“The Hungarian sociologist Bálint Magyar has coined the term “mafia state” to describe the creation of “political families” (which can include a ruler’s actual family, as in the examples of Trump’s, Orbán’s, Bolsonaro’s and Erdoğan’s children, with especially nefarious roles reserved for sons-in-law); these families then use the state to enrich themselves.”
Kushner on reality:
“You have to understand the separation between what exists in the print media and what exists in reality. It’s important to never lose track of reality.”
nymag.com, Aug. 6, 2004
Reality:
Jared Kushner Remains Full of Praise for Mohammed bin Salman, His Problematic Fave
The former first son-in-law insists Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose country’s wealth fund gave his investment firm $2 billion, is a “visionary leader.”
BY BESS LEVIN
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https://www.vanityfair.com/news/jared-kushner-mohammed-bin-salman-visionary-leader
Jared Kushner Could Be Made Secretary of State in Second Trump Term, and No, That’s Not a Joke
Yes, the same Jared Kushner who supposedly brought peace to the Middle East.
BY BESS LEVIN
DECEMBER 7, 2023
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/12/jared-kushner-donald-trump-secretary-of-state
One of the funniest—“funniest”—subplots to Donald Trump’s time in the White House was the contention that his son-in-law Jared Kushner could and would bring peace to the Middle East.
“If [Jared] can’t produce peace in the Middle East, nobody can,” Trump declared on the eve of his inauguration, adding, “All my life, I’ve been hearing that’s the toughest deal to make, but I have a feeling Jared is going to do a great job.”
Spoiler alert: Jared did not do a great job, and that’s despite reading “25 books” on the matter, which as he suggested in January of 2020 made him a bona fide expert. Instead, Kushner:
- Laid out an “economic vision” for peace in the region that garnered such reviews, from actual Middle East experts, as “The authors of the plan clearly understand nothing” and “[This] is the Monty Python sketch of Israeli-Palestinian peace initiatives…. Leaving aside that this reads like an investment prospectus for a project that an intern conceived of a week ago, literally none of it is actionable.”
- Enlisted WeWork founder Adam Neumann to help “produce a slick video…that would showcase what an economically transformed West Bank and Gaza would look like,” which Kushner showed at a conference in Bahrain after his widely panned economic plan was laid out.
- Came up with the Abraham Accords, which established formal relations between Israel, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates—three countries that already had significant ties, and were not at war—and, per The Guardian, “made little mention of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
- Wildly claimed that the Abraham Accords “exposed the [Israel-Palestinian] conflict as nothing more than a real-estate dispute.”
- Proclaimed, “We are witnessing the last vestiges of what has been known as the Arab-Israeli conflict” and basically declared, “mission accomplished.”
Except, y’know, not so much. Nevertheless, on Tuesday, in an article about the people who could make up Trump’s cabinet in a potential second term, Axios reported this insane news, sourced to people who “talk often” with Trump:
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump Subpoenaed in Jan. 6 Investigation
The special counsel overseeing the inquiry into Donald Trump’s efforts to retain power after the 2020 election wants the former president’s daughter and son-in-law to testify to a grand jury.
Maggie Haberman and
Feb. 22, 2023
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/22/us/politics/jared-kushner-ivanka-trump-jan-6
Former President Donald J. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have been subpoenaed by the special counsel to testify before a federal grand jury about Mr. Trump’s efforts to stay in power after he lost the 2020 election and his role in a pro-Trump mob’s attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to two people briefed on the matter.
The decision by the special counsel, Jack Smith, to subpoena Ms. Trump and Mr. Kushner underscores how deeply into Mr. Trump’s inner circle Mr. Smith is reaching, and is the latest sign that no potential high-level witness is off limits.
These Trump associates have appeared before the Jan. 6 grand jury
07/20/23
Multiple associates of former President Trump have appeared before the grand jury investigating Jan. 6, 2021, that informed Trump on Sunday he’s a target of their probe — likely indicating charges are coming soon.
The grand jury, convened by special counsel Jack Smith, has been looking into whether Trump knew he lost the 2020 presidential election, along with broader efforts to interfere with the transfer of power following election.
Trump’s former associates have reportedly been asked whether the former president acknowledged he lost the presidency while he was publicly outraged and claiming the election was stolen.
Here are the most notable Trump associates who have appeared before the Jan. 6 grand jury.
Jared Kushner
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner gave testimony recently, the New York Times first reported.
He was reportedly asked about Trump’s mindset in the time between losing in the 2020 election in November to the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol.
Kushner, Ivanka Trump’s husband, reportedly told prosecutors Trump genuinely believed the election was stolen.
Jared Kushner ‘Cooperating’ With Trump Indictment, Michael Cohen Believes
https://www.newsweek.com/jared-kushner-cooperating-trump-indictment-michael-cohen-believes
Could Jared and Ivanka Return to the Trump Campaign Fold?
On the evening of July 19, Donald Trump hosted a private screening of the child-trafficking movie Sound of Freedom at his Bedminister golf club. The guest list included the film’s QAnon-promoting star, Jim Caviezel, and other MAGA elites, such as former Trump strategist Steve Bannon and newscaster turned election denier Kari Lake. Trump, standing in a blue suit and red tie, called Caviezel a “great star” and lauded the movie’s $100 million-plus box office haul as “really something.” But the presence of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner is what has gotten Trumpworld buzzing.
According to Trump advisers, Ivanka and Kushner have been more visible lately, stoking speculation that the pair could take an active role in Trump’s 2024 campaign. “They’ve made it clear they’re supportive.
But with Trump dominating the 2024 Republican primary, some sources suggested Kushner and Ivanka might hop on the Trump train. “Now that the president is 40 points ahead, of course Jared is pretending he’s involved. If he’s president again, Jared needs to protect his turf, especially in the Middle East,” a former Trump administration official said.
Last fall, the couple made it clear they were done with politics. “I love my father very much. This time around, I am choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family,” Ivanka said in a statement released on November 15, the day Trump launched his presidential campaign at Mar-a-Lago. Kushner, meanwhile, was focused on his private-equity firm. Months after leaving the White House, Kushner received a controversial $2 billion investment from the fund led by Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Kushner and Ivanka’s decision to back away from Trump seemed like a smart career move at the time. Trump’s political fortunes were dwindling. Many of the midterm candidates he endorsed––such as Lake, Doug Mastriano, and Herschel Walker–– lost winnable races. A Politico–Morning Consult poll found that 65% of voters said Trump should “probably or definitely not run again.” Florida governor Ron DeSantis looked formidable after his crushing 19-point reelection victory. A poll commissioned by the Texas Republican Party found that Texas Republicans preferred DeSantis over Trump by more than 10 points. Rupert Murdoch’s media empire was all in on DeSantis, famously running a New York Post cover with the headline “DeFUTURE.”
As Trump slumped, Kushner and Ivanka spent little time at Mar-a-Lago, a source said. That echoed their White House habit of disappearing during scandals but claiming credit for victories. But they’ve been closer to Trump this summer, with the ex-president having reasserted his grip on the Republican electorate.
One red flag for Kushner and Ivanka surely is the onslaught of legal threats facing Trump, who has already been criminally indicted twice this year, in connection to the hush money payment made to Stormy Daniels and his alleged mishandling of classified materials. (Trump has pleaded not guilty in both cases.) And the former president could be indicted imminently in both federal and Georgia cases related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Kushner and Ivanka are highly protective of their brands and likely would not want to be publicly associated with Trump if he were to be convicted on federal or state charges.
But if Trump returns to the White House, Kushner and Ivanka’s calculus might change. “Everyone loves a winner!” a former Trump 2020 campaign adviser said.
Letters from an American, HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
Last night the chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, Ron Wyden (D-OR), and the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), wrote to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III, asking for information in their “ongoing investigations into whether former Senior White House Adviser Jared Kushner’s financial conflicts of interest may have led him to improperly influence U.S. tax, trade, and national security policies for his own financial gain.”
The letter outlines the timing of the 2018 financial bailout of the badly leveraged Kushner property at 666 Fifth Avenue (now known as 660 Fifth Avenue) with more than $1 billion paid in advance from Qatar. Qatar had repeatedly refused to invest in the property, but after Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates imposed a blockade on Qatar—after Kushner discussed isolating Qatar with them without informing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson—Qatar suddenly threw in the necessary cash. Shortly after that, the Saudi and UAE governments lifted the blockade, with Kushner taking credit for brokering the agreement.
Because of this case, and a number of others covered in the letter, the committees have asked the Defense Department to provide any correspondence it had with the Kushners during the Trump administration, or about the various dealings in which business and government appeared to overlap. They have asked for the information by January 13, 2023.
Jared and Ivanka, Without the Power or the Masks
In stark videotaped interviews, Ivanka Trump accepted the notion that there had been no fraud in the 2020 election. Jared Kushner complained that a White House counsel had been “whining.”
Next was Mr. Kushner. In his video he was pressed by Representative Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chairwoman, about whether he was aware that the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, had been threatening to resign because Mr. Trump was making increasingly outlandish efforts to stay in power.
“Like I said,” said Mr. Kushner, who was rarely heard from in public during his father-in-law’s presidency, “my interest at that time was on trying to get as many” presidential pardons finished as possible. Mr. Kushner repeatedly inserted himself into the pardons process, prompting complaints from legal experts and some of his colleagues. He added that he knew that Mr. Cipollone and “the team were always saying, ‘Oh we are going to resign, we are not going to be there if this happens, if that happens.’ So I kind of took it up to just be whining, to be honest with you.”
Ms. Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, sounding grim, spoke to the hearing room after the video ended. “Whining,” she said. “There’s a reason why people serving in our government take an oath to the constitution. As our founding fathers recognized, democracy is fragile. The people in positions of public trust are duty bound to defend it, to step forward when action is required. In our country, we don’t swear an oath to an individual or a political party.”
Mr. Kushner’s words enraged Mr. Cipollone’s former colleagues, many of whom traded messages as they complained to reporters and one another as the hearing went on that the former president’s son-in-law was “arrogant.”
No two people had positioned themselves as prominently in Mr. Trump’s White House as his daughter and his son-in-law, who came on as official advisers despite anti-nepotism laws and warnings from other aides that hiring family members can be fraught. Over four years, the two tended carefully to their images.
Aides feared getting on the wrong side of the couple, who lived in Washington’s expensive Kalorama neighborhood and hosted dinners for the city’s political elite.
The videos made clear that both were aware that things were going awry within the White House. But according to more than a half-dozen former Trump advisers, although both have attempted to distance themselves from that period, neither made much of an effort to pull Mr. Trump away from his obsession with staying in power.
Instead, they left that task to the paid staff, who in turn kept waiting for the family to intervene more aggressively. Shortly after Election Day, most aides tried to avoid the Oval Office, fearful of having to listen to Mr. Trump vent. They were also eager to avoid the worst- case scenario: a directive from Mr. Trump that might have been illegal, and could have ensnared them in an investigation.
Mother Jones Daily Newsletter
By Inae Oh
June 8, 2022
There’s a new report on MAGA world’s favorite nepotism babies that’s got me chuckling today.
No matter how vociferously Mr. Trump claimed otherwise, neither Mr. Kushner nor Ivanka Trump believed then or later that the election had been stolen, according to people close to them. While the president spent the hours and days after the polls closed complaining about imagined fraud in battleground states and plotting a strategy to hold on to power, his daughter and son-in-law were already washing their hands of the Trump presidency.
The report goes on to detail how, in the final days of the Trump White House, Jared Kushner would tell anyone who’d listen—and it looks like the New York Times sure did—that he and the wife essentially knew that Dad was a loser before it had been officially called, and that they’d leave even if Trump didn’t accept the results.
It’s hardly a coincidence that this latest one, which could help shield the couple from any accusation that they played a role in fomenting violence at the Capitol, is emerging just as the January 6 committee is presenting them as the hearings’ star attraction.
Plus, does it make Javanka look any better if they indeed bolted, allowing the likes of Rudy Giuliani and other conspiracy-addled morons to fuel election lies and eventually the attack on the Capitol? Nah. But head here for the only reason you should maybe read the latest drivel on Jared and Ivanka. I sincerely hope you LOL with me.
“What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals. When you have enough power to do what you always wanted to do, then you see what the guy always wanted to do.”