Ever since coming to power, President Donald Trump and his closest associates have been dogged by questions of foreign sway over their activities. The most prominent example of this issue is no doubt the Russia scandal, which has so far seen four former associates of the president face charges from Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
There are other tumultuous connections to foreign governments, however.
The Daily Mail has a new report out about one such connection, backing up an earlier report from The Intercept claiming that during a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in Riyadh last year, the president’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner shared classified U.S. intelligence covering the identities of those disloyal to the crown prince.
Shortly after that classified information was allegedly shared with the crown prince, he began a campaign to purge “corruption” from his nation’s highest echelons. As a part of that campaign, detainees were tortured and at least one died from their injuries.
One source speaking to The Daily Mail described the crown prince’s interactions with Kushner last October by saying:
‘Jared took a list out of names from US eavesdrops of people who were supposedly [the crown prince’s] enemies. He took a list out of these people who had been trashing [the crown prince] in phone calls and said “these are the ones who are your enemies.” [The crown prince] was actually bragging about it in Saudi Arabia when it happened, that he and Jared sat up until 4 AM discussing things, and Jared brought him this list.’
The original source of the information Kushner allegedly shared with the Saudi crown prince would have been wiretaps of conversations involving Arab royals around the world. The president’s son-in-law would have gotten his hands on the information via his access to the president’s daily briefing, something that has since been cut off in the context of a broader shakeup of who has access to what inside the Trump administration.
If Kushner shared the information with the Saudi crown prince without the express authorization of the president, then he would have violated federal laws covering such information — but if the president had expressly authorized him to share the information, then that would, of course, raise a whole host of other questions.
The whole incident calls to mind the time last year when the president shared information with Russian officials with whom he was meeting in the Oval Office concerning Israeli intelligence gathering operations. That incident is one of many where the president has run afoul of standards for his work as the nation’s commander-in-chief.
As for this incident, The Daily Mail reports that Peter Mirijanian, a spokesperson working for Kushner’s lawyer Abbe Lowell, insisted that the president’s son-in-law is innocent.
He phrased the issue by saying:
‘The alleged exchange never happened. Mr. Kushner was and is well aware of the rules governing information and follows those rules.’
For now, the Saudi crown prince is currently on a tour of the United States, where he has so far met with individuals ranging from the president to tech gurus like Google CEO Sundar Pichai and co-founder Sergey Brin.
Featured Image via Zach Gibson/ Bloomberg via Getty Images
