Anonymous sources underpin book allegations that Kushner denies
Jared Kushner has threatened legal action over a new book that alleges Gulf leaders placed at least $2 billion in two bank accounts for him during Donald Trump’s first administration. Matthew Cole’s “Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East,” released in the US this week, makes the allegation in a Vanity Fair excerpt. Kushner calls the claims “completely insane,” demands that the excerpt be retracted and has threatened to sue publisher Simon & Schuster.
Cole’s account relies predominantly on anonymous sources, and his book does not print images of emails or other documentation. It does include extensive footnotes identifying where information came from, including confidential interviews. Kushner said, “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 separately wrote: “During the period in question, I was one of the most scrutinized people in the world, subjected to intense media coverage, multiple congressional investigations, and a special counsel investigation. I voluntarily cooperated with these investigations, providing over 30 hours of testimony. None of these allegations ever surfaced, because none of these events ever happened.” The Guardian said it contacted Kushner’s legal counsel from Clare Locke as well as Chad Mizelle for comment and received no response.
Kushner, whose father-in-law is Trump, entered the first administration with his wife, Ivanka Trump, as close presidential advisers. Cole alleges that Mohamed bin Zayed and Mohammed bin Salman saw a chance to secure what he described as the best access money could buy. In early 2017, the two princes proposed a fund and bank account that they and Kushner would use to identify and pay for projects and foreign-policy goals that would benefit President Trump, Cole says. An idea to fund Trump’s proposed wall on the US border with Mexico apparently did not work out, but bin Zayed and bin Salman initially, and bin Zayed alone later, put at least $2 billion into at least two banks.
Cole calls the alleged accounts Alpha and Beta. The Saudi Arabian and Emirati embassies did not respond to requests for comment from The Guardian.
Cole says the Alpha account was held at First Abu Dhabi Bank, the largest bank in the United Arab Emirates, and contained roughly $750 million. He says it was intended as a foreign-policy fund overseen by Kushner and bin Zayed and meant to help end the Israel-Palestine conflict. Cole quotes a source who said he knew of the UAE’s alleged deal with Kushner and who, Cole writes, held discussions with both senior UAE and Israeli officials about the secret financial arrangement between Kushner, the UAE and, at least initially, Saudi Arabia. “Jared was looking for shortcuts in his diplomacy,” the source said. The source alleged that “Jared promised MBZ that he’d push their agenda with Trump if they participated in a fund” and that “He wanted normalization with Israel so that business could take off.”
The same source claimed that a slush fund — a shared pool of money for off-the-books diplomatic objectives — was a common form of Gulf Arab government corruption and said, “The Emiratis and the Saudis do this once a year. A billion or two is nothing for them, and if it gets them what they want, it’s money well spent.” Cole writes that the Alpha account was later drained by failed schemes and Kushner’s access was cut off.
Citing “a person briefed on the Beta account,” Cole places roughly $1 billion in that account. Cole says that, at the suggestion of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, bin Zayed moved the money to the Israeli Central Bank through Azerbaijan, which the author calls a favored conduit for laundering money. The book says it remains unclear how Kushner used the money, while a person with knowledge of the account said its allocation was for Kushner’s personal benefit. Cole also writes that it is unclear whether the Israeli government allowed Kushner access to the account after Trump’s first term ended.
Alejandro Brito, an attorney who has represented President Trump in multiple defamation lawsuits, said Kushner always represented and sought the interests of the United States and Trump and made no foreign agreements without presidential approval and in the US interest. Brito called any allegation that Kushner knew of, accessed, was authorized for or directed conduct involving a government-funded or government-linked account “totally false and defamatory” and said, “there are no accounts and never were.” He also said Kushner had no financial relationships with foreign countries or leaders and pointed to his publicly available Form 278e financial disclosures.
Among the book’s claims, UAE intelligence official Ali Al Shamsi is reported to have called Kushner “the most expensive employee we’ve ever had.” Cole nonetheless alleges that bin Zayed did not entirely trust Kushner. The author describes a diplomatic world where blackmail is as common a tool of statecraft as torture and murder, citing the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey on bin Salman’s orders and the 2019 killing of Emirati journalist and poet Habib Al Sayegh by agents of bin Zayed.
Cole says the princes wanted Kushner to help achieve a “vision of a new Middle East,” one in which Israel would become an integral part of the region, recognized diplomatically by Gulf Arabs today and eventually by the rest of the Arab world; the Palestinians would end their conflict with Israel and accept a peace built on prosperity; Islamic extremism would be defeated; and Iran’s expansionism and militancy would retreat, either by persuasion or force. Nearly 10 years later, The Guardian reported that the US and Israel were planning new strikes in their eight-month war with Iran, Saudi Arabia was at war with Houthi rebels in Yemen, and Israel had killed more than 74,000 Palestinians in Gaza since the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023.
The Guardian also reported that Kushner continues to steer US foreign policy despite having no official role, traveling with New York real estate magnate Steve Witkoff, this week seeking peace in Ukraine, if on terms favorable to Russia. Questions about his business interests accompany those trips.
Cole claims the alleged accounts were partially managed by Kushner on an iPhone hacked by Russian and Dutch intelligence. Cole writes that the Dutch government refused to comment in response to his questions about the alleged hacking of Kushner’s phone.
Cole also examines the widely reported story that Kushner secured Qatari investment in 666 Fifth Avenue, a marquee Manhattan property. The book frames the transaction as allowing Kushner to profit from interests on both sides of a Middle East divide sharpened by Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s rivalry with Qatar. Kushner has denied engaging in conflicts of interest.
Questions about Kushner’s business interests continued during Trump’s second term over a $2 billion investment by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund in Kushner’s private-equity firm, Affinity Partners. The investment was made after Trump left power in 2021. Cole quotes an unnamed Arab official and Affinity investor: “We don’t pay Jared because he’s a savvy investor. We pay him to keep him happy. That keeps his father-in-law happy.”
Cole writes that Kushner’s relationships with bin Zayed, bin Salman, Emir Al Thani of Qatar and Benjamin Netanyahu were useful as he traveled between capitals seeking a way to end the daily slaughter in Gaza. At the same time, the author says, there was little record of what his investors were negotiating with him.
Cole says Kushner declined multiple requests for an on-the-record interview for the book. He first sent Kushner a list of questions in May 2026 and followed up by email twice more. Kushner’s lawyers denounced the reporting, and Chad Mizelle, a Trump administration lawyer who identified himself as “Jared’s attorney,” wrote on X: “The central allegation in this book is categorically false. These are not questions of interpretation or competing recollections: there are no bank accounts. They don’t exist. These are egregious and defamatory claims without a shred of evidence to substantiate them.”
The central allegation remains contested in the published material. Cole offers anonymous-source accounts and extensive footnotes but does not reproduce emails or other documentation; Kushner relies on categorical denials, past investigations and publicly available financial disclosures. The Guardian reported no response from the Saudi Arabian and Emirati embassies to requests for comment, while Cole writes that the Dutch government refused to comment in response to his questions about the alleged hacking of Kushner’s phone.