individuals out to the boot camps. we know there have been a number of them, katy, that have been for researching. in this case it was how to conduct oversight. they have a number of panels and they stay overnight. i talked to ethics experts and they say, katy, while there s actually nothing technically wrong with this, nothing illegal with this, in the words of one ethics expert, it is unseemly to have an activist group actually training congressional staff who are conducting oversight investigations but republicans i talk to say, look, we re really above board and open about this. we have nothing to be embarrassed about with this, this is just part of the process and an exchange of information but i haven t really seen anything like this before and the ethics experts and oversight experts i talked to said while this has been going on about 18 months, it is kind of a new trend here in the republican party to be doing these types of
trump administration left office. the question is if they help the saudis, which they did, if they help the crown prince become the count prince, which effectively they did, what are they getting in return? there are some senior officials on the record in the story and others i talked to as well who had concerns they were using their time in office to sort of build this relationship. whether that happened or not, the reality is kushner is running a private equity fund that got $2 billion from the saudis and trump is getting through his golf courses millions of dollars. we don t know exactly how much that process is opaque. so it s raised a lot of questions. there s some people, members of congress, ethics expert who is say there should be some way to enact rules to let the public know what former presidents and their top aids are getting from a foreign government that they work with closely while they were in office. so to that point, let me read
dealing, somebody who is not an expert and a lay observer, the dictionary definition of somebody using their public position, their access to government resources, potentially even their actions as government officials, to set themselves up for private gain. is that fair? in terms. layman s understanding of that. and as an extension of that, is this potentially illegal behavior? well, that was obviously one of the top questions we were asking ourselves, rachel, as david kirk dlpatrick and i reported on this and what we discovered from talking to ethics expert, this is quite legal. if we as americans want to see this kind of activity ceased in the future, we need to probably codify some new rules an regulations that prevent one from seeking outside investments from former government counterparts once they leave office. and in the state and executive branch. but right now this is quite legal. self dealing is a little bit more of a term of art.
here s some fun news that will make your blood boil. the daily beast is reporting tonight that kanye west s independent presidential campaign might not have been so independent after all. federal disclosures show kanye s 2020 campaign, quote, appears to have disguised potentially millions of dollars in services it received from a secretive network of republican party operatives including advisers to the gop elite and a managing partner at one of the top conservative political firms in the country. the disclosures show the campaign also enlisted legal services from firms with links to trump and the republican party. as one ethics expert described it, kanye was clearly seen as a way to steal potential votes from biden.