👀 Jared Kushner... Redacted?

The president's son-in-law is at the center of a huge new scandal. Plus: the Trump administration's war on the climate and the Pakistani government's war on Imran Khan's health.

On this day in 2021, Donald Trump was acquitted in his second Senate impeachment trial, on the charge of inciting an insurrection at the Capitol just a month earlier. We could have all avoided this second Trump presidency and the current shitshow had Mitch McConnell not been such a shameless coward four years ago today.

Good morning! It’s Friday the 13th! OOOOOHHHH. Mehdi here, back from taping two episodes of my Al Jazeera English show ‘Head to Head’ in London, as well as stopping off in Dublin to pick up the prestigious Praeses Elit award from Trinity College. Some good news: There’s no paywall on today’s edition of the newsletter, thanks to our friends and sponsors over at Ground News – but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still become a paid subscriber and support independent journalism like Zeteo. (Or donate too, if you’re already a paid subscriber! Thanks!)

In today’s ‘First Draft,’ how does Jared Kushner keep getting away with it? We also bring you the latest from Minneapolis; from the Bangladeshi elections; from the UK, where Britain’s High Court just handed Palestine Action a major victory; and from behind bars in Pakistan, where Imran Khan is allegedly going blind.

Why Did They Redact Jared?

Jared Kushner at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on Feb. 1, 2026. Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images.

There is a page on the White House website headlined ‘The Most Transparent Administration in History!’

Like almost everything else that is published on the White House website these days, that’s complete and utter bollocks.

This is an administration, lest we forget, that has refused to release President Donald Trump’s financial and medical records and is currently engaged in what might be the biggest political cover-up in US history.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act required Trump’s Department of Justice to release all of the 6 million Epstein files, and to do so with minimal redactions. Instead, the DOJ released 3.5 million files last month and did so with heavy redactions.

Take Donald Trump. If you or I search his name in the library of redacted files released to the public on the DOJ website, his name appears almost 5,000 times. But this week, when Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, searched for the president’s name in the unredacted files that only members of Congress can access, Trump’s name appeared “more than a million times.” So at least 99.5% of the references to Donald Trump in the DOJ Epstein files have been redacted.

“The most transparent administration ever”?

Seriously?

The Trump administration’s addiction to redactions extends far beyond the Epstein files. Remember the “highly classified” whistleblower complaint against Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, a complaint so classified that it was “said to be locked in a safe” because what it might contain was so critical to US national security?

Yesterday, we learned that the whistleblower complaint relates to a conversation intercepted by US intelligence last spring in which two foreign nationals were discussing… wait for it… Jared Kushner.

Senior Trump administration officials say the claims about Kushner in that intercepted conversation are demonstrably false, but… guess what?… they won’t tell us anything more about the conversation. It is clear they never wanted Kushner’s name to ever see the light of day.

As the New York Times reports:

“Mr. Kushner’s name was redacted in the original report from the National Security Agency, but people reading it, including the whistle-blower, were able to determine that the reference was to him... The foreign nationals, they said, were commenting on Mr. Kushner’s influence with the Trump administration. At a time last year when Mr. Kushner’s role in Middle East peace talks was less public than it is now, the foreign officials were recorded saying that he was the person to speak to in order to influence the talks.... While the whistle-blower believed that information should be circulated, the N.S.A.’s general counsel, Ms. Gabbard and the intelligence community’s inspectors general disagreed.”

First off, which countries are the two foreign nationals from? We don’t know.

Second, what on Earth was Jared Kushner, a private citizen, doing involving himself in Middle East peace talks to begin with, given his own financial ties to Gulf governments and illegal Israeli settlements, as well as his long-standing relationship – since childhood! – with Benjamin Netanyahu? What was this private citizen doing meeting with Vladimir Putin before even Trump Cabinet officials did? Why has this walking conflict of interest been inserting himself into US diplomatic affairs after telling the media in 2024 that he had no intention of returning to government work?

“He gets involved with government-run investment funds, and those governments also happen to want things from the American government,” Jordan Libowitz, a vice president with the government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), told Bloomberg News in December. “So you have a president’s son-in-law financially entangled with foreign governments, and what’s good for him might not be what’s good for the American people.”

The word “might” is doing some serious heavy lifting in that sentence.

Third, the Republicans, their allies on Fox, and their useful idiots in the so-called ‘liberal’ media spent four long years absolutely obsessing over Hunter Biden’s financial scandals – and yet here is Jared attending high-level, international government meetings, something Hunter never did. It is also worth remembering that Kushner was a failed property developer prior to 2016, but he and Ivanka reportedly increased their combined wealth by $82 million by the end of Trump’s first term in office. Now, barely a year into his father-in-law’s second term, Kushner is a billionaire, according to Forbes.

So, where is the outrage from the people who got mad about Hunter Biden’s paintings? Where are the planned investigations from Rep. James Comer, the Hunter Biden-obsessed GOP chair of the House Oversight Committee, into Kushner’s myriad conflicts of interest?

Will Democrats in Congress, at least, make some noise about this latest Kushner scandal? Will they seek to get the whistleblower complaint out of that safe and into the open? Will they call Kushner to testify over his financial ties to foreign governments if they take back the House in November?

Back in Trump’s first term, my former colleagues at The Intercept reported that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) had bragged to his Emirati counterpart that Kushner was “in his pocket.” Within six months of leaving the White House, in 2021, Kushner had secured a $2 billion investment from MBS for his new fund (against the advice of even the crown prince’s own advisers). Last September, on the same day that Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu met in the White House to announce their Saudi-approved plan for Gaza, the video game publisher Electronic Arts revealed it had agreed to a record $55 billion buyout from a group of investors that included Kushner’s firm and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.

How is any of this normal?

This is the most shamelessly, brazenly, openly corrupt and compromised government in modern American history and, astonishingly, the person who sits at the center of much of that corruption and compromise isn’t even a member of the government: It’s Jared Cory Kushner, First Son-in-Law.

🗞️ What You Need to Know

• Horsefeather Hegseth: Pete Hegseth’s absurd attempt to silence Democratic Senator Mark Kelly and strip him of his military rank was rejected yesterday by a federal judge, who called the defense secretary’s case “horsefeathers.” The administration has outrageously targeted Kelly and other Democratic lawmakers for taping a video urging service members to resist illegal orders.

• MAGA death cult: The Trump administration has officially revoked the EPA’s scientific finding that greenhouse gas emissions are a threat to public health – eviscerating the agency’s ability to fight climate change. Trump touted the move as “a big one if you’re into environment.”

• Bondi’s burn book: Lawmakers are calling for an investigation after Attorney General Pam Bondi attended a congressional hearing holding a document containing Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s search history as she reviewed the unredacted Epstein files.

• Boasberg bites back: Judge James Boasberg is still holding the Trump administration’s feet to the fire for unlawfully sending hundreds of immigrants to a notorious torture prison in El Salvador. Boasberg ordered the administration to allow some of the immigrants to return to the US for court hearings, if they so choose.

• Minneapolis latest: As Trump allegedly prepares to draw down ICE’s occupation of Minnesota, a Trump-appointed judge ruled yesterday that the administration has been violating immigrant detainees’ constitutional rights by denying them access to attorneys.

• AOC abroad: Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is set to address a security conference in Munich, and will reportedly provide a “working class perspective” on foreign policy. AOC’s speech will surely fuel speculation about a potential 2028 White House bid!

When the news hits a little too close to home, context is everything. Take this story about ICE using disguises, fake plates, and even stuffed animals in Minnesota. How do you ensure that you are getting information and analysis from across the political spectrum?

The Ground News mobile app and website are ready to provide key updates on critical stories by showing you how outlets across the political spectrum are reporting on ICE’s actions. The built-in funding and factuality features reveal detailed biases and motives. Plus, Ground News scans 50,000+ sources, so you know you always have the full picture.

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(This portion of the post was sponsored content.)

🧠 Pop Quiz!

Jared Kushner’s disgraced father, Charles, now serves as US ambassador to which foreign country?

Keep your eyes out for the answer below!

🌏 Anywhere But America

• 🇵🇸Don’t forget Gaza: A Palestinian man was shot and killed by Israeli forces east of Gaza City on Thursday evening, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa. Meanwhile, three other Palestinians were injured by Israeli fire across the Gaza Strip in Israel’s continuing “ceasefire” violations.

• 🇧🇩 BNP’s big win: The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)’s alliance won big in yesterday’s parliamentary election, securing more than 200 seats of the 299 available, as the Jamaat‑e‑Islami coalition managed to scrape up around 76 seats. Voter turnout soared to nearly 60%, a significant increase from 41.8% in 2024, according to the Bangladesh Election Commission.

• 🇬🇧 A victory for free speech: The UK’s High Court ruled the government’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organization was unlawful. The designation will stay in place, pending appeal, but the ruling marks a major victory for free speech, and for the thousands, including the elderly, clergy, and disabled, who were arrested for holding signs reading, “I support Palestine Action.”

• 🇸🇩 Deadly mosque attack: Two children were killed in a drone attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on the Sheikh Ahmed al-Badawi Mosque in Sudan’s North Kordofan region, according to the Sudan Doctors Network. Thirteen others were injured in what the group slammed as a “blatant violation of international human law and a grave assault on places of worship.”

• 🇵🇰 Imran Khan nearly blind: A lawyer representing imprisoned former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said that he has been left with 15% vision in his right eye after authorities allegedly ignored his complaints for months. Pakistan’s Supreme Court immediately ordered that Khan receive a full medical exam by Feb. 16 and be allowed phone contact with his sons, who have repeatedly sounded the alarm on his torturous conditions in prison.

🤢 WTF?!

Yes, you heard that right. And that’s who Donald Trump put in charge of Americans’ health.

---

🧠 Trivia answer: France.

📖 Weekend Reads

The Children of Dilley

• In this ProPublica piece, Mica Rosenberg paints a picture of what life is like for more than 24 ICE detainees in Dilley, Texas – half of whom are children. Nine-year-old Maria gives Mica a drawing of her and her mother in detention, writing, “I am not happy, please get me out of here.”

The Fall of the House of Assad

• In this piece from The Atlantic, Robert F. Worth offers an intimate portrait of Bashar al-Assad in the months leading to the fall of his tyrannical rule of Syria. Through interviews with his inner circle, Worth tells the narrative of a self-indulgent, intransigent ruler and analyzes the rapid decline of his 24-year reign.

They Used to Rule the West. Now They’re Dying.

• An important read for all the weary Americans who are asking ‘How did we get here?” In this New York Times piece, political theorist Anton Jäger implicates the hollowed-out Republican Party that gave Trump an opening, drawing out the web precursors that enabled our grim political moment.

In Gaza, One Man Is Searching for the Remains of His Family With a Flour Sifter

• Back in December 2023, Abu Ismail Hammad’s five children and pregnant wife were horrifically killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. Over two years later, he is still sifting through the rubble for their remains. In this article, Drop Site’s Abdel Qader Sabbah and Sharif Abdel Kouddous explain how Hammad’s desperate search has come to represent the world’s utter disregard for Palestinian life.

ICYMI From Zeteo

Will Trump Succeed in Jailing Don Lemon? A Legal Explainer

Can the Courts Rein Trump In? Former White House Special Counsel Weighs In

Why Is the World Silent When the Gaza Genocide Is Not Over?

Zeteo’s Melanie Riehl, Akshay Gokul, Lara Strydom, and Alexa Cohen contributed to this newsletter.

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