Jared Kushner has strongly denied allegations raised in a new Vanity Fair report that Dutch intelligence monitored activity on his phone and uncovered purported secret financial arrangements involving Middle Eastern governments, calling the claims “completely insane” and saying they “never happened.”
“We denied every one of these claims on the record, yet the author failed to provide a single shred of evidence to substantiate any of them,” Kushner, President Donald Trump’s special envoy and son-in-law, wrote on X Thursday.
The report, written by Matthew Cole and excerpted from his forthcoming book Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East, alleges that Dutch intelligence obtained screenshots of Kushner’s iPhone through files found on a Russian military intelligence operative’s server and subsequently monitored his phone activity.
According to Vanity Fair, intelligence officials discovered that Kushner had accessed a United Arab Emirates (UAE)-linked bank account that had received hundreds of millions of dollars from a bank in Azerbaijan.
The report alleges that roughly $750 million was transferred into an account at First Abu Dhabi Bank held by the Watani Al Emarat Foundation, a UAE government-funded charity. Kushner was allegedly a signatory on the account, giving him access to it, but was not its owner, according to the report. Cole writes that the account was intended to serve as a foreign policy fund and alleges that the charity was used to support the UAE’s overseas military and intelligence operations.
The article also alleges that a separate account in Israel received roughly $1 billion intended for Kushner’s personal benefit. Cole writes that UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan arranged the transfer and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu encouraged Kushner to have the money deposited in Israel. The report says Kushner communicated with Netanyahu about transactions through then-U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.
Friedman denied having any knowledge of or involvement in UAE money allegedly made available to Kushner, as well as passing messages on Kushner’s behalf.
“I know absolutely nothing about any of these allegations,” Friedman said, according to the report, adding that the specific allegations about him or his alleged involvement in the scheme were “100% false.”
The report also quoted Kushner’s counsel as saying Kushner “has no idea” about the account.
The allegations have not been established as findings of wrongdoing.
Kushner noted the absence of bank statements, wire-transfer records, account numbers and transaction dates in the report. He also pointed to the media scrutiny, congressional investigations and special counsel investigation he faced during the period in question. He said he voluntarily cooperated with those investigations, providing more than 30 hours of testimony.
“None of these allegations ever surfaced, because none of these events ever happened,” Kushner wrote on X.
“These are outrageous fabrications being presented as investigative journalism,” he added, describing the report as “a mixture of fantasy, fiction, and advocacy.”
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Chad Mizelle, Kushner’s attorney, called the central allegation in the book "categorically false."
"These are not questions of interpretation or competing recollections: there are no bank accounts. They don’t exist," Mizelle wrote on X. "These are egregious and defamatory claims without a shred of evidence to substantiate them."
Asked by a social media user, “Will you sue?” Mizelle replied, “All options are on the table.”
Newsweek has contacted Mizelle for additional comment.
The allegations concern Kushner’s activities during Trump’s first administration, when he served as senior White House adviser and played a central role in Middle East diplomacy. During Trump’s second term, Kushner has again taken part in high-level diplomatic efforts as an envoy, including negotiations related to the wars in Gaza and Ukraine and discussions involving Iran. He also runs Affinity Partners, a private equity firm that has received investments from Middle Eastern investors.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Steven Frank and Edward T. Cummins