Since the early months of the Trump administration Jared Kushner has been having private conversations with Mohammed bin Salman. The exchanges continued even after the Oct. 2 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. nyti.ms/2zLH8xu
As the killing set off a firestorm around the world and American intelligence agencies concluded that it was ordered by Prince Mohammed, Kushner became the prince’s most important defender inside the White House, people familiar with its internal deliberations say. 
The ties between Kushner and Prince Mohammed did not happen on their own. MBS and his advisers, eager to enlist American support for his hawkish policies in the region and for his own consolidation of power, cultivated the relationship with Kushner for more than two years.
The courtship of Kushner appears to have worked. Only a few months after Trump moved into the White House, Kushner was inquiring about the Saudi royal succession process and whether the US could influence it, raising fears among senior officials that he sought to help MBS.
Before 2016, Kushner’s most extensive exposure to the Middle East was through Israel. So Tom Barrack, a Lebanese-American real estate investor with close ties to both Trump and the Gulf rulers, set out during the campaign to introduce Kushner to his associates as a useful ally.
A team of top aides to MBS met with Kushner in New York in November 2016. To cultivate ties with the Trump team, the Saudis had prepared a long list of initiatives that they said would help Trump deliver for his supporters. Several of the Saudi proposals were evidently welcomed.
In March 2017, Kushner helped usher MBS into a formal lunch with Trump. Officials in the State Department and Pentagon began to worry about the one-on-one communications between MBS and Kushner. “There was a risk the Saudis were playing him,” a former White House official said.
American officials and a Saudi briefed on their conversations said that Kushner and MBS have continued to chat informally since the uproar over Khashoggi’s killing. According to the Saudi, Kushner has offered the crown prince advice about how to weather the storm.
Reminder: The Intercept reported this back in March: "What exactly Kushner and MBS talked about in Riyadh may be known only to them, but after the meeting, Crown Prince Mohammed told confidants that Kushner had discussed the names of Saudis disloyal to the crown prince."
