Kushner Legal Team Prepares Suit Over $2 Billion Gulf Fund Claims in New Book

More than $2 billion in alleged secret transfers from Middle Eastern leaders to Jared Kushner is the central claim in a new book that has triggered a sharp legal response from the former White House adviser. The book, titled "Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed's Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East," asserts that Kushner had access to these funds, which the author Matthew Cole describes as slush money intended to buy influence within the U.S. government. An excerpt published Thursday in Vanity Fair details the allegations, which span Kushner’s tenure as a senior adviser in the first Trump administration.

The report claims that Dutch intelligence agents discovered a breach in 2017. According to the text, Russian hackers accessed Kushner’s iPhone, and Dutch spies subsequently gained entry to the device after turning a Russian agent. The excerpt states that the Dutch service could view the screen of the phone in real time. They reportedly watched Kushner log into a United Arab Emirates account that had received hundreds of millions of dollars from a bank in Azerbaijan. The book further alleges that Saudi Arabia and the UAE deposited at least $2 billion into accounts tied to Kushner, including one held at Israel's Central Bank. These accounts, the author writes, were often disguised as government bodies or charities to facilitate off the books diplomatic objectives, such as ending the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

A person with knowledge of the money, cited in the excerpt, stated that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman placed roughly $1 billion in at least one account for Kushner’s personal benefit. Kushner’s legal team rejected the narrative on Thursday night. "The allegations made by this author are completely insane and never happened," Kushner said. He emphasized that his side denied every claim on the record. He noted that the author provided no bank statements, wire transfer records, account numbers, or transaction dates to support the story.

Kushner’s attorney described the claims as false and defamatory. The legal team announced plans to pursue legal action against those responsible, though they did not specify who would be included in the suit. The White House also issued a response through Steven Cheung, the White House director of communications. Writing on X, Cheung called the book complete fiction. He described Cole as a failed spy thriller writer who relied on mysterious words from unnamed sources rather than evidence or documentation. The White House statement characterized the Vanity Fair article as a fabrication lacking verifiable proof.