Middle East Funds: Kushner Team Targets $2 Billion Book Allegations
Attorneys signal a lawsuit after a new book claims Jared Kushner managed secret accounts for Gulf leaders, a story the White House dismisses as fiction.
By Thiago Kovalenko ·
Jared Kushner is preparing to challenge a new book that alleges he controlled billions of dollars in secret accounts for Middle Eastern leaders. The author, Matthew Cole, claims Kushner had access to more than $2 billion in slush funds meant to buy influence in the U.S. government. Kushner’s legal team issued a statement on Thursday night rejecting the account and threatening legal action.
The book, titled Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed's Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East, details a period when Kushner served as a senior White House adviser. An excerpt published in Vanity Fair outlines how Dutch intelligence agents allegedly discovered that Russia had hacked Kushner’s iPhone in 2017. The spies reportedly gained access to the device after turning a Russian agent. According to the account, they could see his screen and captured every image he viewed while he used the phone.
The report alleges that Dutch spies watched Kushner log into a United Arab Emirates account. That account supposedly received hundreds of millions of dollars from a bank in Azerbaijan. The book further claims that leaders in Saudi Arabia and the UAE deposited at least $2 billion into several bank accounts tied to Kushner. One of these accounts was held at Israel’s Central Bank. The owners and managers of these accounts were often presented as official government bodies or charities, though the money was intended for off-the-books diplomatic objectives.
The book cites a person with knowledge of the money who said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman placed roughly $1 billion in at least one account for Kushner’s personal benefit. CBS News has not independently verified the excerpt or the specific financial claims. The report places these transactions during Kushner’s role in negotiating foreign policy deals involving Israel, the Gulf states, China, and Russia.
Kushner called the allegations baseless in a statement released Thursday night. He described the claims as completely insane and said they never happened. His attorney characterized the book’s contents as false and defamatory. The legal team said it plans to pursue legal action against those responsible, though it did not specify who that would include. Kushner noted that the author provided no bank statements, wire transfer records, account numbers, or transaction dates.
The White House responded through Steven Cheung, the president’s assistant and communications director. Cheung called the source book complete fiction on the social platform X. He described the author as a failed spy thriller writer and said the book offers no evidence or documentation. Cheung argued the text relies only on mysterious words from unnamed sources.
