Vicky WardKushner, Inc.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump

I constantly go between awarding 3 stars and 4 stars for this book. Let me give the reasons for each.Four star review:The author, Vickie Ward, plainly has done extensive interviewing for various news articles and for this book. She does not name her informants, but it's pretty obvious she had detailed interviews with many of the past, and probably present, members of the Trump administration.She presents her information in a coherent, clear timeline, in well-organized chapters. Although she presents a lot of names and information, in a Kindle edition with its great search capabilities, it's not too difficult to recall the base information on any of the people.Her book focuses on the history of the Kushner clan, including the concentration camp experiences of Jared Kushners grandfather and the ethics-free financial manipulations of Kushners father. She also follows the history of Ivanka (Trump) Kushner. The author gives a gripping, often disturbing, picture of the personalities of the Kushners, building a persuasive case through detailed histories. Donald Trump is shown in a very unflattering light: disorganized, impulsive, adverse to any sort of systematic analysis, and unable to keep his administration on track to follow his campaign promises.The central theme of the book is on the pervasive influence of the Kushners on the Trump administration. Jared has the title of senior adviser, but both Jared and Ivanka take full advantage of their family relationship to exert power and influence in the administration more appropriate to a prince and princess in a monarchy, rather than simple advisers. The Kushners are involved in setting policy and apparently have a good shot at moving political appointees they don't like and bringing in appointees they favor. This sets them up as alternative power centers in the Trump administration, an emphatically dysfunctional arrangement.There is much more, but then again, to get the details, read the book.Three stars:Vickie Ward, the author, wrote for the Huffington Post, a journal with a consistent far left point of view. Ward shares that point of view, and often injects a leftist point of view as fact. I'm alt-right myself. I don't downgrade the book for presenting its point of view. What I object to is not making clear what is opinion and what is fact. In many cases, Ward herself has no idea there is another side to her point of view. So, this very pronounced tunnel vision actually casts doubt on the reliability of the facts she presents.She acknowledges the book was finished under the time pressures of a deadline. This may have accounted for the tendency to rely on insufficient research and shallow analysis. Let me give some examples."MBS, who was in his early thirties, wanted to reform the economic model of his country <Saudi Arabia>, whose oil would run out in some twenty years" (p 133)This is an example of poor research. All the sources I could find say that Saudi Arabia has reserves for at least 60 to 70 years. I should also note that it was hard or impossible to find her source for the 20-year figure in her notes. In fact, her notes section is organized only by chapter and snippet, so it's difficult and time-consuming to try to pin down whether she actually has an attribution for any statement in her book.Other examples of confusion between assumption and actual research:"Lewandowski was seen on videotape manhandling Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields at a campaign event in Florida" (p 75)I looked at the actual videotape which is available on YouTube. There is literally no time for him to manhandle her. He breezes by her without pausing and, from what I could tell, without even glancing at her. Fields had a history of claiming abuse in furtherance of her career.Again, if author Ward wants to present her opinion as to what happened, that's fine. But, she ought to give an alert that this is a disputed assertion.Another example:"the inauguration, more than half a million women marched along D.C.’s National Mall to the Washington Monument to protest the new president and his mistreatment of women." P(124)Author Ward covertly presents Trump's mistreatment of women as a settled fact. In fact, the New York Times gave their best shot to accusing Trump of mistreating the women who worked for him. To a person, all the women named came out and stated he had always treated them decently.Again, I'm not criticizing Ward for presenting her opinion, even if I don't think the facts support her. I'm criticizing her for stating it as fact and not giving an alert there is another side.In sum, Ward is a very conventional leftists, with poor analytic skills, who does a decent job of legwork in interviewing subjects for the book. She does present some decent insights, which I think are largely derived from her interviews.The main thrust of her book is clear: the Kushners have garnered an inordinate amount of power concerning the policies and actions of the Trump White House. They did this not through knowledge, experience or analysis, but through nepotism, proximity to Trump, and plain old manipulation, undercutting and backstabbing. It also makes a pretty compelling case that the Kushners are using their White House positions as platforms for personal financial gains. They fly in the ointment is the flaw I have mentioned: author Ward's tendency to cut research corners and present opinion as fact. If not for that problem, the book would be a solid four stars and possibly five.

I’m going to restrict my discussion to a review of the quality of the writing and apparent research by the author. My comments are not intended to be a political statement in any way, shape or form.BLUSH FACTOR: With slightly more than 20 eff words, this is probably not the sort of book you’ll want to read to your children or prayer group. Unfortunately, when you refuse to do so, you are depriving yourself the ability to fully grasp the language used by Jared, Ivanka, and others central to their supposed political ideology. What I mean is this: too often I have listened to family-values oriented voters state their allegiance to conservative politicians, but then, in the next breath, decry movies for their anti-Christian language that so offended them – and the language that upset them often was the word that rhymes with hit or mitt. Of course, in the 21st Century, spoken language has shifted considerably…WRITING: The writing mechanics are uncommonly smooth and easy-reading. Indeed, once I started, I found it quite difficult to take a break and come up for air, so to speak. At the same time, though, I did raise my eyebrows at the thought, in one case, that the Trump family wasn’t particularly close knit. Of course, my incredulity is based on so many news videos showing Pres. Trump and Ivanka side-by-side, almost as if she were First Lady.Overall, though, I appreciated the sensible reporting by the author that did give me a glimpse Jared and Ivanka’s political leanings and their inability to ‘moderate Trump’ on the Paris accord and similar matters. Sadly, a President Trump reasonably evoking the ‘Javanka’ slant on politics might have been a fantastically successful president and might have worked wonders. Yet, of course, as we can see exposed to us, the couple probably were naïve in business, as well as politics. As for my thoughts, based on this book, it seems that the two Kushners had arrived at their more leftward tilt based on what their intellect deduced. Such leads me to believe that their hearts were not really in it and, hence, they were ineffectual with her father.The above observation indicates to me that a really interesting and insightful work might be something likeJavanka Vs. Bannon & Priebus, but that must be a subject discussed elsewhere.EDITING: Professional.BOTTOM LINEA fast, easy, intriguing read that sheds a little light on the couple that COULD have, perhaps SHOULD have more successfully prevailed in the battle for Trump’s political allegiance.Four stars out of five. Actually, 4-1/2 stars.

As an interested observer of the shenanigans taking place in Trumps White House I was appalled at how much influence the Kushners are able to exert. I finished the book post the Mueller report being made available, albeit in a heavily redacted form. In the report Kushner dodges a bullet and appears to have his Teflon coating in good order. When reading the book I kept wanting to scream how are the Kushner able to get away with the meddling and self serving behaviour that they seem to be guilty of. If you are not a fan of the Kushners, and that includes Charlie Kushner Jareds Father who is a noted felon, then by the end of the book you will be aghast at the behaviour of Ivanka and Jared Kushner, greedy,corrupt,ambitious and thoroughly rotten to the core people.

I didn't read all of this book because I found it a bit tedious. Trump and his acolytes are so familiar and uninteresting I thought I have better things to do with my time!

Over the past couple of years, there have been several worthwhile books written on Trump and his entourage. Kushner Inc. is arguably the most enlightening of them all.Vicky Ward is a New York Times bestselling author, and a former contributing editor at Vanity Fair. She writes:‘Trump was said to be discombobulated by the enormity of what Ivanka had done in converting to Judaism and marrying Kushner. ‘Why should my daughter convert to marry anyone?’ he asked. Ivanka’s wedding party was also a shock to her father, according to a friend of Trump’s. Women were given shawls when they arrived, and Ivanka’s dress covered her shoulders in keeping with conservative Jewish tradition. The sexes were asked to dance separately several times that night.Trump liked Jared, but among friends he would openly say things like, ‘Why couldn’t she have married Tom Brady? Jared is half the size of Tom Brady’s forearm.’…Jared used his new status as owner of the New York Observer to cultivate a social group whose other members were considerably older than he was. ‘He’s not hanging out with James Murdoch or Lachlan Murdoch. It’s Rupert that he’s hanging with,’ said a Kushner associate who knows him well…Unlike his mentor, Rupert Murdoch, Jared seemed not to understand journalists. And he certainly did not respect them…The Trumps’ overseas licensing deals attracted hustlers of every persuasion. The company’s original partner for a project Ivanka would later supervise in Toronto, for instance, would be extradited to the U.S., after fleeing the country following a guilty plea for bankruptcy fraud and embezzlement. The development would be taken over by a Russian-Canadian businessman who, it was reported, appeared to be using the building for a money-laundering scheme. By March 2018, the FBI was looking into a deal she helped put together with a Malaysian backer in Vancouver…Enter Tom Barrack, who was also becoming a mentor of Kushner’s. Barrack suggested to Kushner and Ivanka that the campaign supplement Lewandowski with an old political hand, Paul Manafort, who had the expertise to get them through a presidential convention. Barrack and Manafort had known each other for over three decades and were very close, according to a former Manafort colleague who knows both men well.Everyone with D.C. political experience knew Manafort was sleazy, and he’d been out of U.S. politics for ten years because of his ties to foreign powers – he’d taken money from Ukrainian oligarchs, Russians, and, well, anyone who would pay him…In late May, a New York friend of Ivanka’s, Janet Boris, brokered a meeting between Kushner and Ivanka and Rebekah Mercer. Rebekah’s father, Robert Mercer, is a brilliant computer scientist who had cohelmed Renaissance Technologies, the ultrasuccessful, ultrasecretive hedge fund. He was also a stakeholder in Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics group in London whose proprietary psychographic modeling had been deployed by its parent company, Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL), in elections in Argentina, Kenya, Ghana and Indonesia – and was later used during the Brexit vote…The Mercers had become a powerful force among conservatives, not just because they were huge donors but also because they were the majority stakeholders in Breitbart, the right-leaning populist website run by Steve Bannon…Mercer instructed Bannon to help Trump. ‘I don’t care, whatever the money is, whatever he needs, give it to him,’ Mercer said…In June, Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix reached out to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange because he had read that WikiLeaks planned to publish a trove of emails related to Hillary Clinton, the Democrats’ presidential candidate. Those emails had been stolen – hacked – by Russian intelligence from the account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and from the Democratic National Committee…Upon being told that Kushner and Ivanka Trump were vacationing on a yacht in Croatia – he didn’t know it belonged to billionaire Democrat David Geffen – Bannon exercised his new authority. He warned Kushner that the media would ‘start coming after you guys’ if he and Ivanka stayed on Geffen’s yacht while the campaign they were supposedly leading collapsed (Photographs of Ivanka with Wendi Deng Murdoch in Croatia were all over the internet)…The person appointed to run the inauguration committee was Tom Barrack, who’d been busy attempting to broker deals in the Middle East. Soon after the election, his jet touched down in Qatar, right around the time the Qatar Investment Authority was finalizing negotiations, as part of a consortium with Swiss mining firm Glencore, to purchase a nearly 20 percent stake in Rosneft, the Russian state oil company, for $12.2 billion, during a partial privatization. An Italian banking group, Intesa Sanpaolo, which, according to a source with knowledge, has ties to Barrack, would be involved in the transfer of funds…With every passing day, it seemed less likely that Charlie Kushner would find a way to pay off 666 Fifth’s mortgage, which, with interest, had risen to $1.4 billion. And the family name was getting pummeled. On April 26, The New York Times reported that the Kushners had once partnered with the nephew of an Israeli billionaire, Beny Steinmetz, whose firm the federal government now suspected of bribing foreign officials…On May 17, 2018, The New York Times reported that Kushner Companies and Brookfield Asset Management, a Canadian firm that invests in real estate, were approaching a deal whereby Kushner Companies would get a bailout on 666 Fifth Avenue. In the very first sentence of the article, the reporters lasered in on Brookfield’s ties to the government of Qatar…Kushner was playing a game on a whole different level: he was playing for serious money. What Tillerson did not know at the time of the Qatari blockade – indeed, few knew then – was that in April, Kushner’s family had been courting the Qataris for financial help and had been turned down. When that story broke – almost a year later – the blockage and the Trump administration’s response to it suddenly all made sense…The emails showed how RNC deputy finance chairman Elliot Broidy had plotted with George Nader, an adviser to MBZ to lobby the president, Kushner and the press against Qatar. Nader’s emails made it clear that Kushner’s friends in the Gulf mocked him behind his back: ‘You have to hear in private my Brother what Principals think of Clown prince Kushner’s efforts and his plan!’ Nader wrote, referring to Kushner’s peace plan. ‘Nobody would even waste cup of coffee on him if it wasn’t for who he is married to.’…The Saudis had not liked dealing with Obama, but MBS saw in Trump a reflection of himself, according to a high-level diplomat who knows the prince…According to The Intercept, MBS remarked to Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed that Kushner was ‘in my pocket’…In March 2018, The Intercept reported that Kushner may have shared U.S. intelligence on Saudis disloyal to the crown prince with MBS…The prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, living in exile in the U.S., commented to the New Yorker, ‘It’s an interesting form of dictatorship that is being created in Saudi Arabia. MBS is now becoming the supreme leader…A few days after Kushner’s October visit, MBS had around 200 prominent Saudis, including at least 11 senior princes, rounded up. They were accused of corruption and detained in the same Ritz-Carlton hotel where, just weeks prior, MBS had been hosting Western businessmen and talking about how ‘free’ the new Saudi Arabia would be. The hostages – who were not tried, just expected to hand over billions in exchange for their release – included Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a prominent investor in Western companies, who had feuded with Trump via Twitter…The Saudi crown prince clumsily denied involvement in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but the evidence was overwhelming, and MBS’s new nickname, globally, was Mr. Bone Saw...Rather than expressing moral outrage over the cold-blooded murder of an innocent man, Kushner did what he always does in a crisis: he went quiet…As Gallup shows in its global Rating World Leaders survey, with Trump, approval of U.S. leadership is now at an all-time low. However, Trump is not by any means acting alone, and books like Vicky Ward’s Kushner Inc. and Michael d’Antonio’s The Shadow President are essential guides to help us diagnose the full extent of the cancer of corruption we are now facing.

I always thought that Kushner was just a "son-in-law" dragged into the White House by Trump. But I did not know how far his own ambitions go. That guys like this get to "play" with the political power buttons, is very frightening.

Strikes a perfect balance between reading like a fact based news article while providing personal stories to support the information. Great, quick read.