Avi Berkowitz

Prior to serving in the White House, Berkowitz worked for Kushner at his company, Kushner Companies. Berkowitz then worked on Trump's 2016 presidential campaign before finally joining the White House staff after Trump was inaugurated.[2]

Berkowitz briefly worked as a writer for the New York Observer. Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law, high-level adviser, and future Berkowitz boss in the White House, had owned the newspaper since 2006.[2]

Berkowitz's job on the Trump campaign was assistant director of data analytics. One of his jobs was to run a Facebook Live talk show called Trump Tower Live. The show was setup in a format similar to a cable TV talk show. At first, the talk show was broadcast before and after the presidential debates. In the final weeks leading up to the election, it played on a weekly basis.[2]

The New York Times described Trump Tower Live in unflattering terms: “essentially agitprop [political propaganda] presented as news.”[3] However, because of its format, the show “fueled speculation at the time that Trump would start his own national news network.”[3]

The first episode of Trump Tower Live got 60,000 viewers.[4]

Berkowitz joined the White House on Jan 20, 2017 as Special Assistant to the President and Assistant to the Senior Advisor.[5] On September 6, 2018, the White House announced that Berkowitz was promoted to Deputy Assistant to the President and Advisor to the Senior Advisor.[6] On September 5, 2019, the Trump Administration announced that Jason Greenblatt would be departing in the coming weeks, and that Avi Berkowitz would become more involved in the Middle East peace process.[7] A few weeks later Berkowitz replaced Greenblatt as the Special Representative for International Negotiations, a position he held until the end of the administration.[8]

Berkowitz alongside Steve Mnuchin and Benjamin Netanyahu

On November 1, 2019, Berkowitz was promoted to Assistant to the President and Special Representative for International Negotiations.[8] In January 2020, Berkowitz flew to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Benny Gantz to discuss the possibility of releasing the Trump peace plan.[9] On January 28, 2020, the Trump Administration unveiled the plan in a ceremony at the White House.[10] A component of the plan envisioned applying Israeli law or annexation to roughly 30% of the West Bank. On June 12, 2020, UAE Ambassador, Yousef Al Otaiba authored an op-ed in an effort to halt Israel's planned annexation of West Bank territory.[11] Otaiba's op-ed was addressed to the Israeli public and published on the front page of Yedioth Ahronoth.[12] The White House had reservations about annexation as well, which Berkowitz discussed with Netanyahu in meetings in Israel over three days in late June, 2020.[13] In the meetings Berkowitz proposed an alternative to annexation, normalization with the United Arab Emirates.[13]

On July 2, 2020, Otaiba met with Berkowitz to further discuss an alternative plan to annexation.[14] Along with a mutual interest in creating a unified front against the opposing forces of Iran, the concerns detailed in Otaiba's op-ed and planning with Jared Kushner and Berkowitz helped bring vested parties to the negotiating table to identify an alternative solution,[14] ultimately resulting in a normalization agreement reached in August 2020.[15] As a component of the deal annexation was postponed.[13] Hours after the August 13 announcement of the U.S.-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, senior Bahraini officials called President Trump's senior adviser Jared Kushner and Berkowitz with a message: "We want to be next”.[16] Over the next 29 days Kushner and Berkowitz negotiated, and traveled to Bahrain, before closing the deal on September 11, 2020 in a call between Trump, Netanyahu and the king of Bahrain.[16] All three countries officially committed to the deals on September 15, 2020 with the signing of the Abraham Accords on the South Lawn of the White House.[17]

On October 23, 2020 Israel and Sudan agreed to normalize ties, making Sudan the third Arab country to set aside hostilities in two months.[18] The agreement was negotiated on the U.S. side by Trump senior adviser Jared Kushner, Middle East envoy Avi Berkowitz, national security adviser Robert O’Brien, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security official Miguel Correa.[18]

On December 10, 2020, President Trump announced that Israel and the Kingdom of Morocco agreed to establish full diplomatic relations.[19] The agreement was negotiated by Trump senior adviser Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Avi Berkowitz and marked Kushner and Berkowitz's fourth normalization agreement in as many months.[20] As a component of the deal, the United States agreed to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara.[21]

On November 30, 2020 Kushner and Berkowitz traveled to Saudi Arabia for negotiations on the Qatar diplomatic crisis.[22] The next day, Kushner continued to Qatar, but left Berkowitz in Saudi Arabia so the duo could continue to mediate the deal between the Saudis and the Qataris over the phone in real time.[23] The negotiations led to a breakthrough,[24] and on January 5, 2021, Kushner and Berkowitz attended the GCC Summit in Saudi Arabia, where the parties signed an agreement ending the Qatar diplomatic crisis.[25]

In 2019, White House advisers Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt wrote a Middle East peace plan. It was kept a secret within the White House staff, with access limited to four people, one of whom was Berkowitz.[32]

In February 2019, Berkowitz flew with Kushner to six countries (Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Saudi Arabia) in order to unveil a new closely guarded plan to bring peace to the Middle East.[33]

Berkowitz also played a key role in the U.S. decision to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.[34]

Kushner led the White House effort to pass the First Step Act, legislation to reform prison sentencing. Kushner won “bipartisan praise for driving a 20-year effort to reform prison sentencing and criminal justice to the finish line and ignoring repeated declarations that it was dead . . .” Kushner hand-picked Berkowitz and only two other White House aides as part of his team to pass the legislation.[35]