What if I told you that one email, one phone call, and one social media post could help put Jared Kushner in handcuffs?
Kushner is collecting tens of millions of dollars a year in fees from foreign governments while conducting shadow diplomacy with sanctioned Russian officials. The fees came to $157 million between 2021 and 2024 and an estimated $60 million more in 2025. In October 2025 he sat with Kirill Dmitriev in Miami drafting terms for Ukraine’s surrender to Russia. In December 2025 he flew to Moscow for five hours with Vladimir Putin.
He holds no official government position. Trump calls him a special envoy, and the White House says he is a private citizen who owes no financial disclosure.
Congressional investigators have called Kushner an unregistered foreign agent, but Republicans currently control the committees with subpoena power, and the Blanche DOJ is not expected to investigate any member of the Trump family. The federal path is largely closed off.
States have jurisdiction, too. They can act.
In fact, the Martin Act gives New York State’s Attorney General power to investigate any securities fraud “within or from New York.” Interests in private equity funds are securities. What this all means is that if Affinity Partners conducted any fundraising, investor communications, banking transactions, or meetings within New York, the AG has jurisdiction.
In December 2025 Paramount Skydance named Affinity in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing as one of the outside funders of its $108.4 billion tender offer for Warner Bros. Discovery, a company headquartered in Manhattan. Affinity withdrew from the bid on December 16. Given that record and Kushner’s history running Kushner Companies from Manhattan, the New York nexus is easily established.
The Martin Act requires no proof of intent. Section 352 lets Letitia James open an investigation whenever fraud appears to her “either upon complaint or otherwise,” or whenever she believes an investigation is in the public interest. The AG can subpoena documents and compel testimony without a pending case. She can ask a court to freeze assets during the investigation and refer exposed wrongdoing for criminal prosecution. The Martin Act also carries up to four years in prison per count.
Affinity’s filings describe an investment fund, but what their clients pay for is influence with the President and the ruling party.
Kushner registered Affinity as a private equity fund. Their Form ADV and offering documents describe an investment vehicle. They collect management fees based on assets under management, the standard compensation model for funds that generate returns for investors. In the brochure Affinity files with the SEC, they describe their advantage as “the investment, operational, and geopolitical expertise of its personnel and extensive network,” and the presentation they showed prospective investors, described by the House Oversight Committee in June 2022, listed the foreign policy initiatives Kushner led at the White House.
Here’s some more context.
Affinity collected $157 million in fees over their first three years and returned nothing to investors, according to their own disclosures to the Senate Finance Committee, and the fees kept coming after that. In July 2026 they sold about a quarter of their stake in Phoenix Financial, an Israeli insurer, for $343 million, more than the $305 million they paid for the whole stake.
The Saudi Public Investment Fund’s own screening committee had voted against the original investment, citing Kushner’s “inexperience” and “unsatisfactory” due diligence. Days later the fund’s board, chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, approved the $2 billion anyway.
Why would the Saudis invest $2 billion in a fund run by someone their own advisors said was unqualified, then keep paying fees for three years while the fund produced nothing?
The Saudis aren’t being defrauded. They paid for access to the Trump family and a greater say in U.S. policy. Kushner was in Moscow meeting with Putin. He drafted surrender terms with Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian official under U.S. sanctions. He negotiates for the United States with the governments that pay him.
Bloomberg reported on May 14, 2026 that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates agreed to pay Affinity tens of millions of dollars a year in fees “in hopes of gaining influence at the White House.” Officials in the region, Bloomberg reported, draw no distinction between the royal families and the state wealth funds that invest with Affinity.
If Affinity’s offering documents say “private equity fund” but the actual business is “foreign influence services,” that’s a material misrepresentation. If the Form ADV describes investment advisory services but the fees are actually compensation for diplomatic access, that’s securities fraud. The legal form says one thing. The reality is another.
Federal law categorizes a private citizen whose work is financed by foreign governments and who acts on their behalf to influence United States policy as a foreign agent, who must register with the Department of Justice. That is what Senator Wyden and Representative Garcia mean when they say Kushner may be an unregistered agent.
Senator Ron Wyden, then chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, wrote in September 2024 that Affinity’s fees were “unusually high,” and that they had “deployed relatively little capital over a period of years” while collecting them, and that their dependence on foreign governments “suggests a compensation scheme designed to circumvent FARA and other U.S. laws.”
This is fully prosecutable in New York State.
The mechanism exists. The jurisdiction is there. The Senate has documented the facts. What’s missing is the political will to use it.
That’s where we come in. We send the letters. We file the complaints. We follow @TishJames and @NewYorkStateAG on every platform and make it clear that the public is watching and expects action. She joined Substack in July; her posts at newyorkstateag.substack.com take comments.
The New York Investor Protection Bureau investigates fraud “where we suspect a pattern of fraud affecting many investors.” Share this article. Ask others to contact the AG separately. Separate complaints demonstrate robust public demand for accountability.
If we’re loud enough, the press will ask questions. So will the voters. Letitia James is on the ballot on November 3. New York Governor Hochul, Attorney General James, and Mayor Mamdani might be asked to comment on Kushner and Affinity. That’s how accountability works. But it only happens if enough people who read this decide to do something about it. Activate.
There are more than 56,000 subscribers at The Existentialist Republic. If even 1% of our readers took the time today to send a letter, file an online complaint, and post on social media tagging the press and James, this would get substantial attention.
The federal government has abandoned its enforcement responsibilities. New York has not. Attorney General Letitia James has a choice to make about whether to use the power she has.
I filed my complaint before I pressed publish. Will you?
This article exists because I spent hours digging through securities law, Senate investigations, and AG enforcement patterns to find a mechanism that could actually work. Research like this is how we build real leverage. Don’t let activism be the reason you skip a meal or miss rent, but if you can subscribe, just know that you’re fueling the machine that tears down fascism.
If you want more projects like this one, you can help fund the work: buymeacoffee.com/TheER
CALL TO ACTION
Ask New York Attorney General Letitia James to open a Martin Act investigation of Jared Kushner and his firm, Affinity Partners, for securities fraud. Affinity collects fees from the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates while Kushner negotiates with those governments on behalf of the United States, and their filings describe them as an investment fund. The Attorney General’s Investor Protection Bureau takes complaints from anyone, in any state. Section 352 of New York’s General Business Law lets her open an investigation on a complaint, with no case filed.
Where to send it
Online: the Attorney General’s securities fraud complaint form at pcf.ag.ny.gov/form/FFC
Mail: Office of the Attorney General, Investor Protection Bureau, 21st Floor, Attention: Complaint Unit, 28 Liberty Street, New York, NY 10005. The Bureau’s printable complaint form works for this.
Fax: (212) 416–8816. FaxZero sends a fax from your browser for free.
Phone: 1–800–771–7755 (main helpline) or (212) 416–8222 (Investor Protection Bureau)
Public: comment on her posts at newyorkstateag.substack.com, and tag @TishJames and @NewYorkStateAG
Write it in your own words. Identical messages get counted once. Say who you are, why you care, and what you want: an investigation under General Business Law § 352 into whether Affinity Partners’ offering documents and Form ADV misrepresent the purpose of the fund and the nature of its fees, and whether the brochure Affinity gives investors discloses the conflicts created by their sole owner negotiating for the United States with the governments that supply 99 percent of its capital.
Points to cover:
Affinity reports $6.16 billion under management, 99 percent of it from clients outside the United States, principally the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
Affinity collected about $157 million in fees between 2021 and 2024, and as of July 2024 had generated no return and distributed nothing to investors, by their own disclosures to the Senate Finance Committee. Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Robert Garcia estimate another $60 million in fees in 2025.
Bloomberg reported on May 14, 2026 that the three governments pay the fees “in hopes of gaining influence at the White House.”
The New York Times reported on March 13, 2026 that Kushner sought at least $5 billion more from the same governments while negotiating with them for the United States.
In December 2025 Paramount Skydance named Affinity in an SEC filing as a funder of its tender offer for Warner Bros. Discovery, a company headquartered in New York.
Senator Ron Wyden wrote in September 2024 that Affinity’s fees were unusually high and that their dependence on foreign governments “suggests a compensation scheme designed to circumvent FARA and other U.S. laws.”
In December 2024 Kushner said Affinity had raised $1.5 billion in advance so it would not have to raise money during Trump’s term, “to avoid any conflicts.” In 2026 they sought $5 billion more.
I’m sharing my complaint but encourage you to write your own and explain why this matters to you, and to America.
Company: A Fin Management LLC, doing business as Affinity Partners (SEC-registered investment adviser, CRD 315482)
Address: 16690 Collins Avenue, Sunny Isles Beach, FL 33160
Person: Jared Kushner, founder and sole owner
I ask the Attorney General to open an investigation under General Business Law § 352 into whether Affinity Partners’ offering documents and its Form ADV misrepresent the purpose of the fund and the nature of its fees, and whether the brochure Affinity delivers to investors under Form ADV Part 2A discloses the conflicts created by its sole owner negotiating on behalf of the United States with the governments that supply 99 percent of its capital. Section 352 authorizes an investigation upon complaint or in the public interest (https://law.justia.com/codes/new-york/gbs/article-23-a/352/).
The public record:
Affinity reports $6.16 billion under management, 99 percent of it from clients outside the United States, principally the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (Form ADV filed March 22, 2026: https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/firm/summary/315482).
Affinity collected about $157 million in fees from those clients between 2021 and 2024, and as of July 2024 had generated no return on investment and distributed nothing to investors, according to its own disclosures to the Senate Finance Committee (letter of Senator Ron Wyden, September 24, 2024: https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/wyden-investigation-of-kushner-firm-continues-new-letter-outlines-affinity-partners-fee-structure-lack-of-return-to-investors-questionable-deals-with-foreign-governments), and an estimated $60 million more in 2025 (letter of Senator Wyden and Representative Robert Garcia, March 19, 2026: https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/imo/media/doc/2026-03-19garciawydenlettertoaffinitypartnersrekushnerfundraisingfinal.pdf).
Bloomberg reported on May 14, 2026 that the three governments agreed to pay those fees in hopes of gaining influence at the White House (https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/may/14/kushner-disappoints-mideast-clients-who-spent-mill/).
The New York Times reported on March 13, 2026 that Mr. Kushner sought at least $5 billion more from the same governments while negotiating with them on behalf of the United States (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/business/jared-kushner-affinity-mideast-funds.html).
In December 2025 Paramount Skydance named Affinity in an SEC filing as a funder of its tender offer for Warner Bros. Discovery, a company headquartered in New York (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jared-kushner-affinity-partners-backs-out-paramount-skydance-bid-warner-bros-discovery/).
Senator Ron Wyden, then chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, wrote on September 24, 2024 that Affinity’s fee structure was unusually high, that it had deployed relatively little capital over a period of years while collecting fees, and that its dependence on foreign governments “suggests a compensation scheme designed to circumvent FARA and other U.S. laws” (https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/wyden-investigation-of-kushner-firm-continues-new-letter-outlines-affinity-partners-fee-structure-lack-of-return-to-investors-questionable-deals-with-foreign-governments).
On December 20, 2024, Mr. Kushner said Affinity had raised $1.5 billion in advance so that it would not need to raise capital during President Trump’s term, “to avoid any conflicts” (https://popular.info/p/kushner-breaks-pledge-seeks-5-billion).
If Affinity’s documents describe an investment fund but the fees are payment for access to the President’s family and influence over United States policy, those documents contain a material misrepresentation within the meaning of the Martin Act. If the brochure omits the conflicts described above, it conceals a fact material to any investor. Section 352 lets the Attorney General require a sworn statement from Affinity and subpoena its records without a pending case. I ask her to do so.
Christopher Armitage
The Existentialist Republic
You had me at the opening. I was thinking in simpler terms of a bribe, but your description of Jared acting as a foreign agent, billing thru a Private Equity firm, is spot on and you also give the legal pathway by which states could hold this particular family member of the First Family of Crime accountable. I hope I live to see the day.
I will never understand why he and Witcoff are representing the US in negotiations with Iran AND Ukraine/Russia. We need career diplomats in such sensitive situations, not grifters!