Dutch government hacked Kushner's phone
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The gist
A book excerpt says Dutch intelligence hacked Jared Kushner's iPhone and watched him use a Dubai bank account.
Kushner calls the claims "completely insane"; the excerpt has not been independently verified.
Background
Jared Kushner is Donald Trump's son-in-law, a former senior White House adviser and current special envoy; in 2017 he was overseeing Middle East peace negotiations, which made foreign intelligence services interested in him. The claims come from Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed's Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East, a book by American investigative journalist Matthew Cole, in an excerpt published by Vanity Fair. According to the excerpt, the Netherlands Defense Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD, the Dutch military intelligence service) gained access to Kushner's phone after flipping a Russian hacker, and later watched him log into a Dubai-based account holding roughly $750 million.
How it unfolded
- 2017Russia's GRU (foreign military intelligence agency) broke into Kushner's iPhone, which he was allegedly using instead of a secure government device, per the book excerpt.
- late 2017Dutch intelligence captured and flipped a Russian hacker working for the GRU; by year's end he had given them access to a GRU server in Rostov, Russia, holding screenshots of Kushner's iPhone X.
- early 2018The MIVD found an iPhone vulnerability and Dutch personnel began monitoring Kushner's phone; they identified him logging into a Dubai-based bank account that had received around $750 million.
- spring 2018By then, per the excerpt, MBZ had also placed roughly $1 billion for Kushner in a second account at Israel's Central Bank, at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's urging.
- late spring 2020A source told author Matthew Cole that the Dutch government had hacked Kushner's phone and monitored him as he accessed the Dubai account.
- Oct 22, 2026Vanity Fair published the book excerpt; Kushner wrote on X that the claims were "completely insane" and "never happened".
- Oct 23, 2026Firstpost, Cybernews, Gizmodo, The Jerusalem Post and CBS News reported on the claims.
Who’s saying what
- Author
- Matthew Cole reported that four senior Trump administration officials, including two national security advisers, a White House chief of staff and a former CIA director, told him they were not aware the president had authorized Kushner to access a foreign government bank account.
- Denial
- Kushner called the claims "completely insane" and said they "never happened", adding that the author failed to provide evidence.
- Caution
- CBS News noted the Vanity Fair excerpt was not independently verified.
Still unverified
Kushner's lawyer denied he had any knowledge of the charity or the bank account and said he made no arrangements with foreign leaders the president did not agree to; former ambassador David M. Friedman denied any knowledge of or involvement in UAE money allegedly made available to Kushner, calling the specific allegations "100 per cent false" and saying "there are no accounts, and never were". Cole's claims that Kushner used a personal phone instead of a secure device, that the account was a slush fund, and that funds went to secret weapons-purchasing programs rest on confidential sources and have not been independently verified.