Social media blew up this week following the publication of a report alleging the Saudi Prince boasted to friends that he basically owns White House senior adviser Jared Kushner.
I recommend holding fire on this story. It’s sounds scintillating and scandalous, sure, but there’s a problem: The sourcing here is thin.
The claim that Mohammed bin Salman brags to his friends that he has Kushner “in his pocket” hinges entirely on the say-so of a single anonymous source. To be exact, the source is someone, “who talks frequently to confidants of the Saudi and Emirati rulers.” This same source also claims to speak regularly with United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, who reportedly has the low-down on the Kushner details.
Eh. Let’s maybe wait for secondary confirmation, or for someone to go on the record. This “pocket” business is a big claim. Let’s not pin it entirely on one nameless person, who talks to people who talk to bin Salman.
This is what the Intercept reported this week regarding Kushner’s talks with Mohammed bin Zayed in late October:
“Some questions by the media are so obviously false and ridiculous that they merit no response. This is one. The Intercept should know better,” said Peter Mirijanian, a spokesperson for Kushner’s lawyer Abbe Lowell.
On November 4, a week after Kushner returned to the U.S., the crown prince, known in official Washington by his initials MBS, launched what he called an anti-corruption crackdown. The Saudi government arrested dozens of members of the Saudi royal family and imprisoned them in the Ritz-Carlton Riyadh, which was first reported in English by The Intercept. The Saudi figures named in the President’s Daily Brief were among those rounded up; at least one was reportedly tortured.
The report also adds this:
None of this reflects well on Kushner, who clearly appears to be in way, way over his head. But I’m not about to change my mind on the problem of single-sourced anonymous claims just because the story is good. We need a bit more evidence.
