One of the strange side effects of being Reddit's Foremost Authority on Everything was that strange and wonderful people popped out of the woodwork. A biowar expert went to lunch with me because he thought I might know something about how his uncle died. A guy I met through Reddit Travel Jet Blue ended up interrogating extraordinarily rendered Afghans on Diego Garcia. A guy popped up and made exactly one comment, exactly once, to contradict my quote of Trevor Paglen on the prospective number of classified aircraft as implied by the heraldry. And a dude once approached me to discuss his experience as a security guard at Yodefat. Walk with me. Pretend you're Mohammed Bin Salman, recent conquerer of Saudi politics. You've let the CIA know you run this town by chopping one of their operatives up in to little bits. You're attempting to drag your nation out of the stone age And petroleum experts have been calling your peak oil since 1998. You're trying to take Saudi Aramco public, but it's just not quite worth what you're pushing it to be worth. The whole universe is shaping up into a post-oil economy. Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum You're a forward-thinking traditionalist, a patriot but not a nationalist, an idealist but not a dreamer, and the last time a Muslim nation attempted to build a reactor, it went poorly. But lo and behold, circumstance and kismet align to drop a peach in your lap. A reminder - Jared comes from criminal stock. And family loyalty doesn't count for shit in his universe. Let's not discount Jared Kushner's one questionable accomplishment - the Abraham Accords. He was tasked with "solving the middle east" and by damn under his watch, a plane actually flew from Riyadh to Tel Aviv. And then somehow? Six months after Trump leaves office? Bin Salman gives him two.billion.dollars. I don't know if there are juicier nuclear secrets in the world than a clear-eyed assessment of the Israeli nuclear program. They're rumored to have around 80 warheads but officially? They got none. If I'm Mohammed bin Salman, and I've got one chance to get a clear assessment of the nuclear capabilities of Israel, I am going to move heaven and earth to use my assets to the fullest before they expire. And if I'm Jared Kushner, I'm easily motivated by $2b, and I have no loyalty whatsoever to my country, my government or my inlaws. And if I'm Jared Kushner, I'm 100% positive I can get away with it.“My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel.”
The witness-tampering charge arose from Kushner's act of retaliation against William Schulder, his sister Esther's husband, who was cooperating with federal investigators against Kushner. Kushner hired a prostitute he knew to seduce his brother-in-law, arranged to record a sexual encounter between the two, and had the tape sent to his sister.