Kushner Lawyers Prepare Suit Over Book

Jared Kushner is preparing to sue the author of a new book that claims he held over $2 billion in unexplained foreign funds. The legal team behind the president's son-in-law says the allegations are defamatory and plans to take action against those responsible for the claims.

The book, titled Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed's Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East, will be written by journalist Matthew Cole. An excerpt published in Vanity Fair on Thursday outlines the core accusations. The text claims that Dutch intelligence agents discovered in 2017 that Russia had hacked Kushner's iPhone.

According to the excerpt, Dutch spies accessed the device after turning a Russian agent. They reportedly watched Kushner log into a United Arab Emirates account that had received hundreds of millions of dollars from an Azerbaijani bank. The book asserts that leaders from Saudi Arabia and the UAE deposited at least $2 billion into several bank accounts tied to Kushner. One of these accounts was held at Israel's Central Bank.

The report states that the accounts were often presented as government bodies or charities. However, the book argues the money was intended for off-the-books diplomatic objectives, including brokering an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It specifically claims that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman placed roughly $1 billion in at least one account for Kushner's personal benefit, citing a person with knowledge of the money.

Kushner rejected the narrative in a statement released Thursday night. He called the allegations completely insane and said his side denied every claim on the record. He noted that the author provided no bank statements, wire transfer records, account numbers, or transaction dates. His attorney described the claims as false and defamatory.

White House communications director Steven Cheung also weighed in on the story. Writing on X, he called the source book complete fiction and said it was fabricated by a failed spy thriller writer. He argued that the piece presented only mysterious words from unnamed sources without any evidence or documentation.

The excerpt covers Kushner's tenure as a senior White House adviser during the first Trump administration. In that role, he took a leading part in U.S. Middle East policy and helped negotiate deals involving Israel, the Gulf states, China, and Russia. CBS News has not independently verified the details in the published text.