White House Response: Kushner Denies $2 Billion Gulf Fund Allegations

Jared Kushner’s legal team announced on Thursday night that it intends to sue over the claims in a forthcoming book. The work, titled "Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed's Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East," alleges that Kushner controlled accounts holding more than $2 billion in funds from Gulf leaders.

An excerpt of the book published in Vanity Fair details how Dutch intelligence agents reportedly accessed Kushner’s iPhone in 2017. The agents claimed they found the device hacked by Russian spies. The book states that the Dutch service then captured images from the phone, including screenshots of Kushner logging into a United Arab Emirates account. According to the text, that account had received hundreds of millions of dollars from a bank in Azerbaijan.

The excerpt asserts that leaders from Saudi Arabia and the UAE deposited at least $2 billion into several bank accounts linked to Kushner. One of these accounts was allegedly held at Israel’s Central Bank. The book describes the owners and managers of these accounts as official government bodies or charities. It claims the money was intended for off-the-books diplomatic objectives, such as ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The author, journalist Matthew Cole, cites a person with knowledge of the funds regarding a specific allocation. This source claimed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman placed roughly $1 billion in at least one account for Kushner’s personal benefit.

Kushner, who served as a senior White House adviser in the first Trump administration, rejected the narrative. He stated that the allegations are completely insane and never happened. He noted that his team denied every claim on the record, yet the author provided no verifiable evidence. Kushner specifically pointed out the absence of bank statements, wire transfer records, account numbers, or transaction dates in the book.

His attorney labeled the claims false and defamatory. The legal team said it will pursue legal action against those responsible for the publication, though they did not specify who would be named in the suit.

The White House offered its own rebuttal through Steven Cheung, the director of communications. Writing on X, Cheung called the source book complete fiction. He described Cole as a failed spy thriller writer who fabricated a story using mysterious words from unnamed sources without providing documentation.