Jared Kushner pushes back on report involving hacked phone, spies and billion-dollar transfer

Jared Kushner objects to a report involving a hacked iPhone, international spies and transfers of billions of dollars from foreign governments.

A forthcoming book by journalist Matthew Cole claims that Kushner, who is President Trump’s son-in-law, had access to more than $2 billion in “slush funds” from Middle Eastern leaders in an effort to influence U.S. foreign policy.

An excerpt from the book released Thursday details allegations about Kushner’s time as a senior adviser in the White House during the first Trump administration, which included a leading role in U.S. policy in the Middle East. Kushner played a major role in brokering key foreign policy agreements involving Israel, the Gulf states, China and Russia during this period.

Kushner and his legal team released fiery statements Thursday evening categorically denying all accusations against him. Kushner said: “The allegations made by this author are completely insane and never happened. His lawyer called them “false and defamatory” and said he intended to take legal action against those responsible, although he did not specify who.

The new book, “Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East,” claims that Kushner had access to billions of dollars in undisclosed foreign bank accounts intended to finance “his influence in the U.S. government.”

An excerpt from the book published in “Vanity Fair,” but not independently verified by CBS News, states that Dutch intelligence agents learned that the Russians had hacked Kushner’s iPhone in 2017 after spotting a Russian spy and then also gained access to Kushner’s phone.

According to the report, “when Kushner was using the phone, they could see his screen. Almost as soon as they went inside, intelligence began capturing every frame of Kushner’s screen while he was using it.”

At the time, Kushner was a senior advisor to President Trump at the White House, including on Middle East diplomacy.

The report claims that Dutch spies saw him log into a United Arab Emirates account that allegedly received hundreds of millions of dollars from a bank in Azerbaijan, and claims that the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates placed at least $2 billion in several bank accounts linked to Kushner, including an account with the Central Bank of Israel.

According to the book’s excerpt, the owners and managers of the accounts were often disguised as official government entities or charitable organizations, but the funds were actually intended for “unofficial diplomatic purposes,” such as reaching an agreement to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The report also claims that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman placed approximately $1 billion in at least one account for Kushner, citing a “person with knowledge of the money” as saying “his allocation was for Kushner’s personal benefit.”

Kushner forcefully denied the accusations made in the “Vanity Fair” excerpt, writing in part: “The allegations made by this author are completely insane and never happened.”

“We have denied all allegations on file, but the perpetrator has not provided any verifiable evidence to support them,” he said.

“No bank statements, wire transfer records, account numbers, transaction dates or other verifiable details have been provided to support these extraordinary accusations,” he said.

CBS News contacted the White House, which referred us to a statement from Steven Cheung, assistant to the president and White House communications director.

Cheung said that “the Vanity Fair article comes from a book that is complete fiction and was fabricated from the evil mind of a failed spy thriller writer.”

“It doesn’t present any evidence or even the slightest trace of documentation. Just mysterious words from anonymous sources,” Cheung said on X.