Jared Kushner is legally required to disclose any and all conflicts of interest as Trump’s newest special envoy
Jared Kushner is legally required to disclose any and all conflicts of interest as Trump’s newest special envoy
- Thu, Feb 26 2026 at 9:04 AM
Mark,
President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has amassed billions in foreign investments while serving as a Trump administration negotiator with foreign governments—yet he has not been subject to basic ethics rules or meaningful oversight because he had no actual government role.
On Thursday, Trump officially named Kushner as a special peace envoy, formalizing the role he has already been playing and, for the first time, triggering the ethics requirements federal law imposes on special envoys.
Kushner will likely now be required to file a financial disclosure report detailing his recent and current financial interests, so ethics officials can review them and identify potential conflicts of interest arising from his newly formalized role.
Let's be clear: The public has no reason to trust that Jared Kushner, as a government official, will put the American people's interests above his own financial gain. While serving as a senior advisor in the first Trump administration, Kushner made hundreds of millions of dollars.
Now, the ethics concerns raised by his role are even more urgent as Kushner plays a massive role in American foreign policy while profiting directly from foreign governments.
Kushner has secured billions of dollars in investments for his firm, Affinity Partners, from the very governments he worked closely with in his official capacity in Trump’s current administration, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Despite claiming he would not return to public service, Kushner has spent the past several months acting as a Trump administration negotiator with Russia, Ukraine, Iran and Israel.
Now that Trump is finally acknowledging the role Kushner is playing, the Senate should provide its advice and consent to his appointment from the start and be notified of the details of his duties and potential conflicts of interest.
Given his company’s public dealings and investments in the very countries and conflicts that he will be working on directly, Kushner should also proactively divest from his firm.
Kushner’s appointment means he is now subject to certain ethics rules and must ensure that his unique access to the president does not, once again, result in his using his position to engage in lucrative private deals with foreign countries.
Given Kushner’s history of self-enrichment, the breadth of his foreign investments and the magnitude of the role Trump has granted him, the standards he must meet are even higher.
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