“They didn’t send the Board of Peace charter to the Senate for advice and consent to a treaty, and there are no statutes that authorize U.S. participation,” said Michael Mattler, a former assistant legal adviser for treaty affairs at the State Department. Trump authorized U.S. participation in the board unilaterally and established himself — in his private capacity — as chairman, with no limits on his term. “This is an organization composed of states, but that by its own rules gives a private individual a controlling role,” Mattler said. That makes it a “uniquely structured organization,” he said, compared with other international groups.
Lawmakers are noticing the murky legal status. Several Democratic congressional investigations are looking into both Witkoff’s and Kushner’s financial records and international relationships. In mid-April, four Democratic senators announced a probe of the Board of Peace’s proposal to create a stablecoin for Gaza, pointing out that a number of its executives, including Witkoff and Trump himself, could stand to profit.
In a letter addressed to Kushner announcing a House Judiciary Committee probe of his dual role as an investor and a “volunteer” government representative, Representative Jamie Raskin wrote, “You cannot faithfully represent the United States with billions of dollars in Saudi and Emirati cash burning a hole in every pocket of every suit you own.” By continuing to do so, Kushner was effectively insisting “that the normal rules do not apply to you,” Raskin argued.
Under the Trump administration’s privatization of peace, the “normal rules” no longer exist at all. Yet exceptional wars require exceptional solutions. If the Board of Peace does bring stability and governance to embattled regions, it’s of course possible that in some quarters, all its flaws will be forgiven. An imperfect peace, or a fragile cease-fire, is better than nothing, even if survivors find themselves returning to territories that have been stripped of their autonomy and natural resources — if they are able to return at all.
But even this grim vision of peace still seems a long way off given the recent record of the Trump administration’s diplomacy. Some 800 people have been killed in Gaza since the October cease-fire; a settlement between Russia and Ukraine has only become less likely since the United States relaxed sanctions on Russian oil because of its war on Iran; ongoing negotiations with Hamas have repeatedly broken down; Kushner and Witkoff’s previous meetings with mediators on Iran have failed, by some accounts because they did not fully grasp the intricacies of nuclear issues, and the deal on the table would fall short of the administration’s stated goal of preventing Iran from ever producing a nuclear weapon.
Rising energy prices have begun to strain American households, but Trump and his “people” aren’t feeling the squeeze. Witkoff has said he is in the process of divesting from his real estate and crypto holdings; in 2024, Kushner said he would “try to pre-emptively avoid any conflicts of interests.” But both men have seen their wealth grow significantly since Trump returned to office. And the peace they have long promised remains out of reach.
Source images for illustration above: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg, via Getty Images; Andrew Harnik/Getty Images; Mohammed Eslayeh/Anadolu, via Getty Images; NiseriN/Getty Images; Probst/ullstein bild, via Getty Images; Mandel Ngan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; mapo/Getty Images.