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A new report by Vanity Fair has alleged that Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, secretly accessed foreign bank accounts while serving as a senior White House adviser during Trump’s first term, raising questions about alleged financial arrangements involving leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel.
According to the magazine, Dutch intelligence officials obtained information by monitoring Kushner’s iPhone. The report alleges that the surveillance revealed financial dealings involving accounts linked to Gulf countries and potential efforts by foreign leaders to advance their interests with the Trump administration.
Kushner has strongly denied the allegations, describing them as baseless and entirely false.
In a post on X, he said the claims were fabricated under the guise of investigative journalism, calling them a mixture of fiction, fantasy and partisan propaganda.
The Vanity Fair report is based on an excerpt from an upcoming book by investigative journalist Matthew Cole, titled Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohammed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East.
Cole has spent more than two decades reporting on US national security, intelligence agencies and military secrecy.
According to the report, Dutch intelligence monitored Kushner’s iPhone during Trump’s first administration. Investigators allegedly saw him accessing a bank account associated with the UAE, into which hundreds of millions of dollars had reportedly been transferred from a bank in Azerbaijan.
The report said around $750 million was transferred to an account at First Abu Dhabi Bank belonging to the Watani Al Emarat Foundation, a charitable organisation primarily funded by the UAE government. Kushner was reportedly one of the account’s authorised signatories and had access to it, although he did not own the account.
The account was overseen by Tahnoon bin Zayed, chairman of the bank and a brother of UAE ruler Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
The report further alleged that Mohammed bin Zayed and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had sought to establish a secret fund to support the Trump administration’s foreign policy objectives. Although the plan reportedly fell through, the two leaders allegedly deposited at least $2 billion into two accounts associated with Kushner.
A separate account allegedly received another $1 billion from the Saudi royal family for Kushner’s personal benefit.
According to Vanity Fair, UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan arranged the transfer, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu encouraged Kushner to deposit the money in Israel.
The report said Kushner communicated with Netanyahu about the transactions through David Friedman, who was then the US ambassador to Israel.
However, the allegations have not been legally established as criminal wrongdoing.
The reported transactions took place during Trump’s first term. Kushner, 45, is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and is currently involved in the president’s peace negotiations team alongside special envoy Steve Witkoff.
Kushner reiterated his denial on X, saying the allegations were “completely insane” and that nothing of the kind had happened.
He said he had denied every claim on the record, but the author had failed to provide even minimal evidence to substantiate any of them. He added that the report contained no bank statements, transfer records, account numbers, transaction dates or other verifiable details.
Kushner also said he had been among the most closely scrutinised people in the world during the period in question, facing extensive media coverage, multiple congressional investigations and an investigation by a special counsel.
“I voluntarily cooperated with these investigations and testified for more than 30 hours,” he said, adding that none of the allegations had emerged because they had never happened.
Kushner’s lawyer, Chad Mizelle, also dismissed the claims as entirely false.
In a post on X, Mizelle said the matter was not a misunderstanding or a difference of opinion, asserting that no such bank account existed and describing the allegations as implausible and defamatory.
When a social media user asked whether Kushner’s legal team would file a lawsuit, Mizelle replied that “all options are on the table.”
