Donald K. Sherman is president and chief executive officer of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a government-ethics watchdog group. A lawyer who joined CREW in 2018, he previously held oversight and policy roles in the House, the Senate and the White House Domestic Policy Council and at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
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: President and Chief Executive Officer of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, in written testimony to a House subcommittee
Response to this claim
CREW says that President Trump's February 19, 2026 designation of Jared Kushner as a special envoy requires him to file a public financial disclosure report within 30 days under federal ethics rules.
“Mr. Kushner has been involved in the most serious foreign policy and national security issues of the day at the same time that his private investment firm is engaged in significant businesses with some of the same foreign partners he is working with in his governmental role. The potential for conflicts of interest is staggering and although Mr. Kushner is legally required to file a public disclosure statement so that the public and Congress have transparency about what foreign governments may be funding his businesses, there is no publicly available evidence that he has done so.”
The reference point is the proposition that Kushner's private business through Affinity, including its Israeli investments and the Gulf capital behind it, creates a conflict of interest with his role in U.S. Middle East negotiations. Sherman writes that Kushner's private investment firm does significant business with some of the same foreign partners he works with in government and calls the potential for conflicts of interest staggering, so we used Condemned. The closest competing label is Mixed or conditional, because he speaks of a potential conflict and ties his point to a missing disclosure filing. We did not use it because he states no condition under which the arrangement would be proper. The passage mentions neither Affinity nor Israeli investments, and his closing call for Congress to examine the administration's conflicts is general.
Role at the time: President of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, in a CREW statement
Response to this claim
CREW says that President Trump's February 19, 2026 designation of Jared Kushner as a special envoy requires him to file a public financial disclosure report within 30 days under federal ethics rules.
“Given his company’s public dealings and investments in the very countries and conflicts that he will apparently be working on directly, Kushner should also proactively divest from his firm, Affinity Partners. … If there is a silver lining to President Trump’s announcement, it is that Kushner will finally be subject to some ethics rules, instead of acting as a completely unchecked private citizen.”
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. Sherman ties Affinity's dealings in the countries Kushner will handle to a call for divestment, which treats the overlap as a problem, so we used Condemned. The closest competing label is Mixed or conditional, because he also welcomes the ethics rules that the designation brings. It loses because that welcome concerns the rules, and his call to divest criticizes the arrangement itself.
Statement dates: February 20, 2026 to September 15, 2026
Statement dates: February 20, 2026 to September 15, 2026
