The Trump administration launched a program called the Abraham Fund that they said would raise $3 billion for projects in the Middle East.
The fund was Spearheaded by President Donald J. Trump's son-in-law and adviser, and promised to exploit diplomatic agreements he had championed between Israel and some Arab states. The accords were hailed as a tremendous foundation for economic growth by Steven Mnuchin, then Treasury secretary.
The fund vanished when Mr. Trump left office, with no accounts, employees, income or projects. The Abraham Fund ended after Mr. Kushner and Mr. Mnuchin traveled to the Middle East in the final months of the administration to try to raise money for the project.
The top aides who helped court Gulf rulers while promoting the Abraham Fund were brought along by Mr. Kushner and Mr. Mnuchin, and both were back in the same royal courts asking for investments.
Within three months, Mr. Mnuchin's new firm received $500 million in pledges from the Emiratis, Kuwait, and Qataris, according to previously unreported documents prepared by the main Saudi wealth fund. The Saudis agreed to invest $2 billion in Mr. Kushner's new firm six months after he left government.
The appearance of potential payoffs for official acts during the Trump administration was raised by a New York Times report last month.
There are questions about whether the two men sought to exploit official relationships with foreign leaders for private business interests.
In the weeks after the election, Mr. Kushner traveled to the Middle East three times, the last for a summit in Saudi Arabia with the leaders of the Gulf monarchies. Mr. Mnuchin was going to have private meetings with the heads of the wealth funds of Saudi Arabia and the other countries in the region, as well as future investors. After the Capitol riot, he dropped the Kuwait stop and only met the finance minister in Saudi Arabia.
Mr. Kushner and his aides have used his private firm as a continuation of the Abraham Fund. On a four-day trip to Israel in March, Mr. Kushner's team portrayed the firm as a chance to invest in the peacemaking potential of the Abraham Accords, people who heard the pitch said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The top executive at the company was a former military attache in the United States. A former Treasury aide who helped arrange meetings with Gulf leaders is one of the top executives at Liberty Strategic Capital.
One Liberty Strategic executive's jobs appeared to overlap after he left government work. Even though he was still an assistant director at the Secret Service, the managing director of the Saudis was on the roster of 11 top executives and advisers. A Secret Service spokesman said that Mr. D Ambrosio spent his last weeks at the agency on paid leave after he disclosed his new job.
A former Treasury aide was waiting for Mr. Mnuchin in the private sector after he resigned. Eli Miller had been working with the Persian Gulf wealth funds at the investment firm, and immediately rejoined the secretary at his new firm.
The path from public service to private investing is not easy to follow. The Treasury secretaries went to Wall Street.
The ethics experts said that Mr. Kushner and Mr. Mnuchin were the best because of their speed of pivots and the sums they raised from foreign rulers.
The Saudi investment with Mr. Kushner was made despite the advisory panel's objections about his lack of relevant experience, the absence of other big investors, a high fee and his ties to the former president. If his father-in-law returned to office, the payment could be seen as a bid for influence.
Senator Elizabeth Warren has urged the Justice Department to take a hard look at whether Mr. Kushner violated any criminal laws.
Kathleen Clark is a law professor at Washington University who studies government ethics. The reason this smells so bad is that there is a lot of evidence that he did not receive this on the merits.
Ms. Clark said that the biggest question for Mr. Mnuchin was whether he would be useful to him in the future as Treasury secretary.
She said that it was an abuse of his office.
Through a spokesman, Mr.
A spokesman for Mr. Mnuchin denied that he had sought investments while in office and said that some of the details in the Saudi documents were incorrect. The spokesman said that the firm has diverse backers, including U.S. insurance companies, and that the former secretary was returning to a decades-long career as a professional investor.
The White House had a competition between Mr. Kushner and Mr. Mnuchin. Several people familiar with the efforts said that Mr. Kushner tried to install his own candidates as Treasury secretary, but Mr. Mnuchin caught wind of it and launched a counter campaign.
The two men had different business careers. Mr. Mnuchin had followed in his father's footsteps and made a fortune investing in Hollywood films and a California bank. They kept a distance from the administration. Both had interests in the Persian Gulf.
Before the Trump administration, Mr. Mnuchin had very little business dealings in the region. He spent more time there as Treasury secretary than his predecessors, and met more often with the heads of sovereign wealth funds.
The priorities of the White House were reflected in the time that Mr. Mnuchin was there, according to former Treasury officials who worked with him. Fund chiefs can be useful conduits to the rulers of the region.
He was a business guy who knew how to do personal diplomacy, and they liked him, according to a former Treasury attach in Kuwait.
Many of Mr. Mnuchin's contacts were informal. The first meeting he had with the Saudi fund's chief was at the home of Stephen A. Schwarzman. Mr. Miller is a senior managing director at Liberty Strategic and was the secretary's chief of staff at the time.
The group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington obtained through the Freedom of Information Act emails that show that Mr. Mnuchin met with Mr. al-Rumayyan at least nine more times during the Trump presidency.
The head of the Qatar Investment Authority was one of the people Mr. Mnuchin met at least 10 times.
He told an aide that he would do one-on-one with the fund's chief executive.
The co- founder of the Carlyle investment group hosted a dinner for Mr. Mnuchin and the heads of the two main Emirati funds.
He met with the rulers of the two countries. A private meeting with the Saudi crown prince was held in Riyadh shortly after the kingdom's agents killed the Washington Post columnist. According to the documents, Mr. Mnuchin built a relationship with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, who recently became the president of the United Arab Emirates.
In February 2020, Mr. Mnuchin wrote a letter to an individual who was planning to visit.
In December 2020, he wrote a letter to a top Treasury aide suggesting that the lines between government and business should be blurred.
He asked the aide, who was with him on Gulf trips, if there was any more information on PIF. A spokesman said that Mr. Mnuchin asked about the conference he attended as a private citizen.
Two weeks before he left office, Mr. Mnuchin flew to the region for official meetings with leaders across the Persian Gulf, with the stated purpose of discussing sanctions, terrorist financing and other national security matters. The visit included a private lunch with the head of the country's main investment fund.
The brokering of a Middle East peace plan centered on funding from Saudi Arabia and its neighbors was the highest goal for Mr. Kushner in the White House. The plan was to get investments from the Gulf that might convince Palestinians to give up some of their demands for a future state. No Palestinian officials attended the conference that he and Mr. Mnuchin organized.
The first foreign trip of the administration was to Saudi Arabia. The rulers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates imposed a blockade on Qatar after a meeting with Mr. Kushner. The secretaries of defense and state pushed for an end to the blockade, but Mr. Trump initially supported it.
During the Trump administration, Mr. Kushner made at least 10 trips to the Persian Gulf and formed a close alliance with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Laden. The prince was defended in the White House by Mr. Kushner.
In December 2020, Mr. Kushner traveled to Saudi Arabia and Qatar to try to end their three-year feud.
Mr. Kushner's firm stated in a recent investor presentation that he led the diplomatic effort to heal the Gulf rift.
Allies of Mr. Mnuchin said he played a leading role in improving relations with Mr. Trump.
The Saudis wanted to end the rift before the start of a new American administration, according to diplomats. Credit for ending the blockade may be useful in courting investments.
Mr. Mnuchin got back to work. He said in an interview that he had a plan but wasn't ready to talk about it.
According to documents obtained from the Saudi fund, his firm was showing potential investors a detailed list of industries. The documents show that the firm had arranged a legal structure that allowed foreign wealth funds to invest in American industries that were strategically sensitive.
It was a slower start for Mr. Kushner. He didn't hire any executives with relevant investing experience when he reached his $2 billion agreement with the Saudi fund.
He brought on his closest aide and a former military attache. The general left the U.S. embassy in the Emirates after clashing with senior diplomats who believed he had held unauthorized private meetings with the country's leaders. He was elevated to the White House, where he worked with Mr. Kushner. By the end of the administration, General Correa and Mr. Berkowitz were often the only Americans accompanying Mr. Kushner.
Rabbi Aryeh Lightstone, a former diplomat in Jerusalem who worked on the Abraham Accords, was named a director of the Abraham Fund.
The December 2021 presentation Mr. Kushner's firm shared with potential investors suggests his focus may be shifting. The grab bag of high-growth industries listed in the presentation included media, technology, health care, finance, consumer services and sustainable energy.
The presentation promoted Mr. Kushner's role in Middle Eastern diplomacy.
Mr. Kushner told The Wall Street Journal that if he could get Israelis and Muslims in the region to do business together it would focus people on shared interests and shared values. Two Israeli companies have been invested in by the fund.
Adam Boehler was the head of the newly formed development finance agency at the time he oversaw the Abraham Fund. Mr. Boehler was with Mr. Mnuchin on his visit to the Gulf in October.
The fund would invest in poorer countries that joined the accords, and the first projects were said to include building a gas line between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.
Both projects went nowhere. Efforts to get Gulf money did not succeed.
In January last year, Mr. Boehler announced an investment from a relatively low-income country in the Abraham Fund. The officials said that they wanted to reduce poverty and foster regional cooperation. The new president of Uzbekistan gave Donald Trump a replica of a historic building and a $4,200 bed cover as part of his effort to improve his country's image.
The Abraham Fund was never delivered.
Isabel Kershner and Ben Hubbard contributed to the report. Kitty Bennett was involved in research.
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