Books About White-Collar Corruption
Blood and Oil
by Bradley Hope and Justin Scheck
“He is the devil and the devil is learning from him,” said a Saudi princess about Mohammed bin Salman after discovering that her husband, Prince Mansour bin Marquin, had been lured into the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh, where he was tortured. The person who ordered this? Mohammed bin Salman. The man had rounded up bin Marquin and other enemies within the House of Saud, tortured them, and took their money, the amount exceeding 100 billion dollars.
Mohammed bin Salman was an unlikely candidate for ruler. He was born into a lower branch of the house of Saud, as his father was nowhere near the top. Hope and Scheck describe how the man who dismembered dissident journalist Jamal Kashoggi started out as a failure who tried to make a name for himself in business to no avail. In fact, the authors paint a comical scene of Salman bin Abdul Aziz, bin Salman’s father, bragging that bin Salman made millions for himself. And two days later, he found out bin Salman was bankrupt and in debt for making a poor investment choice. It was only after he married Sara bint Mashour, a very powerful woman whose father was on the Allegiance council that Mohammed bin Salman got involved in politics.
The book shows how Mohammed bin Salman utilized young Western oligarchs to plant himself in a powerful position. It vividly describes bin Salman’s life as a concerning blend of House of Cards and The Godfather. Furthermore, it dives into wild parties he throws, his paranoia about dissidents, the complex events that lead to Jamal Kashoggi’s death. If anything else, the one message that one could get from this book is that someone can be both the puppet and puppet master.
Kushner Inc.
By Vicky Ward
“We’re talking about a guy who isn’t particularly bright or hard working…. Make no mistake, he married Ivanka Trump and bought the New York Observer for attention. He is basically a sh–head!” This is how Harleen Kholon, Jared Kushner’s longtime business partner, described him.
Vicky Ward, the award-winning journalist who first uncovered the sex trafficking of Jeffrey Epstein, writes about the corruption Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were allegedly involved in. Ward paints the perfect villain origin story. Jared Kushner, a man who isn’t particularly smart or ambitious, is shoved into being the CEO of Kushner Inc, his family’s real estate company, after his father went to prison for blackmailing his brother-in-law.
Kushner, not really a natural Vanderbilt, drove the business into the ground by making a bad business decision, which left him a billion dollars in debt. Yet Kushner climbed out of this circumstance after becoming an advisor to his father-in-law, Donald Trump, while he was president from 2016-2020. He made money by doing favors for Mohammed bin Salman, helping him become Saudi Arabia’s crown prince by firing Rex Tillerson, the former Secretary of State who did not trust bin Salman. Furthermore, Kushner would threaten to expose even more corrupt lobbyists and politicians doing insider trading unless they gave him some money.
Although Kushner himself is the subject of the book, it’s important on a much deeper level. Ward does an excellent job of uncovering and describing the oligarchs and lobbyists who have a huge say in which federal bills pass and fail. And they did not go away once Trump left office. They were in the West Wing, are in West Wing, and will never leave the West Wing. As one lobbyist said: “The person who is loudest and flashiest is usually the least powerful. Jared was only in the news because he’s a moron. You can do something illegal so long as you do it with subtly, elegance, and bear a decent last name. True wealth and power whispers. If the commonwealth knew more about me and who I am, they would come for my head.”
—Jalaine Olks, Books Editor