Democrats push Rubio on Board of Peace ‘slush fund’ for Trump

House Democrats are applying new scrutiny on President Trump’s Board of Peace, demanding answers on how his inner circle is using American tax dollars for a “slush fund” and planning to profit off plans to rebuild the Gaza Strip.

The Trump administration was forced to halt the transfer of $50 million to the board in July, in the face of pushback from lawmakers who said the State Department could not answer basic questions about the board’s structure, oversight of the funds, and whether Trump could use the funds to compensate himself.

Those questions form the basis of a letter sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday and obtained exclusively by The Hill. The letter also signals that Democrats will open an investigation into Trump’s Board of Peace if they take the majority in the House after the November midterm elections, in which case they would gain subpoena power.

Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the ranking members of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees, respectively, call for Rubio to answer basic questions about the board’s structure, funding and oversight, nine months after its creation.

“The fact that the Trump Administration, with your help, is attempting to transfer taxpayer dollars to the Board of Peace, an opaque organization primed for corruption, raises serious concerns that public funds could be once again misused by the President and his family and friends,” the lawmakers wrote.

Trump created the Board of Peace in October as part of a plan to end the devastating war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, appointing himself as “chairman for life” with apparent unilateral control over the board’s decisions and how money is spent on reconstruction — even beyond his presidency.

The United Nations Security Council endorsed the board until 2027. But in January, Trump expanded the board’s mission to tackle conflict around the world, setting it up to outlive the Security Council deadline. The president solicited billion-dollar pledges from countries in exchange for lifetime membership and promised an initial pledge of $10 billion from the U.S. government.

A Board of Peace official earlier told The Hill that hundreds of millions of dollars have been collected to finance the Gaza peace plan. The Financial Times reported in May that donors preferred placing funds in a bank account managed by J.P. Morgan , rather than the account set up at the World Bank.

Democrats and other critics say there are no clear answers on who is auditing and conducting oversight of the J.P. Morgan account.

On July 29, the State Department notified Congress it was rescinding $50 million in funding it was sending to the Board of Peace from its budget for international organizations and programs.

The notification followed intense pressure from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a congressional aide told The Hill. The Board of Peace did not respond to a letter Shaheen sent them in June raising questions about funds, but it has started briefing committee staff, the congressional aide said.

Raskin and Meeks’s letter adds to that pressure. The lawmakers argue that basic questions on whether the Board of Peace is a public or private entity, a U.S. organization or international, or “even a false entity altogether” are unanswered.

“Can anyone assure Congress that billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers and foreign governments will not be flowing into the pockets of President Trump, members of his family, corrupt and incompetent contractors or business partners, or political allies and foot soldiers of the President?” the lawmakers wrote.

Raskin and Meeks also argue that Trump’s executive order establishing the Board of Peace as a “public international organization” — which would protect it from lawsuits and certain searches from federal law enforcement — is without merit.

A Board of Peace official earlier told The Hill that the board “is an international organization established under international law. Its legal status and mandate derive from the foundational arrangements establishing it and the consent of its participating members.”

But Raskin and Meeks said that such an organization must be established under a treaty or an act of Congress.

“The Board of Peace was created out of thin air and whole cloth by the President, without any input from Congress about any aspect of its operation,” they wrote.

The lawmakers argue that Board of Peace members have been “explicit” about their intention to use it for “private profit-making purposes,” pointing to statements by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a board member, advertising “amazing investment opportunities” when promoting the administration’s Gaza plan to the World Economic Forum in Davos in January.

And Raskin further points out that the administration’s goal to trademark Board of Peace earlier this year served as a flashing red light for “backroom deals and procedural illegitimacy.”

Earlier this year, in a move that Raskin described as “almost certainly illegal,” the director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, John Squires, applied for trademarks on behalf of the board. Squires told Raskin at a Judiciary hearing in March that he filed the trademark to preserve access to the Board of Peace website address in his authority as adviser to the president.

“After Judiciary Committee Democrats demanded information on this trademark application in three oversight letters to Director Squires, he abruptly abandoned the applications but failed to respond to any of our letters or provide information as to who directed him to apply for this trademark for the Board in the first place,” Raskin and Meeks wrote.

The lawmakers gave Rubio a Sept. 8 deadline to answer more than a dozen questions on who manages the Board of Peace, the decisionmaking process, who has the authority to make financial decisions, staffing, what bank accounts are being used and how it’s being overseen, among other questions.

“We will work with you to guarantee the American people full transparency about how their tax dollars are being funneled to — and spent by — this organization never established or authorized by Congress but now poised to receive substantial public funding from the State Department under your direction,” they wrote.

There’s been little progress in finally ending the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the narrow seaside territory divided under majority Israeli control but with nearly 2 million Palestinians living under Hamas control. Thousands are displaced, living in bare-bones temporary shelters of tarps or damaged buildings and facing shortages of water, food and medicine.

Last month, the Board of Peace proposed a roadmap to disarm Hamas, and it is pushing Israel to accept the proposal. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shown little interest in finding common ground with Hamas as he fights for his political survival in upcoming elections.

The board is working toward developing a “pilot zone” where tens of thousands of Palestinians could move into reconstructed neighborhoods in southern Gaza free of Hamas control.