Chad Mizelle is an American lawyer. He served as chief of staff and acting general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, worked as chief legal officer of Affinity Partners, and then served as chief of staff and acting associate attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice in 2025. He has acted as a lawyer for Jared Kushner.
Case
Congressional Democrats and ethics groups say Jared Kushner's investment firm, Affinity Partners, conflicts with his role in Middle East negotiations. Kushner, his lawyers and the White House dispute that. CNN found no indication his diplomacy directly affected the investments it reviewed.
Role at the time: Lawyer for Jared Kushner, in a statement quoted by Reuters
Response to this claim
Jared Kushner's simultaneous roles as Special Envoy for Peace and chief executive of Affinity Partners, which has raised billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, create a glaring and incurable conflict of interest.
“And to date, no one — not even Jared’s critics — has identified a single applicable rule or regulation he has violated”
The reference point is the proposition that Kushner's private business through Affinity, including its Israeli investments and Gulf capital, creates a conflict of interest with his role in U.S. Middle East negotiations. Mizelle argues that no applicable rule has been shown to be violated, which defends the arrangement as compliant, so we used Defended or excused. The closest competing label is Denied, because Reuters also reports that he called the allegations false. It loses because the quoted words argue about rules and do not deny a specific alleged fact.
Statement dates: September 28, 2026
Statement dates: September 28, 2026
