Keep Your Friends Close and Your Kompromat Closer

As the extraordinary news of the FBI’s raid on Trump’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, spread last night, the obvious question repeated over and over again was this: Why would Trump even want to take 15 boxes of what’s been described as “government documents, mementos, gifts and letters.” It’s the latter two that are slightly strange. What leverage, for example, does a fountain pen from Chinese president Xi Jinping afford him? (I’m imagining the fountain pen bit, but you get the point.)

Well, I have unusual personal insight into this.

In my experience, Trump keeps everything—or copies of everything—no matter how apparently mundane because, to his mind…well, you just never know when it might be weaponized.

(In this sense, he is similarly transactional—some might say paranoid—as his late former friend Jeffrey Epstein who, I discovered, deliberately kept thank you letters or copies of correspondence from the children and women he molested so he had “evidence” that only pure munificence on his part was at play.)

In 2014, I learned in a rather shocking way that Trump had kept all the correspondence he’d had with me in the previous six years.

Read the rest at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

Jared Kushner Is Exactly As Dangerous and Entitled As We Thought He Was

As the author of three non-fiction books, two of which have made the New York Timesbestsellers list, I have some experience in how to launch a book.

The rules are simple: Create buzz the week ahead of the book’s publication date by timing major TV and podcast appearances with military-like precision. Drop one major excerpt or interview two days ahead of the launch day and then, as the book comes out, offer “gets” to the most important outlets in descending order of importance. But—and here’s the huge caveat—do not give out so many excerpts so far ahead of the pub date that potential readers think they’ve read the best bits of the book ahead of time and therefore believe they don’t need to buy the actual book. You want to titillate readers, not drown them. In the past, I’ve been stopped from giving out snippets ahead of time to friends in the media by publicists screeching I’ll ruin everything if I do that.

Whether or not a book becomes a New York Times bestseller depends not just on the volume of sales, but on the velocity of those sales. It matters critically how many people buy the book that first week (and how many have pre-o rdered it up until that point), so the timing of all this is very important.

Now, there are many things that are very curious about the roll-out of Kushner’s book, ironically titled Breaking History. I wrote in June about how Kushner is indeed “breaking history”—just not in the way he intended—given that his book is coming out at the same time Congress is investigating his dealings with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman after the Saudi Public Investment Fund invested $2 billion with Kushner six months after he left office, overriding concerns from advisors about Kushner’s inexperience.

Kushner has not been charged with wrongdoing, but still—not the best circumstances to launch a book.

Read the rest at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

Is Ivana’s Burial Site A Tax Break for Trump or a Rare Win-Win?

Reports that Ivana Trump’s burial on the former president’s golf course at Bedminster may earn Trump tax breaks have abounded in the media in the past few days.

I wanted to know if Ivana Trump ever expressed to anyone that she *wanted* to be buried there.

To read the full piece, go to “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

“He’s Setting Himself Up as a Shadow President”

I’ve been fascinated by the tensions caused by the emergence of the Saudi-backed LIV golf tour, a tournament currently being hosted at Bedminster, one of Donald Trump’s courses. This is partly because Trump’s long-standing feud with the PGA (who broke with him over January 6) is in my reporting wheelhouse, but also simply because I love playing the game of golf.

It’s occurred to me as I’ve read the reporting about the rifts between golfers such as Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, and Bryson DeChambeau—who have reportedly taken individual payments between $90 million and $200 million from LIV Golf (whose major shareholder is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia)—and those who have stuck with the PGA that, if you’re not a golfer, you might not understand the full thorniness of this.

For the full explainer—and to understand why it matters that Trump is reportedly using the presidential seal—see “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

“I Want to Make Sure I Don’t Wake Up with a Horse Head in the Bed Next to Me.”

People sometimes forget Steve Bannon has a background in Hollywood. He is a consummate performer.

But who is Bannon when there are no cameras or microphones?

To find out, read the rest at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

What Trump World Really Thinks About Last Night’s Jan. 6 Hearing

I’ve spent today talking to sources in Trump World about their reactions to the testimony in last night’s Jan. 6th hearing. I was particularly eager to see if I could corroborate reporting I saw last night on TV that some of the former President’s loyalists were shocked to learn that, in the midst of the attack on the Capitol, members of former Vice President’s security detail called their loved ones to say goodbye.

What I learned did not corroborate that reporting. In fact, what I learned was antithetical—and worse. I spoke to three people—one big donor and two campaign officials—who all said that the calls and texts in Trump world, according to these three people, had nothing to do with the safety of Mike Pence or his security detail. A very senior 2020 campaign official who agreed to talk on the condition of speaking anonymously told me there are two huge concerns buzzing on the phones of Trump World last night and today.

Read the rest at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

Who Wins from Biden’s Saudi Visit? MBS, Trump—But, Quietly, De Santis

I’ve spent the last few days canvassing sources who are deeply enmeshed in Middle East politics about the significance of Joe Biden’s recent visit to the region. (Some of these sources are people who informed my reporting for Kushner, Inc. about all the risky foreign policy-making they saw going on in plain sight during the Trump administration in the region—policy that now appears to have borne fruit with Jared Kushner obtaining a $2 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment fund and with LIV, the new Saudi-backed golf tour, being played at Trump’s Bedminster golf course. Kushner has said there was no quid pro quo for his foreign policy-making.)

The universal consensus among my sources was that whatever was said or not said about Jamal Khashoggi, the visit was an unmitigated triumph for MBS, who hosted the meeting, and that it was not clear if the U.S. got anything at all out of it.

Read the rest at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

Is the House Oversight Committee Going Soft on Jared Kushner Because of the Jan. 6 Hearings?

Six weeks ago, Carolyn Maloney sent a letter to Jared Kushner requesting he hand over all his communications with Saudi Crown Prince MBS. Here we are in mid-July, and the public has heard nothing. So, what’s going on?

Exclusive: Investigators Believe Alex Murdaugh Acted Alone

According to my source, in a meeting this morning with the Murdaugh family at the house of Alex Murdaugh’s younger brother John Marvin, SLED investigators said they believe Alex Murdaugh acted alone when he allegedly killed his wife and son. What they did not reveal to the family was a motive. And they also did not say if they had found the two murder weapons. (One was a semi-automatic rifle and the other was a shotgun.)

Why the reticence about that?

Read the full piece at “Vicky Ward Investigates.” 

“If American People Really Understood How Power Works Inside the Beltway, They’d Faint.”

In the wake of the courage and candor of 26-year-old former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson at the January 6th hearings, Pat Cipollone, the former White House counsel, is now slated to appear before the committee by this Friday. One imagines from what we’ve already heard from others—namely Hutchinson quoting Cipollone as saying about Trump’s desire to head to the Capitol, “We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen”—that Cipollone is likely to drop some neutron bombs in his observations. My phone has been ringing off the hook with speculation about how surely it’s inconceivable that in the wake of this, Merrick Garland will not act.

Read the rest of the piece at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”