CHRIS RIOTTA, chrisriotta@gmail.com, @chrisriotta
A reporter at Newsweek covering the Trump administration and first family, Riotta just wrote the piece “Jared Kushner Failed to Disclose He Led a Foundation Funding Illegal Israeli Settlements Before U.N. Vote.”
The piece states: “Jared Kushner failed to disclose his role as a co-director of the Charles and Seryl Kushner Foundation from 2006 to 2015, a time when the group funded an Israeli settlement considered to be illegal under international law, on financial records he filed with the Office of Government Ethics earlier this year.
“The latest development follows reports on Friday indicating the White House senior adviser attempted to sway a United Nations Security Council vote against an anti-settlement resolution passed just before Donald Trump took office, which condemned the structure of West Bank settlements. The failure to disclose his role in the foundation — at a time when he was being tasked with serving as the president’s Middle East peace envoy — follows a pattern of egregious omissions that would bar any other official from continuing to serve in the West Wing, experts and officials told Newsweek. …
“Kushner demanded future National Security Adviser Mike Flynn ‘get on the phone to every member of the Security Council and tell them to delay the vote’ on the West Bank settlement resolution, Buzzfeed reported Friday. The move may have violated the over 200-years-old law called the Logan Act, which bars ‘unauthorized citizens’ from negotiating with ‘foreign governments having a dispute with the United States.'”
Riotta’s other recent pieces for Newsweek include: “Jared Kushner Can’t Pass His Security Clearance Probe,” “Visitor Logs Reveal Trump’s Swamp of Billionaires” and “Jared Kushner Delays Senate Deadline for Russia Contact.”