $6 billion. He described the situation as “a glaring and incurable conflict of interest” following Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025.
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Kushner responded that the PIF investment in Affinity occurred after he had left government, when he had no plans or expectation of returning to diplomacy, and years before Trump decided to seek the presidency again.
He also said his investment decisions were made after consultation with his personal ethics counsel and, upon his return to government service, the White House Counsel’s Office.
“I receive no salary or other compensation from the government for this work and pay my own expenses,” Kushner wrote. “I served for four years in the first Trump Administration, taking no salary, and am proudly volunteering again now.”
Kushner also rejected conflict-of-interest allegations involving the proposed purchase of an Albanian island for a luxury resort and Affinity’s acquisition of shares in Phoenix Financial, an Israeli financial services company.
Kushner also took The New Yorker to task for insinuating that he is both a poorly skilled investor and yet one who through Affinity is helping its clients make 25% returns on capital.
“Before entering government, I invested billions of dollars in real estate, generated substantial profits, founded technology companies, seeded a technology investment firm and owned the New York Observer. I began investing in apartment buildings at 19 while still in college and had already made millions from those investments by graduation,” he explained.
“My subsequent record at Affinity, which is an SEC-registered advisor, provides additional objective evidence by which to evaluate my investment experience. Our assets under management have continued to grow from investment gains, not newly raised capital.”
Kushner also defended his “intentionally unconventional” approach to diplomacy, which he said should be judged on the results he’s already delivered with the 2020 Abraham Accords normalizing relations between Israel and Gulf nations, as well as trade agreements with Canada, Mexico and China.
Additionally, he and special envoy Steve Witkoff succeeded in the last year with bringing all remaining hostages back from Gaza and reaching a tentative cease-fire between Hamas and Israel.
And finally, Kushner pushes back on detractors who claim he was both a political novice and an academic lightweight.
“I entered government without Washington experience, but not without relevant experience. I had spent my career building businesses, managing teams and solving complicated problems, and the President had just watched me apply those skills during the campaign, against all odds, in a very tense environment,” he wrote.
“That record, along with the trust we had developed working together, is important context that is often overlooked, for why he asked me to serve,” he said.
Kushner also highlighted how before his careers in business and government, he had graduated from Harvard University with honors “while building a real-estate business that generated millions of dollars in profits by graduation.”
“I later earned both a JD and an MBA from NYU while working full time,” he concluded. “After more than 20 years in public life, there is now a substantial record by which to judge my abilities.”
The tasks Trump has delegated to Kushner and Witkoff — negotiating with Iran, Russia and Ukraine, and Hamas — are “incredibly difficult challenges … that have defied solutions for decades,” the president’s son-in-law acknowledged to The Post.
“We know how hard they are, but if there’s a chance to end wars, save lives and create a better future, it’s worth trying.”
