Trump's son-in-law's hacked phone shows secret dealings with Saudi, UAE

US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has faced accusations of secretly accessing Gulf-funded foreign bank accounts while serving as a senior White House adviser.

According to a new Vanity Fair report, Dutch spies monitored activity on his phone and uncovered purported secret financial arrangements involving Saudi, Emirati, and Israeli leaders, allegedly in return for pushing their agenda with Trump.

Kushner has strongly denied the allegations, calling the claims "outrageous" and saying they were "categorically false."

"These are outrageous fabrications being presented as investigative journalism. This is not journalism. It is a mixture of fantasy, fiction, and advocacy, written by someone who is either deeply disturbed or acting with sinister intent," he said in a post on X.

The allegations

The report, based on an excerpt from Matthew Cole's forthcoming book 'Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed's Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East', alleged that Dutch spies secretly watched Jared Kushner's iPhone during the first Trump administration and saw him access a United Arab Emirates (UAE)-linked bank account that had received hundreds of millions of dollars from a bank in Azerbaijan.

According to the report, nearly $750 million was transferred into an account at First Abu Dhabi Bank held by the Watani Al Emarat Foundation, a UAE government-funded charity.

Kushner was reportedly a signatory on the account, giving him access to it, but he was not its owner. It was overseen by Tahnoon bin Zayed, the bank's chairman and brother of UAE ruler Mohamed bin Zayed.

The report claimed that bin Zayed and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman were behind the idea of the account, as they wanted to set up a slush fund to help the Trump administration with its foreign policy goals.

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The report alleged that UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan arranged the transfer and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu encouraged Kushner to have the money deposited in Israel.

According to the report, Kushner communicated with Netanyahu about transactions through then-US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.

So far, the allegations in the report have not been established as findings of wrongdoing.

The transaction, according to the report, happened during Trump's first term in office. Currently, Kushner, 45, has been acting as one half of the president's makeshift peacemaking duo alongside special envoy Steve Witkoff. He is married to the president's daughter Ivanka Trump.

The denial

Kushner, in a post on X, said the allegations were "completely insane and never happened."

"We denied every one of these claims on the record, yet the author failed to provide a single shred of evidence to substantiate any of them. No bank statements, wire transfer records, account numbers, transaction dates, or other verifiable details were provided to support these extraordinary accusations," he wrote.

Trump's son-in-law noted that during the period in question, he was one of the most scrutinised people in the world, subjected to intense media coverage, multiple congressional investigations, and a special counsel investigation.

"I voluntarily cooperated with these investigations, providing over 30 hours of testimony. None of these allegations ever surfaced, because none of these events ever happened," he said.

Chad Mizelle, Kushner's attorney, also called the allegations in the report "categorically false."

"These are not questions of interpretation or competing recollections: there are no bank accounts. They don't exist. These are egregious and defamatory claims without a shred of evidence to substantiate them," Mizelle wrote on X.

Asked by a social media user, "Will you sue?" Mizelle replied, "All options are on the table."