Emirati Spy Chief Called Kushner 'Most Expensive Employee We've Ever Had'

A new book claims the United Arab Emirates' top intelligence official once described Jared Kushner as "the most expensive employee we've ever had." That's not a line from a satire site. It's an alleged quote from Princes and Thieves, which accuses Kushner of running two Gulf-funded slush fund accounts while serving as a senior adviser in his father-in-law's White House. Kushner says every word is a lie and wants it all retracted.

Two Princes, Two Accounts, and at Least $2 Billion

Here's the allegation. Author Matthew Cole claims that in early 2017, Emirati ruler Mohamed bin Zayed and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman offered Kushner a bank account to fund projects and foreign policy goals "for President Trump's benefit." Per the book, the idea of using it to pay for Trump's border wall went nowhere. The money allegedly did not.

Cole writes that the two princes, and then MBZ alone, put "at least $2bn into at least two banks for Kushner." He labels the accounts "Alpha" and "Beta." Alpha allegedly sat at First Abu Dhabi Bank, the biggest bank in the UAE, with "roughly $750m" in it, meant to serve as a foreign policy fund overseen by Kushner and MBZ.

The Guardian and Vanity Fair, which ran an excerpt last Thursday, are the places where the claims have been surfacing. The book itself, Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed's Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East, hit shelves this week.

The Phone, Allegedly Hacked by Two Governments

Because a story like this needs a spy thriller subplot, there's one. Cole claims the accounts were partially managed by Kushner on an iPhone that was hacked by Russian and Dutch intelligence.

Yes, the Dutch. The country best known for tulips and tolerance allegedly spent time inside the personal phone of the president's son-in-law. The Dutch government declined to comment when Cole asked about it, which is what governments do when they'd rather not confirm or deny that they were poking around in Jared Kushner's texts.

The book also paints a world where blackmail is a routine tool of statecraft, sitting alongside torture and murder. Cole points to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi on MBS's orders in 2018 and the 2019 killing of Emirati poet Habib Al Sayegh by agents of MBZ. These are the men allegedly bankrolling a presidential adviser's foreign policy fund.

Kushner Says 'Completely Insane,' Lawyers Say 'Defamatory'

Kushner's response was swift and furious. He called the claims "completely insane," demanded Vanity Fair retract the excerpt, and threatened legal action against the book's publisher, Simon & Schuster.

His case, laid out on X, goes like this: he was among the most scrutinized people on earth, endured multiple congressional investigations and a special counsel probe, gave more than 30 hours of testimony, and none of these allegations ever came up. "None of these allegations ever surfaced, because none of these events ever happened," he wrote. He also says the author "failed to provide a single shred of evidence."

Alejandro Brito, an attorney who has represented Trump in multiple defamation suits, told Cole that "there are no accounts and never were." He called any claim that Kushner knew of or used a government-linked account "totally false and defamatory." Kushner's legal counsel at Clare Locke and Chad Mizelle did not answer the Guardian's requests for comment. The Saudi and Emirati embassies didn't either.

What the Book Actually Has, and What It Doesn't

Let's be fair here, because the facts demand it. Cole's sources are mostly anonymous. The book does not reproduce emails, bank statements, or any other documents. It does carry extensive footnotes pointing to confidential interviews.

That is a real limitation, and Kushner is going to hammer it. An allegation of $2bn in secret Gulf money is about as serious as it gets, and "trust me, my sources are great" is a thin foundation for it. Anonymous sourcing is also standard practice when the people talking could end up dead or in prison, and the book is explicit that the people involved play for keeps.

So here is where things stand. There are explosive claims, flat denials, a threatened lawsuit, and no public paper trail. Anyone telling you this is proven is ahead of the evidence. Anyone telling you it's debunked is too.

He's Still Running Foreign Policy Anyway

And this is the part that should keep you up at night. Kushner holds no official government role right now. He still travels the world alongside New York real estate magnate Steve Witkoff, this week pushing a Ukraine peace deal that, per the Guardian, comes on terms favorable to Russia.

So the man at the center of these allegations is out there steering American diplomacy as a private citizen, with questions about his business interests trailing him from capital to capital. No confirmation hearing. No ethics office. No clear answer to who he answers to.

Meanwhile, the grand vision the two princes allegedly wanted from Kushner has produced the following results nearly a decade on: the US and Israel are planning new strikes in an eight-month war with Iran, Saudi Arabia is fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen, and Israel has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians in Gaza since the October 7 attacks. Peace through prosperity is going great.

The Dingo Take

"The most expensive employee we've ever had." That is the alleged assessment of the UAE's top spy, about a man who sat in the West Wing on the American taxpayer's dime. If the book is right, the Emiratis were paying a premium for something, and it wasn't Kushner's charm.

Now, we don't know that it's right. Cole shows no documents, and Kushner says none of it happened. That matters, and anyone who treats anonymous sourcing as a verdict is doing the same lazy thing the MAGA crowd does when it treats a denial as one. But look at the shape of the situation. A president's son-in-law took a foreign policy portfolio, kept his private business ties, left government, and now keeps shaping foreign policy anyway with no title and no accountability. The allegation doesn't have to be true to expose how broken that arrangement is.

Here's what would settle it: subpoenas. Bank records. Sworn testimony under penalty of perjury from someone other than a lawyer who has defended Trump in defamation cases. If there are no accounts and never were, that should be the easiest thing in the world to prove. So prove it. Threatening Simon & Schuster is cheaper than opening the books, and that's the part worth noticing.