Putting on Ayers!

Happy Monday everyone.

So a couple of thing to unpack today.

First, thank you to the very helpful reader who pointed out to me that last week, Nick Ayers, Mike Pence’s one time “man in the swamp” and White House chief of staff, was back from obscurity in the nick of time to suck up to Donald Trump by appearing on Fox News to trash-talk Gen. John Kelly after Kelly told the New York Times that Trump occasionally remarked that “Hitler did some good things” in an interview to the New York Times. (Ayers said that this was “egregious” on Kelly’s part, and that Trump never said this; other former Trump White House staffers have meanwhile lined up to support Kelly’s version.)

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

Tiffany Trump’s Big Moment: Finally!

Some people have all the luck.

Consider the case of the fortuitous timing of Tiffany Trump’s pregnancy, announced last week in Detroit, by her proud father.

At first, when I read about it, I thought naively: Oh, how nice! It’s great that he cares so much about Tiffany that he wants to share this…

And then, I realized after I watched his interview on Sunday with the Saudi government funded TV network, Al Arabiya, that I was being dumb.

Tiffany Trump’s husband, Michael Boulos, is Lebanese. He was born in Lebanon and raised in Nigeria.

Detroit is in the swing state of Michigan, where there is a big Arab American community that’s voted Democrat for over 20 years, following 9/11.

But that community, according to today’s Washington Post, is now divided over whether to vote for Kamala Harris, seeing her as aligned with President Biden’s staunch support of Israel. According to the Post, many may not vote at all.

After, his speech to Detroit’s Economic club, Trump reportedly met with two local Imams, courtesy of Michael Boulos’s businessman father, Massad Boulos, who has reportedly been lobbying Michigan’s Arab Americans on behalf of the Trump campaign for the past six months.

And Tiffany’s pregnancy enabled Trump to talk out of both sides of his mouth on his Al Arabiya interview last Sunday: on the one hand saying Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu should feel free to do whatever he wants in terms of bombing Lebanon and Iran, and on the other saying that he’s thrilled he’s going to have a grandchild who is half-Arab and he wants Lebanon to be a place his family can visit.

“I’m happy about it. I have many friends who are Arab, as you say, but from different countries, but Arab, and I’m very happy about this. They’re very warm people. It’s a shame what’s happening over there. They’re the warmest people. Michael’s father’s so great; his mother’s so great. They’re friends of mine. Michael’s such a great young man. He’s such a smart guy. And they’re gonna have a baby and I’m very happy about it.”

I’ve never thought much about Tiffany Trump or Michael Boulos.

It’s possible that, until recently, neither has Donald Trump. You’ll recall that Trump’s personal assistant Madeleine Westerhout was fired in 2019 after knocking back a couple of drinks and telling reporters that Trump couldn’t pick Tiffany out of a crowd.

But that was before Tiffany got married to Michael at Mar-a-Lago in 2022 following a courtship conducted far from proletariat view, in a bunch of private members clubs in London and Europe.

Thus an opportunity arose. Coincidence?

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

The Art of The Distraction

Trump is nothing if not a master of distraction. He’s got the pundits on cable news hyperventilating over his very hectic weekend. His musings on Arnold-Palmer-in-the-shower, by my watch, got more airtime this morning than any other Trump story, including his cameo appearances at McDonalds and at the Jets-Steeler game, and his doubling down on Fox News of the Nazi-era phrase: “The enemy within.”

It’s a lot to chew on.

So you would be forgiven if you did not notice that, between all this, he slipped in a quick interview with Saudi Arabia’s State TV Al Arabiya, in which he was positively glowing about Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed Bin Salman. Trump calls him, “A great guy.” And also says:

I have so much respect for the king, so much respect for Mohammed, who is doing so great. I mean, he’s really a visionary. He’s done things that nobody else would have even thought about. His very long city that he’s building, he’s really doing something. He’s a great guy. And he’s respected all over the world.

So, you know where I’m going with this…

Mohammed Bin Salman is not only a guy with a questionable human rights record, he’s the main “backer” – how else to put it? – of the lavish lifestyle of Trump’s daughter, Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner.

Trump makes it very, very easy for people to forget this — and the very serious risk Kushner’s business ties pose to American foreign policy and national security – with his continual, successful poking-of-the-bear that is the mainstream media. No journalist seems to be asking him any questions about the national security risk that his daughter and son-in-law could pose to a future Trump administration, because he’s got the media exactly where he wants them: doing deep-dive research into which presidential candidate has now spent more hours working for McDonald’s.

I’d argue that journalists should spend more time studying the Instagram accounts of Ivanka and Jared and think about the deeper meaning beneath the surface imagery, which, as I’ve written here before, could be easily confused with an episode of Real Housewives of Miami.

To the unthinking and sympathetic eye, Ivanka’s social media shows the former First Daughter having a well-earned rest. She wakeboards; she foils; she golfs; she goes boating with the girls; she and Jared entertain in their new $24 million home in the private enclave of Indian Creek.

And, unlike the awkward years of her father’s presidency – remember when Christine Lagarde rolled her eyes when Ivanka tried to insert herself into a conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron, and British PM Theresa May at the G20 summit – the couple is now wanted at the parties of the global elite! Perhaps Christine Lagarde is not issuing them an invitation, but as a consolation prize there’s the Ambani wedding in India, and Kim Kardashian’s 43rd birthday party!

It all seems to be going so well for the couple…

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

 

Let’s Look at the Map. Trump May Not Need Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Readers of this newsletter know that whenever I want to educate myself on Republican political strategy, I turn to Sam Nunberg, Trump’s first campaign advisor who is as endearing for his bluntness (listen to the moment when I try to interrupt him and he shuts me down) as he is for his pets. He is pictured here with his new puppy, Harrison.

My takeaways from this latest q and a which you can listen to here and read the edited version below are as follows,

Sam’s perspective is:

1 – Trump has the advantage because Kamala is the incumbent and has not successfully separated herself from Biden.

2 – There’s a limit to the effectiveness of paid media — i.e. at a certain point you reach everyone, and the surplus $300 million the Harris campaign has raised possibly makes no meaningful difference.

3 – The map. This is the most interesting take-away of all. It does not look the same as it did in 2020. Arizona and Nevada are likely to go for Trump this time, Sam believes. Why? In Nevada — which has not voted Republican since 2004 — it’s immigration. Republican pollsters believe that the Nevada unions are now intensely concerned about illegal immigrants taking their jobs. Sam thinks Arizona flips to Trump because of the border. 2022 mid-term data showed the flip in House seats in New York and Florida happened because voters, especially suburban and exurban women voters, prioritized crime and the economy over abortion and January 6th. For the same reason, Sam thinks Trump takes North Carolina. And Georgia. And Wisconsin. Which means he can afford to lose Michigan and Pennsylvania to Harris.

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

Surprisingly, Challengers Is Challenging To Watch

It feels like the times could not be much more grim. The news from college campuses, I have to say, is utterly dispiriting. When we live in a world in which you cannot have a civilized, safe exchange of ideas, especially on university campuses, it’s deeply troubling.

You are going to be hearing a lot more from me on this topic.

Meanwhile, I’ll give a gentle plug to my Audible podcast, Pipeline to Power, which I launched in the fall, and is all about the struggle around the First Amendment on college campuses. Please take a listen.

As for something completely different – that I banged out last night because I was somewhat exercised, as you will see – here are my thoughts on Zendaya’s new movie, Challengers, which I wasted three whole hours Saturday watching. (I’m including the minutes spent on popcorn-buying and previews.)

I’m writing this so you don’t make the same mistake.

Which you could do, easily, if you read the reviews in the New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and the FT. If you read these, you’d think Challengers is a ground-breaking, fun, erotic suspenseful sizzler about a love-triangle, sex, and tennis.

Who wouldn’t want to see that to decompress?

Plus it’s centered around Zendaya, a 27-year-old phenomenon, who can sing, act and model the heck out of couture. Whatever she wears, no matter how complicated, how many buckles, zips, and patterns, I’ve noticed that, unusually for a small, slender person, she always manages to wear it, and not vice versa.

Challengers is reportedly the vehicle she chose for herself to transition from a child star to a serious, grown-up one. The movie was supposed to come out last year, but suffered delays, which is why you’d have to have been living under a rock not to know it’s just been released. On Saturday afternoon the movie theater I was in was mostly full.

Spoiler alert: Don’t read on if you don’t want to know what happens.

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

What I’d Ask Trump Trial Witness David Pecker:

My takeaways so far from the Trump Trial:

We’ve had a worm’s eye view of the inner workings of two worlds: the first is that of America’s sleaziest tabloid, the National Enquirer, and the second is several meetings in Trump Tower, with an emphasis on goings-on in the office of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney.

Both views are so-far through the lens of the first witness, David Pecker, the former CEO of American Media Inc, (AMI), the company that owned the Enquirer. Pecker – his real name – is a mustachioed man who appears to be literally and metaphorically dripping with grease.

(I’d forgotten, until this week, that I met him once, many years ago. He appeared in my kitchen in New York’s West Village, to ask if I would be interested in relocating to Florida and running one of his magazines. I gave him a cup of tea and politely told him “No”).

I’m not sure how he had gotten to me, but we’ve learned in the last few days that the National Enquirer can get to pretty much anyone given that its numerous “sources” were high-level and included Donald Trump. The businessman Ronald Perelman, bafflingly, is described in a throw-away line as a “client” of Pecker’s in the 1980s.

Client of what?

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

Jared Kushner Has Won and The New York Times Knows It

While reading the New York Times long interview with Jared Kushner this week, I felt something unfamiliar: defeat.

I don’t know how else to say this but it’s time to face the reality: Jared Kushner has won.

It seems clear to me that he’s the single biggest winner from the Trump White House, not just financially but, staggeringly, reputationally.

In the last three or more years he’s swung from being a social pariah — unwelcome in New York and in many blue-chip business circles, as well as being investigated by various committees in Congress for the appearance of conflicts of interests — to a figure of both media fascination and global influence. He’s even become someone the elites in politics and in “mainstream media” need to suck up to.

That’s because in addition to raising $3 billion-worth of foreign investments – many from foreign governments’ funds – at a scale and speed that, according to the Times, is unprecedented for a former White House Advisor, this last year has seen Kushner become an international Svengali at lightning pace.

He brokered a meeting in New York between the Prime Minister of Qatar and some of New York’s most important businessmen; he advises the Trump think tank, America First, on policies for a potential second Trump administration; he was in Israel with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and visited the site of the October 7 attacks; he sounded off on Fox News about the problems with the First Amendment on college campuses; he appeared for a three hour interview on the Lex Fridman Podcast – a calculated PR strategy, which worked, or so he told the Times, because it attracted new potential investors to his fund from the Silicon Valley crowd who listen to Fridman. He’s spoken at numerous business conferences and he makes sure to keep up regularly with his buddy, the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

Socially, he and his wife, Ivanka Trump, go to so many grand parties they are like Waldo in that world. They’ve popped up almost weekly at the world’s most lavish celebrations in India, California, and the Middle East, where they hobnobbed with the Prince and Princess of Wales. (Ivanka also showed up for Kim Kardashian’s birthday party. Whether that puts her up or down on the snakes and ladders board is, I guess, subjective.)

But what struck me about this latest New York Times profile of Kushner is how he’s even got the Times so obviously under his thumb.

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

The Problem With Netflix’s Scoop?

Over the weekend, I watched Scoop, Netflix’s take on the car-crash of a TV interviewgiven by Prince Andrew about the allegations concerning himself, Jeffrey Epstein and Virginia Giuffre.

The movie was entertaining enough, but, for my money, it misfired on two subjects.

First, Prince Andrew himself. As played excellently by Rufus Sewell, the movie aptly captures the Prince’s vanity, frustrations and the bubble-wrap of privilege around him, giving rise to that disastrous interview. After which he announced he’d step back from his royal duties.

But let’s not forget that he wasn’t actually stripped of his royal titles and essentially exiled until years later, in 2022, and for something far more serious than pomposity. That’s something that does not get mentioned in Scoop. Namely that Ms. Giuffre sued him for sexual abuse when she was a minor and he settled with her for an undisclosed sum and it was THAT embarrassment, ahead of the Queen’s Golden Jubileecelebrations, that caused his death-knell.

For whatever reason Scoop doesn’t want to go there, a far darker place than the frills and furbelows of Buckingham Palace.

But the second thing I found deeply disconcerting – worse actually – were the not-so veiled digs at Emily Maitlis, the dogged News Night anchor whose persistence and penetrating, unflinching gaze were really what undid the Prince during that interview.

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

Could Putin or his Oligarchs invest in Kushner’s Balkan Development Deal?

Below is an edited transcript of the conversation I had yesterday with Richard Painter, Bush White House Ethics Czar, about news reports that Jared Kushner, along with former special envoy to the Balkans and acting Director of National Intelligence (and rumored candidate for Secretary of State) Ric Grenell, are on the verge of doing several real estate deals in the Balkans.

Readers of this newsletter know that Richard and I often discuss the perception of conflicts of interest around Jared Kushner and the Trump Administration.

I would also like to point out that the idea of a 99-year-lease, as Jared is now positing in Belgrade, is not new for the Kushners. As I reported in Kushner, Inc. the 99-year-lease is the mechanism by which Jared’s father, Charles, solved the problem of the enormous $1.4 billion loan due on 666 Fifth Avenue in 2018. As you may recall, the clock was ticking like a time-bomb when Jared entered the Trump White House, quickly becoming the “Secretary of Everything” – including US foreign policy. The Kushners knew they were reliant on a foreign buyer for the building, because American developers did not think 666 Fifth Avenue was worth anything close to $1.4 billion. A partner of the Kushners’ even said it would be worth more “if it was dirt”.

It’s not a good thing, to put it mildly, when someone in government, is economically dependent on foreign investors.

As I reported, the Canadian firm, Brookfield Asset Management (whose second largest shareholder is the government of Qatar) ultimately solved the Kushner’s headache and in the nick of time, leased the building for 99 years, paying all the rent up front, in a deal widely perceived as uneconomic. The appearance of a conflict, given Jared’s White House role, subsequently caused an investigation by Congress, because as the deal was being negotiated, the US withdrew its support of a Saudi/Emirati blockade of Qatar. (Kushner has denied any wrongdoing.)

Richard Painter points out there could be even more problematic conflicts with a Kushner development deal in Serbia, given the war in Ukraine. Even if Kushner doesn’t go into a second Trump Administration, he is nonetheless Trump’s son-in-law. And Grenell is being talked about in Republican circles as a future Secretary of State.

Painter zeroed in on a potential risk regarding possible dark money in the deal from Russia and Russian President, Vladimir Putin. The Russians have long regarded the Balkans as a critical region to wield soft power. A deal struck by an American president’s son-in-law in Serbia, could be viewed as pro-Russia at a critical point in the Ukraine conflict. Serbia has not supported the EU’s sanctions on Russia. Kushner told the New York Times on Sunday that he understood the risks attached to his high-profile position. “Everything has to be completely above board,” he told the Times.

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

Thoughts On Ghislaine Maxwell’s Appeal

First off, thank you everyone for bearing with me. These past weeks, I have not been posting here because I’ve been working on the book I’m co-writing with James Patterson about the Moscow Murders. I’ll be back soon enough!

It’s very hard, if not impossible, I find, to immerse yourself in deep storytelling on too many fronts at once. You can certainly write multiple things that are top-of-mind, and bounce off of the news, but as you know, I prefer, when possible, to bring you reporting, not just insights.

But, given that Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal trial was the genesis of this newsletter, I did want to give you my thoughts about Maxwell’s appeal. Oral arguments were made last Tuesday in New York. Maxwell was not present but reportedly listened in on the phone from prison in Florida.

The main argument made by Maxwell’s defense was that Maxwell was protected by the strange, controversial Non-Prosecution Agreement of 2007, entered into by Epstein and then U.S. attorney in Florida Alexander Acosta, in which Epstein agreed to plead guilty to two state counts: procuring a minor for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute. In exchange he got a cushy sentence and avoided the much more serious potential charges of a federal investigation.

However there was a crucial clause in the NPA in which Epstein asked that no one else be charged with his crimes, for which he took sole responsibility.

“The United States also agrees that it will not institute any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein, including but not limited to Sarah Kellen, Adriana Ross, Lesley Groff or Nadia Marcinkova.”

He did not name Maxwell.

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates