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Vanity Fair excerpt says Dutch spies viewed Kushner phone, UAE bank account
Vanity Fair published an exclusive excerpt from Matthew Cole's book saying Dutch military intelligence viewed Jared Kushner's iPhone screen in 2018 and saw a UAE-linked bank account; Kushner's counsel denied the accounts.
- Vanity Fair is now reporting this
- New headline Was: “Jared Kushner Hacked Phone Reveals Secret Negotiations, Millions in Transactions”
- Our desk filed its story
- vanityfair.com is now reporting this
Vanity Fair on Thursday published an exclusive excerpt from investigative journalist Matthew Cole's forthcoming book alleging that Dutch military intelligence viewed Jared Kushner's iPhone screen in early 2018 and saw him log into a United Arab Emirates bank account that had received hundreds of millions of dollars1.
Cole writes that the Netherlands Defense Intelligence and Security Service, or MIVD, found screenshots of Kushner's iPhone on a Russian military intelligence server in Rostov after a GRU-linked hacker was turned in Britain in late 2017, then reverse-engineered a way to see the phone's screen when it was in use1. The assignment contains only this Vanity Fair excerpt; no government has confirmed the alleged operation in the material reviewed1.
According to the excerpt, the Dutch then saw Kushner, then a senior adviser to President Donald Trump, access an account at First Abu Dhabi Bank that Cole labels a foreign-policy fund overseen in part with UAE ruler Mohamed bin Zayed1. Cole says the money arrived in dollars through a bank in Azerbaijan and that Kushner was a signatory on an account associated with a UAE charity, the Watani Al Emarat Foundation, rather than the owner1.
Cole further alleges that Saudi and Emirati leaders put at least $2 billion into at least two accounts connected to Kushner, including funds he says were moved to Israel's central bank, and that four former senior Trump officials told him they were unaware of presidential authorization for Kushner to access a foreign government account1.
A lawyer for Kushner, as quoted by Cole, denied knowledge of or connection to the charity, Al Falasi, or a UAE bank account, said Kushner complied with legal requirements in dealing with foreign governments, and said there were no such accounts1. Cole also quotes former U.S. ambassador to Israel David M. Friedman denying any knowledge of UAE money made available to Kushner1. Friedman said, “I know absolutely nothing about any of these allegations”1.
The excerpt is drawn from Cole's book Princes and Thieves, scheduled from One Signal Publisher and Atria Books1. Whether Dutch, U.S., UAE, Saudi or Israeli authorities will comment, and whether any of the alleged accounts can be documented outside Cole's sourcing, is not established in this report1.