Reporting that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia personally hacked the phone of Jeff Bezos is terrifying; MBS is a murderer who has also imprisoned and tortured human rights activists, including @LoujainHathloul. But it gets scarier. 1/ theguardian.com/technology/202…
It means MBS almost certainly owns the Trump family, via desperate failson Jared Kushner.
Quick context: 2/
Quick context: 2/
In 2005, Charles Kushner went to prison for illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering (he hired a prostitute to seduce his sister's husband, who was cooperating with the Feds, recorded them, and sent the tape to his sister.) 3/ cbsnews.com/news/nj-scanda…
His son Jared was now in charge of Kushner Properties, and on his birthday in 2007, he bought 666 Fifth Avenue for what was the most money ever paid for an individual building in Manhattan--and what is generally considered one of the stupidest real estate deals ever. 4/
Kushner put down $50 million and borrowed another $1.75 billion. Less than three years later, an appraisal valued the building at less than half what Jared had paid. The interest payments were costing more than the building was earning, and the big loans were coming due. 5/
The Kushners needed quick money. Fortunately, Jared's father-in-law had, somehow, become President. *Eight days* after the election, the Kushners had dinner with the shady CEO of a Chinese insurance company, to try to trade visas and influence for cash. 6/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
The deal fell through (and the CEO would end up in a Chinese prison for financial crimes.) So the Kushners approached Qatar, which turned them down. Shortly after, the US backed the Saudis in a blockade of Qatar. 7/ theintercept.com/2018/03/02/jar…
It was unclear why the US picked sides in the the Saudi-Qatar dispute, but it came as a surprise to the Pentagon and then-SecState Rex Tillerson. It's fair to say that Kushner was financially vulnerable and everyone (China, Qatar, the Saudis) knew it. 8/ nytimes.com/2017/06/09/wor…
And one of those countries had a head of state on WhatsApp with Jared. As MBS consolidated his power in 2017, the President’s Daily Brief contained names of royal family members who secretly opposed him. Jared read the PDB; MBS rounded up those names. 9/ theintercept.com/2018/03/21/jar…
When @JKhashoggi was murdered and most countries froze arms shipments to the Saudis, Trump made sure the US kept selling weapons. As human rights activists were rounded up (and in one case, crucified), the State Department was silent. 10/ bbc.com/news/world-mid…
And Jared got his bailout for 666 Fifth Ave. Brookfield signed a 99-year lease for $1.286 billion, far more than anyone was offering, while a subsidiary of Brookfield got a multi-billion dollar contract to sell nuclear reactors to the Kingdom. 11/ nytimes.com/2019/03/02/opi…
So: the United States has been regularly interfering in (or staying out of) Saudi affairs to the political advantage of MBS and the financial advantage of Jared Kushner. But money doesn't mean anything to MBS; he's real rich, not Trump rich. 12/
Renting our soldiers and paying Kushner's bad business tab is cheap compared to the power of the United States backing his power grab and ignoring his human rights atrocities at home and in Yemen.
Which brings it back to Bezos and WhatsApp. 13/
Which brings it back to Bezos and WhatsApp. 13/
If you're MBS and you can hack a phone, Bezos is a good target. He owns the Washington Post; MBS murdered one of his reporters. Looking for leverage to get the US media to back off re: Khashoggi makes sense. But hacking Jared's phone? Now you have the whole Trump family. 14/
That makes Saudi Arabia a superpower. All because the world's softest, slenderest idiot was playing International Man of Mystery when he couldn't even get a security clearance. That's scary. And it's only, like, the 50th scariest thing about this insane administration. /end
