Jared Kushner Missed Chance to Save Children of US Ally from MBS

In December 2017, former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney went to the White House to see then-senior White House Advisor Jared Kushner. Mulroney asked Kushner to mediate with Mohammed Bin Salman, who had formed a tight relationship with Kushner and had recently deposed his cousin, Mohammed Bin Nayef, and become Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince. This meeting and its specifics have not been reported before.

Mulroney asked Kushner to speak to MBS about releasing two very young political prisoners, Sarah and Omar Aljabri, then only 17 and 18. They weren’t yet in prison, though that would come. They were being detained at home in Saudi Arabia, banned from travel. The Aljabri’s father, Dr. Saad bin Khalid Aljabri, who had escaped to Canada as an exile, was considered an ally and a hero by US Intelligence.

Indeed a bipartisan group of senators describe him:

Dr. Aljabri has been credited by former CIA officials for saving thousands of American lives by discovering and preventing terrorist plots. His development of a modem forensics system in Saudi Arabia reportedly contributed to the significant curtailing of terrorist groups including Al Qaeda. His work was of vital importance to U.S. counterterrorism efforts in the post 9/11 era.

But Kushner’s answer, according to three sources with knowledge, when he came back to Mulroney a month later: Sorry, he couldn’t help Aljabri or his young kids, who have EU passports as well as Saudi. The situation, Mulroney has quoted Kushner as saying, was “toxic.” (Mulroney did not respond to an emailed question about the exchange).

Read the rest of the story at “Vicky Ward Investigates”

Why Buster Murdaugh Flipped the Bird At Star Witness

So, Buster Murdaugh family and his aunt, Lynn Murdaugh Goattee, have been reprimanded and been sent to the back of the court during the trial of South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh, who is charged with killing his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul.

Thursday Buster Murdaugh, Alex’s only surviving son flipped the bird at Mark Tinsley, the lawyer representing the family of Mallory Beach, the beautiful teenager who died in a boat crash in February 2019, while Tinsley was testifying about the civil suits he brought on their behalf against Murdaugh and others. Prosecutors argue that it was that pressure to disclose financials for the civil suits around the crash led a desperate Alex Murdaugh to shoot his wife and son, in the hopes of causing a distraction.

Tinsley testified that Alex Murdaugh had tried to intimidate him when he learned Tinsley was suing him personally. “I thought we were friends,” Murdaugh supposedly said to Tinsley.

So, yes, Tinsley said, they had been friends.

So, what happened?

Read on, at “Vicky Ward Investigates“

Murdaugh Trial: Will The Sex Worker Testify?

Where is Lindsey Edwards? That’s what sources say the increasing numbers of people watching the dramatic twists and turns of the double murder trial of South Carolina lawyer, Alex Murdaugh want to know.

Will prosecutors call her a character witness?

Edwards is a former sex worker who worked in Charleston, who gave a startlingly frank on-camera interview to local website, Fits News, last summer. This was after she’d been interviewed by SLED in connection to the Murdaugh case.

In her interview to Fits News, she described being choked by Alex Murdaugh during “servicing” him, one weekend when he was at a bachelor party at a resort called the Isle of Palms. She said she thought she was going to die. And that his violence had taken her unawares because beforehand, he’d been “gentlemanly”. He’d told her his name, what he did and they’d talked about “alcohol”. “My expectations were still pretty high…this shouldn’t be that bad,” she told Fits News founder, Will Folks. “But I was violently choked with both hands, being pinned down to the bed… I saw stars…”

Murdaugh wasn’t the only powerful person she’d seen compromised through her sex work. She told Folks she had a list of golfers, caddies, even a cop, she’d met through her Madam. Many of these people had done hard drugs and more. But before she released any names, other than Murdaugh, she vanished. The belief, a source says, is she moved.

Read on at “Vicky Ward Investigates”

Armie Hammer: Why Was He So Reckless?

My question to psychologist and trauma survivor Gretchen Schmelzer, PhD, is: why would Armie Hammer, or indeed anyone, risk everything by creating a digital record of his inner thoughts? Why are people willfully blind about the vulnerability of phones and laptops?

Listen to our conversation at “Vicky Ward Investigates”

Jared Kushner’s Little Brother is Richer than Both Him And Trump.

So, last week it was reported that Jared Kushner’s younger brother, Josh, 37, sold a stake in his venture firm, Thrive Capital, to a group of big-name investors, who paid $175 million; the deal valued Thrive at $5.3 billion – which makes Josh’s personal wealth worth $3.7 billion. It makes him richer than Donald Trump, whose net worth is estimated at $2.6 billion and also richer than his brother, Jared whose fund, Affinity is much smaller even after the Saudis, controversially, invested $2 billion in it.

Unlike Jared, Josh is known for hard work and “keeping his nose clean” and staying out of the press. Except in one regard: he’s married to the supermodel, Karlie Kloss. But, as supermodels go, Kloss is exceptional. She’s a highly successful entrepreneur, reportedly an extremely decent person, and the only gossipy thing known about her is that, perhaps, she does not see eye to eye politically with her sister-in-law, Ivanka Trump.

I phoned around Wall Street this week to ask about what people thought of the deal and valuation and the universal view was that Josh Kushner has hung onto good people and deserved his success. Although, It’s important to remember that a valuation of $5.3 billion, is only a paper valuation. “Instacart was at 40 billion a year ago and now it’s at nine. Nobody got out at 40,” said one senior investment. “Josh Kushner is so young, there’s plenty he’s never seen.”

Still, a few years ago I met Josh Kushner and I did find him thoughtful, ambitious and quietly impressive. He seemed authentic. I needed to look up my own 2019 book to remember the exact details of what I’d reported on him. Turns out his upward trajectory was long predicted.

An excerpt from my 2019 book, Kushner, Inc, on “Vicky Ward Investigates”

“People Will Lose their Jobs Over this!”

Murdaugh Trial: Week Two

So, one person is not pleased by the increasingly gripping testimony we’ve heard so far at the double murder trial of South Carolina attorney and scion, Alex Murdaugh. That person, I gather, is Mark Keel, the chief of SLED. (South Carolina Law Enforcement Division).

Monday night, Keel was described to me by a source in law enforcement as being “unglued” because of how badly he felt both SLED and Colleton County Sherriff’s Office had come off so far in the courtroom, where the trial is into its second week.

One of his agents, Katie McAllister, who was part of the team who examined the grisly murder scene, was visibly in tears Monday evening, says an eye witness who spoke to her. According to my source, she described Keel as “giving them so much hell that he says there will be people losing their jobs over this.”

Even if you haven’t been paying close attention to what’s been going on so far inside the South Carolina court room, the increasingly eye-popping headlines out of what we’ve seen so far in the trial, raise important questions about what happened on the night of June 7 2021.

Remember that’s the night the bodies of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were found shot dead, felled by two separate guns, at Moselle, a family hunting estate owned by the Murdaugh family, a dynasty of lawyers who had effectively ruled South Carolina’s Low Country for around a century.

Read on at “Vicky Ward Investigates”

Inside An FBI Sting on Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska

Yesterday I reminded you that, yes, I once danced with the santioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who has found himself, once more, in the headlines because a retired FBI agent, Charles McConigal, has been charged with taking money from him. A spokesperson for Deripaska told the New York Times that Deripaska did not hire McConigal for any purpose.

Over the weekend I phoned around to try to find out a little more about Deripaska’s VERY complicated see-saw relationship with law enforcement in the US.

Briefly, it’s emerged the FBI tried to hire him as informant in 2014-2016. They wanted inside information on Russian organized crime and Russia’s involvement with the Trump campaign (he said there was none).

And, before all this, back in 2009, the FBI had a working relationship with him–of sorts. He spent $25 million in helping the FBI try to find an American spy who was kidnapped by the Iranians, and has not been seen in years.

So when I started hitting the phones on this, I knew I’d find something because I know people who know Deripaska. But I didn’t think I knew someone who wore a wire for the FBI in a sting operation of which Deripaska was the target. But, that’s why you should always cast a wide net when phoning sources…

Read about the details of the sting at “Vicky Ward Investigates”

My Dance Partner, Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska is Back in the News

I feel that no sanctioned Russian Oligarch gets more attention from the US and its media than Oleg Deripaska.

Last week retired FBI agent, Charles McConigal, was arrested and charged with allegedly violating US sanctions by taking money from Deripaska (who is sanctioned). According to the indictment, filed in the Southern District of New York, Deripaska paid McConigal to research the activities of another Russian Oligarch. A spokesperson for Deripaska told the New York Times that Deripaska did not hire McConigal for any purpose.

And in September 2022, as I reported, Deripaska and his girlfriend, Ekaterina Lobanova (who, according to the Daily Mail has used the alias Lizzy Sex Relax) and two others were indicted by the Justice Department for violating the sanctions against him and his businesses, because he’d allegedly organised for Lobanova to fly over and have their first baby here and were planning to repeat the experience for baby #2.

I’ve been doing some reporting over the weekend so stand by for fresh news from me this week of Deripaska, or “OVD” as some people refer to him.

But, for now, to set the backdrop, I want to remind you of a passage I wrote in March of last year. It explains partly why I am interested in Deripaska, having had an unusual and memorable few moments with him on his yacht and on the dance floor back at a friend’s birthday party in Montenegro in 2011.

It is not your typical journalistic encounter with a Russian Oligarch…

Read the story at “Vicky Ward Investigates”

Murdaugh Trial: I sat down with Murdaugh defense attorneys

It’s been a fascinating week at Colleton County Courthouse where the trial of South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh is finally underway. Murdaugh, 53, is charged with the double homicide of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul. Prosecutors argue he killed them to try in a vain attempt to stave off growing attention on his finances, and, subsequently, his alleged financial crimes (it’s alleged he has stolen around $8 million). The defense argues that they were likely killed by a third party who was seeking revenge on Paul, who was facing criminal charges at the time for having drunk-driven his boat into a piling one dark night, resulting in the death of a beautiful 19-year-old, Mallory Beach.

This week, the court heard how Murdaugh greeted officers at the scene with no trace of blood on him. Yet he told them he’d checked the pulses of each of the bodies. As they arrived, we heard that he also launched, involuntarily, into an explanation as to why they’d been killed. Paul had been getting threats.

Local lawyers have told me they expect a hung jury at the end of this, given the lack of hard evidence and the clout of Murdaugh’s defense team. I guess we shall see.

But I have met Murdaugh’s defense lawyers. Dick Harpootlian, the colorful state senator, and his quieter, more earnest colleague, Jim Griffin. I first met the duo in Harpootlian’s offices in Columbia, South Carolina, in the Fall of 2021. Alex Murdaugh had been involved in a second incident, soon after the murders of his wife and son: he’d been shot, roadside, while changing his tire. At first, he said he did it himself. Later he changed the story and said that Curtis Eddie Smith, a relative, had shot him at his request (allegedly for the insurance money) – and missed.

So, as I sat with Harpootlian and Griffin nearly 18 months ago, I expressed my astonishment that Smith had fired and missed. Whereupon Harpootlian, who was sitting across the desk from me, opened a drawer, took out a small handgun, passed it to me, and said something like: “OK, if it’s so easy, you try.”

That sort of thing doesn’t typically happen when I interview people. I handed the gun back to Harpootlian, without accepting his offer. Was he for real?

I’d soon discover that both lawyers are, in fact, considered heavyweights. Harpootlian has been on both sides of many murder trials. Griffin: Just one. Which was on Court TV. And which caught the attention of soft-hearted women everywhere, who started to mail in cash for Griffin to hand on to his client, Thomas Grover Rye. It was a fascinating idiosyncratic case, that I struggle to imagine could have taken place anywhere other than in South Carolina.

Read what happened at “Vicky Ward Investigates”

Why no mention of Qatar, Mike?

I have skimmed through the memoir of Mike Pompeo, former CIA director and former Secretary of State—and now presidential candidate. Two things jump out. His son, Nick, wrote the (unctuous) introduction. I’m not sure what the point is of having your non-author, non-public servant son write the introduction, but it made me think I should be very nice to my adult sons just in case I run out of options for my own books.

More seriously: Qatar.

I keep pressing the search function on my Kindle looking for any mention of the blockade of Qatar….and none.

This is completely fascinating. Why?

In Kushner, Inc, my own 2019 book, I have a whole passage on how Pompeo was caught in the middle between Trump and rulers of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In April 2018, Trump wrote a letter to Saudi Crown Prince MBS, which he gave to Pompeo to hand-deliver, telling MBS to knock off the blockade of rival Qatar, which the US, who has an airbase there, would no longer support.

You can read my account of what happened at “Vicky Ward Investigates”