Trump's son-in-law has grandiose plans for Europe's last wild river, particularly the Vjosë delta and its lagoon. The Vjosë River is undammed in Europe outside of Russia, flowing 170 miles from the mountains of Greece through canyons. Unconstrained, the river reaches the Adriatic Sea, spilling across an expansive 59,000-acre delta. Silt is deposited from over 2,500 square miles of the river basin and its tributaries (Voidomatis, Sarantaporos, Drino, and Shushicë). River protectors campaigned for decades to prevent the Albanian government from building hydropower plants. In 2023, the Albanian portion was declared a national park, and hydropower plans were canceled—the Vjosë Wild River National Park was to be off-limits for development. The law protected the stream only, but somehow, the delta was not protected, and any joy from a National Park designation quickly turned to despair as Albania attempted to build an airport in the delta to attract tourists and their money.
Jared Kushner's vulture capital venture firm, Affinity Partners, steps in. They would build the draw for wealthy tourists to fly in with a billion-dollar resort within the delta. Affinity Partners is in advanced talks with the Albanian government and Serbia for similar development. The Albanian government passed laws to override any environmental protection the expansive delta enjoys, dealing a blow to critical habitat for wading birds and other wildlife, including the migratory stop for flocks of Flamingos from Africa. The development includes the airport, luxury villas, and hotels accommodating 10,000 rooms. Quite ambitious of him; while planetary biodiversity suffers, the hydrological cycle is destroyed, and extirpation becomes a reality in a relatively pristine habitat.
Listen, I know readers at this site would not be surprised to learn that Donald Trump and his vile administration played a role. Ivanka and Jared have been to Albania at least twice, tempting Balkan governments with 3.1 billion seed money for Affinity Partners Kushner's business, from which Middle East investors and Saudi Arabia gifted Kushner after leaving office. The corruption runs deep, and they have gotten away with it so far.
The reports have given rise to speculation that Kushner’s plans could have been facilitated by relationships established during the tenure of Kushner’s father-in-law in the White House.
According to The New York Times he mentioned collaborating on these agreements with Richard Grenell, former US special envoy for Kosovo-Serbia dialogue.
Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to current US President Joe Biden, Grenell worked towards the signing of several agreements between Kosovo and Serbia, culminating with an agreement on normalisation of their economic relations in September 2020.
Grenell, who served as acting director of National Intelligence during Trump’s presidency, reportedly created valuable connections that have facilitated Kushner’s investments in the Balkans.
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It is the jewel of the Adriatic. Its shimmering waters feed a rare colony of Dalmatian pelicans, the world’s largest freshwater birds, sustain the endangered Albanian water frog, and host loggerhead turtles on its encircling dunes. The Nartë lagoon is at the heart of the extensive and largely unspoiled delta of Albania’s Vjosë River, which researchers consider Europe’s most intact large river delta.
But that accolade won’t save it. The Vjosë delta and its lagoon are under siege. They are set to become the victims of a series of massive coastal tourist developments, partly bankrolled by a company set up by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The hotels and luxury villas will accommodate up to a million visitors arriving annually at a new international airport currently being built on salt marshes around the lagoon.
Until the fall of the Iron Curtain that walled off communist Eastern Europe from the capitalist West, Albania was the 20th century equivalent of North Korea, a virtual prison state under the control of strongman Enver Hoxha. But today, its government wants to welcome the world and is bent on turning the country’s previously remote southern coastal region into what it calls an Albanian Riviera.
The Kushner development projects, which are set to be a key part of that, were revealed last month by The New York Times. The ecological damage they will likely cause has so far gone largely unremarked outside Albania. But that is likely to change, if campaigners have their way.
Meanwhile, the rest of Europe has been removing dams and rewilding damaged riparian habitats.
One of the confirmed investors for the new tourist developments that the airport will trigger is Affinity Partners, a Miami-based private equity firm formed by Kushner in 2021. It reportedly has an investment pot of $3.1 billion, most of it from the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, a government sovereign-wealth fund. Working with Kushner on facilitating the projects in Albania is Richard Grenell, who served as acting Director of National Intelligence in the Trump administration. Affinity’s local partner is Albanian billionaire Shefqet Kastrati, whose Kastrati Group is involved in everything from fuel trading to construction and luxury hotel management.
This further proves that Kushner did not get Middle Eastern money for being an investment genius.
Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that Jared Kushner’s years of Saudi ass-kissing and murder-excusing had paid off, literally, when the country’s sovereign wealth fund gave him $2 billion for his newly formed private equity firm, Affinity Partners. How do we know it was, most likely, Kushner’s extremely friendly relationship with the kingdom and Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman that sealed the deal and not, say, his investing prowess? For one thing, as The Times noted, the panel that performs due diligence for the Saudi fund concluded Kushner’s firm was a joke—that management was “inexperience[d],” that the kingdom would be responsible for “the bulk of the investment and risk,” that its fees were “excessive,” and that the firm’s operations were “unsatisfactory in all aspects.” The panel warned that the country shouldn’t give the former first son-in-law a dime. But then those grave, unequivocal warnings were mysteriously overridden by the fund’s board, led by M.B.S., i.e., the guy who approved a plan to kidnap and dismember a man via bone saw and benefited from Kushner’s unwavering support. (Kushner, The Times reminds people, “played a leading role inside the Trump administration defending [bin Salman]” after Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, and urged Donald Trump to support the prince, arguing that the whole situation would blow over.)
Why else do we suspect the $2 billion was more of a reward (and a downpayment should Trump return to the White House) than it was about Kushner being an actually worthwhile investment? In addition to the due diligence panel’s reservations, there’s also the matter of Affinity’s pitch deck, which was recently obtained by The Intercept. The pitch deck manages to simultaneously demonstrate almost no investment expertise or thesis while brazenly suggesting would-be investors would benefit from the firm’s influence peddling after writing Jared a check. “Affinity carries out a thorough and in-depth assessment of potential investments and examines a range of quantitative and qualitative factors,” reads one slide, while hilariously noting that “weekly investment discussions” are one of the key parts of the “Affinity Investment System.” On the barely concealed promise to leverage Kushner’s domestic and foreign connections, the firm writes: "We approach opportunities creatively based on the concept that aligned economic interests can solve intractable problems and create previously unrealized value,” and “Affinity’s unique network and experience makes us a differentiated partner for companies navigating the rapidly evolving global political and economic environment.” As The Intercept writes, “The slides make repeated reference to Affinity’s ‘network,’ which includes a bevy of Trump administration appointees depicted in a ‘Team Members’ section,” and describes Kushner as “leading the negotiations on the historic OPEC+ oil agreement in April 2020 among the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Russia,” a not-so-subtle hint that the former senior White House adviser holds sway “with the oil-rich Saudi kingdom.”
So, who exactly provided Kushner with his funds?
Affinity, which is worth $3 billion, has received investments from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as corporate moguls like Terry Gou, who founded electronics giant Foxconn.
These are all countries that Kushner worked with when his father-in-law, Donald Trump, was in the White House. Kushner served as Trump’s main envoy to the Middle East and was a key figure in brokering the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and the UAE, and Israel and Bahrain.
Kushner’s fund has invested in an Israeli car-leasing and financing company, an online real estate site based in Dubai, and an Abu Dhabi–supported fast food company that operates more than 1,000 restaurants in Brazil, the Times reported.
Ben Rhodes has something to say about the stench of Kushner's corruption.
He particularly highlighted Kushner's role in allegedly aiding Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in covering up the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. "This is not subtle corruption that we’re looking at," Rhodes asserted during his interview with MSNBC's Alex Wagner. "This is a guy, Jared Kushner, who had no expertise, no qualification whatsoever to be in the White House while he was there."
Rhodes further elaborated on his suspicions regarding the nature of the Saudi investment in Kushner's firm. He speculated that the investment was not based on Kushner's investment acumen but rather on the perceived influence he could wield, especially in the event of a second Trump presidency. "The Saudis didn’t make a $2 billion investment because they trusted in Jared Kushner’s investment expertise," Rhodes claimed. "Today, does anybody in the world believe that $2 billion is based on an assessment that Jared Kushner is who you want to give your money to make a return? No, they’re making an investment. What they think he can do for them if there is a second Trump term."
Rhodes painted a picture of Kushner as someone who had positioned himself as a key player in U.S. foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, with a focus on serving the interests of Mohammed bin Salman. He suggested that such entanglements could significantly influence the foreign policy decisions of Trump, especially in matters concerning Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East.
I have been unable to receive comments for a month because a comment I recommended has since been deleted by staff. I just wanted to let you know I appreciate you.
Some on this site cut your head off for reporting real meat-on-the-bone diaries, which Daily Kos staff and community police find offensive if they don’t approve of the topic or want the subject matter covered. They would have a leg to stand on in my mind if they wrote about climate change, Gaza, or genocide. But they don't. Zip.
At the risk of more discipline, I added the tweet below.