“In late spring 2020, a source I knew to be reliable called me with a story,” writes Matthew Cole. “The Dutch government had hacked into Jared Kushner’s phone and monitored him as he accessed a Dubai-based bank account. What was odd, the source said, was that the money in the account—hundreds of millions of dollars—had come from a bank in Azerbaijan. Most importantly, Kushner appeared to have transferred significant amounts of money from the Dubai account to other individuals, including a warlord, a mercenary and a one-time hit man. The story sounded preposterous, I told my source. And yet. Six months later, I found myself speaking with someone else about the UAE government and their use of mercenaries in conflicts around the Middle East and Africa when I asked, on a whim, whether they knew anything about Kushner and bank transfers from a UAE account. My acquaintance grew quiet. Then they replied, ‘Yes.’” An exclusive excerpt from Matthew Cole's ‘Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East’ examines how bank accounts linked the president's son-in-law—and former senior adviser—to Israel, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Kushner’s lawyer denied any such accounts existed. vanityfair.visitlink.me/9hA8…